In Higher Ed, the activities of an academic year has remained very predictable. The academic year begins by welcoming the newest members of the community, and then – the Fall semester starts, the Fall break and mid terms, Registering for the Spring, Thanksgiving, Early Admissions for the following year, Finals, Holiday Break, Winter Session, Spring Semester, Spring Break & midterms, Registration for Fall, Regular Admission notification, Spring Open Campus, Commencement, Reunion, Summer Session – and the cycle begins again. There are many variations on this theme, but each of the institutions has a predictable cycle. Though we have had some serious disruptions recently – 9/11 for one, a couple of major financial crises – but nothing stopped us from operating in significantly different ways.

But then came the COVID-19 pandemic. No one could have anticipated and planned for a global pandemic like this! So, it is remarkable what we have been able to accomplish collectively since March. The students and faculty adopted to a totally different and imperfect way to do remote learning/teaching amongst all sorts of issues that one rarely needs to deal with – staying at home and competing for bandwidth, family issues much closer to you than before, child care and elder care and so on and so forth. Despite all of this, teaching and learning happened and we can all agree it was not perfect, but everyone adjusted, improvised and through their creativity constantly improved the experience.

As much as this was a huge disruption in March, there was less uncertainty. For example, we knew that the most students, faculty and staff needed to leave the College and work and learn from home. That was not a choice! But now, here we are, in May and need to plan how would the next academic year shape up. It is very different with a lot of uncertainties and is  creating a lot of anxiety and frustrations all around.

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