University leaders say ‘We were not ready for COVID-19’

Just 37% of university leaders considered their institution ready for COVID-19, when surveyed in July to September, citing the most important challenges as faculty training, having enough technology, maintaining academic standards, emergency financial assistance for students and mental health support.

The top priority for university leaders has been health and risk management (87%), followed by financial challenges (74%), maintaining the quality of programmes (70%), student retention success (67%) and student enrolment (58%).

The Global Survey of College and University Leadership (IAUP Survey) designed and carried out by the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) and Santander Universidades was carried out to learn about leadership responses to COVID-19.

At an international presentation of the findings online on Wednesday 11 November, IAUP President-Elect Dr Fernando Leon Garcia said: “While there are some important differences across regions, the most important message is that most institutions were not ready and most still consider the situation something temporary.”

Another strong finding was that most higher education institutions are focusing on addressing temporary financial needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than restructuring or reinventing.

Whether institutions are highly innovative – like the California Institute of Technology – or not, most are not thinking beyond the pandemic, Leon Garcia said.

“And what the pandemic has done is intensify the challenges colleges and universities faced before the pandemic, and now is the time to see what recurrent challenges you had and what innovations you must begin to discuss in the context of your mission to provide academic quality and promote student success and engagement,” he said.

In terms of the forecast impact on higher education, the most anticipated negative change expected by university leaders was a fall in institutional revenues (73%), followed by falling student enrolment (59%), fewer projects with business and industry (56%), lower investment in infrastructure (49%) and less income from fundraising (49%).

On the other hand, many anticipated increases in financial support for students (45%), investment in infrastructure (30%), continuing education (28%), programmes supporting student employability (25%) and programmes supporting entrepreneurship (24%).

At the same time, close to half expected no negative or positive impact on research (47%), on programmes supporting entrepreneurship (50%) and on programmes supporting student employability (46%).

Overall, the main concerns were student success (68%), overall financial stability (57%), student engagement (51%), inclusion (49%) and decline in student enrolment (44%), with student success the top priority in all regions.

Virtual mobility a priority

In terms of internationalisation, respondents commented that their focus during this year would be on maintaining partnerships (68%), introducing e-mobility or virtual mobility (63%), prioritising existing partnerships (56%), strengthening internationalisation at home (49%) and suspending or limiting study trips for students (47%).

Most institutions said that they were temporarily adjusting their financial model (47%) as a result of COVID-19, followed by restructuring with a set of recurrent elements (39%), and reinventing (36%).

The top response was also consistent across regions. Restructuring was the second most frequent response in three of the five regions (North America, Europe and Asia/Oceania).

A higher number of private institutions were adjusting temporarily than were public institutions (51% vs 44%), while restructuring was higher among publics (42%) than privates (34%), and reinventing was higher for privates (40%) than for publics (33%).

More than half of respondents (54%) said they were planning to postpone hires, and use reserve funds (54%), followed by intentions to cancel temporary hires (40%), postpone or cancel replacement hires (38%), and promote early retirements (21%).

By region, postponing hires was the top response for North America and Central/South America and the Caribbean, while it was the use of reserve funds for Europe, Asia/Oceania, and Africa/Middle East. Among private institutions, at the top of the list was to reduce benefits (54%), while among public institutions it was the use of reserve funds (56%).

Leon Garcia, who is also president of CETYS University in Mexico, said the financial impact seems higher in North America, based on indirect data.

“I think, on the one hand, what you have is that overwhelming model that is present in North America and Canada, which involves residential education. In most other countries you have it, but it is not the norm. That represents a huge financial commitment. It is something that makes liberal education distinctive education around the world.”

He said there had been analysis by some associations that pointed out “the percentage of budget contingent on residential fees, which is one big chunk affecting institutions in the US and some other countries”.

In addition, there is an “essential reliance of key players in the US on international students, while they are still not coming in the numbers we saw a year ago”.

“So these are two very important aspects that are impacting in particular the US and other countries where residential education is an important component.”

He pointed to the contrast with Latin America where students come and go as commuters.

Antonio Flores, president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, pointed out that even sports are huge revenue earners for some universities and they are suffering and endowment revenues are decreasing significantly and with that goes the capacity to capture more philanthropic giving to institutions by alumni and others.

“So there may be more impacts on institutional viability in the US than in other countries.”

However, he said there is anecdotal evidence that many of the more challenged institutions, that are private and small, are thinking creatively about how to create consortia of similar interests to share on costs and purchase of good and services, such as accounting services and technology services for instance.

Future modes of delivery

Looking three or more years into the future, most leaders responding to the survey envision a future where institutions will be offering programmes with a portfolio of modes of delivery. The most anticipated mode of delivery is programmes that are online, hybrid and face to face (71%); followed by hybrid programmes (70%), online programmes (67%) and alternative educational models (66%).

The findings are based on 763 responses from senior leaders of colleges and universities in 89 countries around the world between mid-July and mid-September this year.

Just over a third – 36% – of responses came from Europe, 35% from North America (Canada-Mexico-US), 15% from Asia and Oceania, and 11% from Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Some 62% were public universities and 38% private institutions.

By region, a higher percentage of universities from Asia/Oceania expressed being ready (49%), compared to Central and South America (41%), Europe (40%), Africa/Middle East (36%) and North America (29%). But it is difficult to read too much into that because the pandemic spread at different times of the year and different times in the academic calendar in different parts of the world.

Leon Garcia said it was the biggest survey of its type since an International Association of Universities survey conducted in May.

“But, overall, we see that certain findings that had been shared by previous studies are ratified here. The most important thing is that we have a situation where higher education has been asked to change, and the pandemic has accelerated the need to think about change.”

He said there will be a more extensive report featuring data from specific countries later.

Faculty training

Intitutions’ biggest current challenge was faculty training for online, hybrid or remote education (58%); followed by technology needed for online, hybrid or remote education (54%); maintaining academic standards (53%); emergency financial support for students (45%) and mental health support for students (40%).

Concerning preparations for 2020-21, the vast majority of respondents indicated that they were preparing for a hybrid or mixed model of delivery (73%), with only a small fraction considering the possibility of online synchronous sessions and an even smaller percentage for online asynchronous models.

Roughly 5% mentioned the possibility of in-person or face-to-face sessions and less than 3% declared they were still uncertain or undecided.

By region, Europe and Africa/Middle East were the regions where hybrid or mixed were the highest (86%). By denomination, both private and public institutions were thinking about implementing a hybrid or mixed model of delivery (74% and 71% respectively).

The US has the strongest emphasis on online only delivery (32%) compared with Central/South America/Caribbean (18%), Europe (7%), Africa/Middle East (9%) and Asia/Oceania (19%).

Preventive measures

On measures taken when resuming campus operation, social distancing came out as the top priority (88%), followed closely by sanitised buildings (85%) and compulsory masks (80%), with 67% saying COVID-19 training for employees, but only 54% indicating regular temperature screening and a mere 22% saying COVID-19 testing for students and employees.

By region, compulsory masks are more important in North America and Central/South America compared to Europe, Africa/Middle East and Asia/Oceania where social distancing is at the top of the list.

By denomination, compulsory masks were the top choice at private institutions while at public institutions social distancing was at the top.

In order to broaden the scope and geographical reach of the survey, IAUP and Santander Universidades received collaboration from the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, the Mexican Federation of Private Universities or FIMPES, the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions of Mexico or ANUIES, and the Association of Indian Universities.