The Pandemic Appears to Be Waning: What's Next for Our Universities

Abstract

I have spent my career in higher education, including my student years, time as a faculty member conducting research and teaching in my field of behavioral neuroscience, and 26 years as an administrator. Those 26 years consisted of service as chair of the Department of Psychology at Indiana University (1995-2004), an associate dean at IU (2004-2006), dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas (2006-2009), executive dean of Arts and Sciences and then executive vice president and provost at Ohio State University (2009-2015), and most recently chancellor of the University of Arkansas (2016-2021). During my time as an administrator, I saw my share of good and bad times in higher education. I think the good times far outweighed the bad times. Indeed, the resilience of our universities through rather significant changes in higher education—such as the development of new technologies, economic recessions, fluctuations in federal support for research, rapidly growing enrollments and several other major influences—has been impressive, especially in light of how slow our institutions can be in adapting to change. Nonetheless, our universities continue to make contributions to society through our missions of research and discovery, teaching and learning, and outreach and engagement. Then came the pandemic that hit the world in February of 2020.