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I was asleep in a Salt Lake City AirBnB after a long day of NCA pre-conferencing when the call came, waking me and my colleagues with news of a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA. Many of our students were in the venue. My colleagues and I spent the rest of the night scouring social media and watching our students appear on national news. The next day, we went to the conference and tried to carry on with varying levels of success. By that evening, we learned there was a fire in the area and began changing plans to head home. In the meantime, our community was learning that we had lost one of our students in the shooting and that we needed to evacuate most of campus immediately due to the rapidly growing fire.
What began as a shocking and traumatizing day for our community stretched into lengthy exile from campus. As the fire continued to burn, it became obvious that we would not be able to return and finish the semester. Our undergraduate college does not offer any online courses, but in very short order, we shifted every class online and resumed our fall semester. This took a massive effort, excellent leadership from our dean’s office, and buy-in from faculty and students.
That situation is very different from the one that we face today, the day after our announced transition to online classes for COVID-19. However, many of the lessons I learned last year are helping me lead better this time. If your email looks anything like mine, you may be inundated with tips from professional organizations and offers of resources from ed tech companies and publishers. We didn’t have that last year. I hope the tips below will supplement what you already have and specifically address leadership for administrators at the department, division, or small college levels.
People like to work on what they can control. This means both students and faculty may look to class planning for predictability. Unfortunately, this may happen before they have thought about the uncertainty of their personal well-being (housing, resources, etc.) and what is best pedagogically.
If possible, allow some time for the transition to online formats. In that time, express care and concern for all involved and encourage them to attend to personal needs first. Point faculty, staff, and students to any resources your school or community makes available - housing assistance for students, counseling, child care, etc.
Invite all instructors (full time, grad, adjunct) to the same meeting for a unifying message about how you will proceed and to answer collective questions, even if you may need to meet with smaller contingencies separately at some point. I was pleasantly surprised, particularly by the response from adjunct instructors, to the sense of inclusion and support our collective Zoom meeting fostered.
Support student journalism! Your students know you and your campus well and they can be a much more reliable source of information than local and national news outlets on campus concerns if you let them. During the shooting and fire, our student journalists did an incredible job of informing our community and appearing on national media outlets. Some even went so far as to gently correct prominent reporters offering inaccurate information. If they are on or near campus and you can, feed them. Give them access to any information you can. Give them access to any equipment or tools you can. Trust them (and their advisors) to uphold their code of ethics and report the truth.
Take great care with email. Your campus and other vendors may be flooding inboxes with lots of information that is tough to sort through. If information is coming rapidly, aim for a regular update to your group that is brief, conveys care and gratitude, offers new information or clarifications, points to resources, and places the most important action items up front. As the flood of news slows and people settle in, the frequency of email updates can decrease. Let instructors communicate relevant information directly to their students. They know their students and how to guide them in the context of their class.
Collaborate with librarians (on campus and at public libraries), colleagues at other schools, and publishers. Last year, due to the urgency of the situation, many students and faculty did not have access to textbooks and other vital resources. Librarians and colleagues at other campuses scanned and sent a variety of materials. Publishers offered short term access to things students needed to continue classes.
You may know this one, but need to be reminded frequently. Care for yourself and others. Make time to sleep, eat, and move. The energy boost you get from stress only lasts so long, eventually you need more enduring fuel. Care for others by asking how they are doing, trusting and equipping them to make good choices, and assuming that they are doing all they can to make this transition a success. Just because someone expresses discontent with the situation does not mean that they won’t take great care to show up for their students in wonderful ways, even from a distance.
There are many more lessons I took away from our experience last fall, but these are enough for now. If you have questions or need resources, don’t hesitate to reach out: sarah.stonewatt@pepperdine.edu.
Dr. Sarah Stone WattDivisional Dean of Communication, Pepperdine University
Past President, Association for Communication Administration