Until now, we were accustomed to living in a period when technological discoveries and political and economic systems have enriched and empowered while simultaneously constraining our ability to respond to human needs, to inequality and to climate change. COVID-19 has suddenly thrust this contradiction to the top of the higher education agenda so that it cannot be ignored.
University presidents face it in immediate ways. During this crisis, how do universities care for the health and well-being of faculty and students? Faced with steep budget shortfalls, what can we do to advance equity and access? Teaching online for long periods, how can we maintain engagement and quality? How do we prepare for the second and third waves of infection? How do we support urgently needed biomedical research without falling prey to commercial and political interests?
Longer term, what will the new normal be? In a changed world, what will the role of universities be?
The pause now forced upon the world has brought hardship, sorrow, sickness and death to millions. Although we did not cause it, the crisis has thrust an accounting upon universities similar to the threat the Global Financial Crisis posed to financial institutions.
What are our options?
We can learn from it and take the opportunity to act according to our values, long-term goals and responsibility to society. In my experience, most university presidents are well aware of the shortcomings of higher education systems and work for change in their own institutions. The current crisis has opened the possibility of realising these changes more quickly and in concert with others, a chance to re-evaluate and seize the moment, to act out our true values in the midst of uncertainty.
Or, like the financial world after 2009, we can attempt to paper over the cracks in an attempt to forestall change. We can try to convince ourselves that we can return to pre-COVID settings.
However, this second choice does not exist. The global health emergency has accelerated three trends which were already observable before the crisis and to which universities are now compelled to respond in the glare of the public spotlight.
First, governments and public institutions need to move more decisively towards the public interest rather than leaving society at the mercy of a globalised market.
Second, a new multilateralism is required to preserve international cooperation in the face of the resurgence of nationalism in virulent forms and to take account of geopolitical shifts of power and influence.
Third, we need to find new ways to support vulnerable societies and vulnerable groups within societies in order to secure the future of all societies and of the ecosphere. ♦
