Lessons from the earthquake on handling the pandemic

I would like to share some of the issues and thoughts that I am facing amid the COVID-19 pandemic at my university in Mexico. I hope these could be helpful and insightful to others facing the same situation. The context is the same as for any university.

At my institution, we decided to suspend classes around 12 March and start online classes on 23 March. From those dates up until now, many things have happened; the ones that I find the most relevant for assuring the continuance of the academic operations are as follows.

Online, virtual or distance learning experience

Fortunately, my university has developed the resources for this kind of learning over the last 30 years. This capability, together with a crisis experience in 2017 when a major earthquake forced us to close operations at one campus and we were able to bounce back in a week with online classes, has helped us significantly.

At that time, we used tools like Zoom to rapidly restart classes and we managed to save the academic semester. The earthquake experience was painful. Nevertheless, it helped us gain experience, insight and knowledge on how to respond to this kind of crisis.

Faculty training and support

No matter how prepared or experienced you are, there is no way to move forward without the single most important element, faculty. That is why we implemented a short, focused training programme to quickly help our faculty to use the required technology tools to convert their classes into online ones. It was not an easy task and it was not intended in the early stage to make faculty into online learning experts.

In addition, we were able to assign people to support faculty in the use of these technology tools. I really want to recognise the great effort made by every professor for, without their engagement and will, we would not have been able to implement online teaching.

Leadership and organisation

We are going through a crisis and this requires an organisational set-up that is up to that crisis. So we installed a number of decision-making committees. University leaders empowered these groups to make the kind of quick decisions that are needed. This set-up was not based on regular departmental structures and allowed committees to take decisions across different areas.

Communication with all of our stakeholders

It is imperative to maintain constant and assertive communication with students, faculty, staff, parents and the community in general. Fortunately, we have a great communications team that has enabled us to reach all of our stakeholders by different means. This has been done quickly and assertively, something that is very important at this time.

Support from outside networks

We were able to connect quickly with our external partners and share important knowledge which has enabled us to enhance our response. It is important to have experience, knowledge and capabilities. However, a good system of networking with the outside world gives an added ability to respond effectively to unpredictable situations.

Maintain close contact with students

We decided to continue surveying our students about how satisfied they are with the online learning experience. We need to continue adjusting and improving the whole learning experience. Our goal should be to have the best distance learning experience for all of our students.

In addition, we have continued to maintain communication with our students and have all of our regular contact and support resources available to them. It is critical to provide our students and their families with support resources at this moment of crisis.

Flexibility

In general, higher education does not have a reputation for being fast and flexible. I cannot express enough the relevance of having a flexible mindset at these moments. Don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that we have to sacrifice quality or long-held traditional university values. It means that we should be empathetic to the situation and make the temporary adjustments to our ways in order to be flexible enough to respond swiftly to the enormous challenges we are facing.

These are among some of the factors I believe to be essential for a university to assure academic continuity during these times of social distancing. There are more issues to discuss and there is no single recipe for success.

I am proud of my university and all its stakeholders because, so far, we have been able to continue operations for almost 90,000 students and 10,000 faculty members. There is much more to be done, to improve and to face in the upcoming days and weeks.

Joaquin Guerra-Achem is the vice-rector for academic affairs and educational innovation at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico.