There's an interesting tick to some of the reporting I'm seeing about future operations in a coronavirus world. There's an unstated assumption that we're already past the peak in a meaningful way. Ex. in this article from the Chronicle. https://www.chronicle.com/article/2-Campuses-Give-Early-Answers/248589

"Flares up once more" implies that the flare has dissipated or that it will dissipate. The first proposition is demonstrably untrue. The second is highly unknown.

If institutions are trying to figure out which future scenario is most likely and then make a decision according to that narrative, I'm sorry to say, they are doing this all wrong. Whatever scenario they bet in will almost certainly be incorrect. We should've learned that by now.

I get why this is happening. We're biased towards organizing narrative around a cohesive arc, but those arcs we perceive in historical events are retrospective and not reflective of the experiences as they were happening. In the midst of this crisis, we're always in the present.

An institution that's trying to predict the future and gear its operations towards that future is going to fail. Build an institution that is resilient in the present that can then adjust to the future, this is the route through the crisis.

If I was in charge of an institution right now, I would say we that we are going to operate in the fall in ways that are maximally supportive of our goals of developing the intellectual, social, and economic potential of our students because that's the mission of our institution.

I would then lay out what this looks like under different scenarios and show how the institution is positioned to respond to whatever is happening on the ground at the time. This requires tremendous coordination and cooperation, but isn't that the work of the institution?

I'm not in the room where it happens, but if the discussions are truly about "is it safe to open?" and go no further, this is a tremendous failure of leadership. The immediate problem of operating under the virus is a blip compared to the longterm challenges to higher ed.

Focus on making a resilient institution. Consider how to develop the intellectual, social, and economic potential of students regardless of external events. Build from a pedagogical framework up, rather than an operational framework down. This is the path forward.

The resilient practices that are built during this crisis will help tremendously at continuing in the aftermath of the crisis. The time to start this type of thinking was yesterday. I'm worried about how much wheel spinning I'm seeing. Where is the leadership?

Where is the coordination among institutions? If institutions are still looking at this through the lens of competition (a lens which is what made them precarious in the first place), they are making it impossible to help themselves.

If institutions are going to survive, they must prove themselves worthy of public support, and part of that worthiness is demonstrating that long term, they are going to be the rescuers, not the rescued. Higher ed must be more first responder, less cruise industry.

It is a problem that much of higher ed operations have more in common with the cruise industry than a public good, but this can and must be reversed. Make your institution worthy of public support, and that support may come. It may not, but it's doom anyway.

At the very least, a resilient institution oriented around a public mission is aligned with educational values. If we're going down, let's go down fighting for something meaningful, rather than squeezing the last dime out of operational budgets until everyone is an adjunct.