“Disaster advice” became a part of my role after my team and I led Tulane University through the most disruptive time in its history, after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The questions that I’m fielding these days in light of the novel-coronavirus pandemic mainly boil down to this: What to expect? What to do?
The challenge with the current crisis is the amount of uncertainty. After the floodwaters had receded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the immediate threat was over. There was despair, disorientation, and panic, but the storm had passed. We could focus on rebuilding and healing. Those of us at Tulane and our fellow New Orleans citizens quickly had a sense of the physical damage and human toll, and we knew it would take years to fully recover.
The coronavirus pandemic is very different. It is affecting our entire society, and we don’t know when it will be over, how long it will take until we feel safe again, or when we’ll be able to return to business as usual. But nonetheless, day by day, we must build a pathway for recovery and renewal. This is what leaders do. If they don’t, they are not up for the task. In times of crisis, you do not have the luxury of ineffective leadership. What the higher-education sector needs now more than ever is an abundance of resilience, courage, and sound decision-making.
What is the plan for a crisis that is intensifying before our eyes every day and causing increasing uncertainty and disruption?
So what is the plan for a crisis that is intensifying before our eyes every day and causing increasing uncertainty and disruption? My four-part answer is this:
First and foremost, focus on the welfare and safety of your faculty, staff, and students; nothing is more important. A widespread health crisis requires extreme measures. It obviously comes at a cost to cancel events, move classes online, provide flexibility and financial support to faculty and staff, postpone travel, and shut down campuses altogether, but there is no reasonable alternative.
Second, make sure you focus on what you can control (e.g., online learning) and embark on extensive scenario planning for things you cannot control (e.g., the end of the crisis). Prepare for the worst; hope for the best. This means that all institutions need to plan for various scenarios in each functional area of the organization under different assumptions regarding the duration and impact of the crisis, including a stock-market crash.
Third, continually communicate with the campus community in a way that balances reality with hope and empathy. Crises create anxiety, but keeping people informed helps reduce stress. Be honest and transparent while looking for silver linings; every disaster has them. After Katrina, my staff and I were in constant contact with the Tulane community through the extensive use of technology. The tone was personal and intimate, and it let people know we were all on the journey together.
Some of the other strategies we used, such as traveling to cities with clusters of Tulane students to make face-to-face connections, will not be an option anytime soon with this public-health crisis. However, the importance of actively creating a sense of community beyond living and learning in close proximity cannot be overstated.
Keeping in touch via technology is critical. Videoconferencing and messaging tools and apps, as well as social media, play a big role in bringing a campus closer together in times like these. The college leadership has to establish a rhythm of communication that responds to the different needs of various stakeholder groups in terms of frequency, format, and channel of communication. And while communitywide communication from the top is essential, institutions should also ensure that groups within the larger campus community — such as individual programs, clubs, and student organizations — remain in close dialogue and find ways to still pursue their interests and plans.
Fourth, seek feedback that can provide insight into how you are doing and what other things you could be doing. As an example, we monitored the chat rooms used by our students, faculty, and staff to see what was on their minds so we could respond to their concerns in our decision-making and messaging. Share knowledge across the sector and reach out to the higher-education associations for support and guidance. These associations played a significant role in Tulane’s survival during and after Katrina.
In the end, community is about a sense of belonging and trust. Open, responsive, and reliable communication is the foundation, but there are many other ways for colleges to help build community. As Tulane learned in the fall semester of 2005, it requires ingenuity and experimentation, but it can be done even in the most challenging context. In fact, I would argue that the extraordinary conditions and the collective experience of adapting to a new normal deepened our sense of community. To this day, Tulane’s “Katrina class” is known for its loyalty and special bond with the university.
What makes the coronavirus crisis so terrifying is simultaneously a source of comfort: We’re all in this together. Not only can we empathize with each other on a human level; we can also rest assured that resulting economic and operational challenges will apply to all. It will be a more or less level playing field of chaos, but also of co-learning and innovation. Katrina put Tulane (and other New Orleans-based institutions) at a serious disadvantage in an already fierce arms race with its peer institutions across the country. This time, Tulane is scrambling with everyone else.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that the disruption will be temporary — even if it lasts six months or more. The bottom line is this: We are all concerned and we will all feel the impact. But we will persevere if we plan for the worst, hope for the best, and look for the silver linings.
