Abstract
As much as we all yearn to put COVID‐19 behind us, we must first take advantage of this opportunity to look back and consider what we've learned along the way and how it can help us improve for the future. And that's why members of the Student Affairs Today Advisory Board took the time to share their valuable lessons learned from leading through this crisis.
Adaptability played key role
Perhaps most importantly, the pandemic revealed that student affairs professionals have the keen ability to adapt, which proved invaluable through these quickly changing times. “We can change and move a lot faster than we or anyone else ever expected,” said Shannon E. Ellis, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Services at the University of Nevada, Reno. “The pivot was so swift. All the sacred cows fell by the wayside.”
Online counseling stood out as just one example, she noted, as student affairs professionals found themselves forced to consider alternative methods for delivering services and to find new ways to deal with things that previously, in pre‐pandemic times, didn't seem to need fixing.
Online options helped some, not others
Douglas R. Pearson, Ph.D., Vice President and Dean of Students at Mercer University, agreed. When Mercer implemented new opportunities for students to engage in counseling online, it soon became apparent that many could only offer counseling to students online, it soon became apparent that some students preferred this method because they found it more private than having to walk over to the counseling center for in‐person sessions, he said.
But of course that wasn't the case for all students, noted Pearson and George S. McClellan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi. For some students who didn't have privacy at home, online counseling “was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for them,” McClellan said.
And that difference in experiences could be an indicator that higher education “may be headed for a high‐flex model,” Ellis noted.
Although having the option of online services proved better than nothing in times of crisis, “this past year made a strong case for face‐to‐face interaction and for expanding our toolbox to encompass different approaches,” said Jeremiah B. Shinn, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Affairs at Louisiana State University.
Cathy Akens
Cathy Akens, Ed.D., Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, agreed. The pandemic re‐emphasized “the importance of student engagement and of human connection for our staff and students,” she said. In fact, a recent campus survey revealed that a sense of belonging, and other key areas impacted by the pandemic, “took a significant dive during this time,” she noted. Because so many recognized the need to place “so much emphasis on student well‐being” throughout the pandemic, the higher ed world also developed “an increased appreciation for student affairs,” she said.
And along the way, “faculty members learned a lot more about our students and got to know them better,” through the remote learning environment while their students were dealing with homelessness or sharing computers with siblings in a very small house, Ellis said. And in turn, students got to know faculty members on a different level, while their professors’ dogs were barking and children were running by during online classes, she added.
Shannon E. Ellis
Those types of experiences can reap valuable lessons for higher ed professionals, McClellan said, which is that “children and classrooms aren't mutually exclusive. We saw people's kids and pets, yet learning went on.” And that points to the need for the higher ed world to be open to finding ways to better integrate home, family, learning, and work going forward, he noted.
The pandemic forced student affairs professionals into “really living in that space where we're not too locked in to any one course of action,” Shinn said. “Flexibility carried the day. We were using data and information to make really solid decisions while being willing to change the decisions we had made,” he added. And that experience will prove valuable even after the pandemic, he noted.
In‐person experiences still needed
“An increased appreciation for ritual and tradition” also developed along the way, McClellan observed, because while student affairs found ways to successfully provide classes, counseling, and other services online, “we didn't convey ritual and ceremony in really powerful ways online,” such as convocation and commencement. “I think we learned that those kinds of community moments are, in fact, irreplaceable,” he noted.
Douglas R. Pearson
Pearson agreed, adding that even online meetings can't adequately replace the spur‐of‐the moment, in‐person interaction that takes place in the office and around campus.
“The small talk before and after meetings wasn't there. There are some things that were lost and we would not want to keep,” he said.
“The spontaneity and serendipity” that comes with attending in‐person professional conferences and meetings can't be recreated in the virtual environment, McClellan added. “Some of our best conversations happen in the hallways or hotel lobbies,” he noted, and all the unplanned introductions and networking that naturally develop in those in‐person environments wouldn't otherwise happen.
“The formal environment built up some walls and made it harder to nurture relationships to the extent we prefer to,” Akens said. Furthermore, staff and students were less likely to disclose things in the remote environment of scheduled online meetings, she added.
George S. McClellan
But some students and staff with certain disabilities reaped positive benefits from the online learning/working environment, such as the availability of real‐time captioning, McClellan noted. “This allowed them to be engaged with their classes in ways they hadn't been before,” he said.
Ellis agreed. While some faculty members willingly recorded their classes because students benefitted from the opportunity to go back to review lessons multiple times, other faculty “absolutely refused to record,” she noted.
Re‐entry decisions present challenges
Meanwhile, some faculty and staff enjoyed working from home and don't want to come back to campus, Ellis said. But some supervisors find it hard to manage their staff when half are working from home while the other half are back to working in the office, she added.
Many of these types of re‐entry issues remain unclear at this time, McClellan noted, such as who decides when everyone comes back to the office, when masks become optional, if vaccines are required, and when travel is permitted. As the return to campus unfolds, he added, it's important for student affairs professionals to keep in mind that “it's different for everyone,” especially for students, faculty, and staff who lost loved ones because of the pandemic or have health conditions.
Build in breaks, rest, recreation
On top of that, many are struggling with exhaustion and desperately need rest and recovery time, which won't happen unless leaders are “really intentional” about making that happen for their staff, McClellan and Akens noted.
The need for breaks also applies to students. The focus to limit exposure by “keeping students on campus and shortening the semesters to limit their time going back and forth between home and campus proved to be very difficult on our students during the pandemic,” Pearson noted. “We learned they needed breaks at strategic points. We have to build in those breaks for their mental and physical well‐being.”
Many students also benefit from returning to as normal as possible with such activities as intramurals, Pearson said. “Instead of just canceling everything, we took an attitude of let's try to apply some practical safety protocols” that would allow offering as many in‐person experiences “as we could, especially for first‐year students,” he said. “This was not only critical to their mental health and well‐being, it's the way they connect and build relationships.”
Shinn agreed. “Let's start with the assumption that anything can happen, asking, ‘Can we do that in a safe and healthy way?’ If the answer is no, then we take it off the board. If it's yes, then let's go with it,” he explained.
Staff, students may need re‐orienting
Eugene L. Zdziarski II
While RAs and other staff who came on board during the pandemic developed important skills related to health, safety, and crisis management, they may need “some specific training to assimilate them” into working on campus in community in a post‐pandemic environment, said Eugene L. Zdziarski II, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Affairs at DePaul University.
Even students who first enrolled during the pandemic might need a re‐orientation in the form of a sophomore experience, he added, to ensure “they're really equipped to navigate the campus and resources.”
Communication imperative
Jeremiah B. Shinn
Effective communication sometimes proved difficult during the pandemic. Like many student affairs leaders, Akens found it particularly challenging to balance “the need to portray confidence and calm while also communicating the great deal of uncertainty we were dealing with.”
While Shinn's president was “communicating more than I could expect a president to communicate” with the university community, Shinn thought that provided enough communication for his student affairs staff as well. But, he acknowledged, “I didn't get it right,” and so he quickly moved to change course and communicate directly with his own staff. “I had to rebuild some confidence because I had assumed they were getting what they needed from the president,” he said. “As a newer vice president, I learned the importance of communication.”
Pearson agreed that student affairs staff need to know they have an open avenue of communication through which they can bring their concerns to their vice president.
Students also expect honest communication. “Students smell hypocrisy faster than they smell pizza, and their reaction to the two is very different. Students were quick to call out leaders who said to wear a mask and then didn't do so themselves,” McClellan said.
When it comes to open communication amid the return to campus, student affairs professionals should also prepare to engage with students in discussions about “the layer of trauma and fear” stemming from recent racial tensions experienced on a national level, Ellis said. “Although it can be challenging to address these topics with faculty, staff, and students when everyone is tired, we have to make sure we don't push it to the side because of the pandemic,” she advised.
McClellan added that “the pandemic highlighted systemic inequalities,” and student affairs professionals should get ready for students wanting opportunities to express how they feel, for their voices to be heard, and to make a difference.
Understanding students’ perspectives on other issues, such as vaccines, can also be helpful during this time. “We need to recognize that students may have some hesitancy about getting vaccinated,” Pearson said. “You can't really fault them for having that attitude. As time goes on and more information is available, I think they'll gravitate towards getting vaccinated. A lot of them are in that age group where they can afford to take a step back and wait a bit.