The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually impacted many social institutions and economies throughout the world, and in America, particularly. This was evident in higher institutions when the nation’s colleges and universities had to work around their planned budgetary commitments to invest in technology to quickly transition to online education as the pandemic took hold. The pandemic also further caused problems with budgets across many institutions, as leaders had to prorate students' fees after deciding to close many of the residence halls in the middle of the spring semester on college campuses.
In many cases, the ways in which institutional leaders have worked to navigate their institutions through this pandemic had made national newspapers. For example, some institutional leaders have made difficult decisions to furlough professors and staff in order to stabilize their budgets while others have decided to allow students to move back to campus in the Fall semester to avoid forfeiting critical revenues vital to their operational budgets. Given the already fragile budgets of many Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), their reliance on student tuition as a primary source of revenue generation, and institutional resiliency, the purpose of this special theme issue is to explore, document, and understand the decision-making and leadership style/process leaders of MSIs have engaged in to help guide their institutions through this unforeseen global crisis.
Questions that are especially important to this special issue are:
(1) What leadership style or approach did institutional leaders of MSIs engaged in when making decisions about the sustainability of their institutions?
(2) To what extent, did institutional leaders factor in institutional stakeholders when making critical decisions about the welfare of their institutions?
(3) Finally, what lessons, if any, have leaders of MSIs learned from helping to guide their institutions through this unimaginable crisis and how might these lessons be applied to institutions in the broader higher education landscape?
Although institutions are still working proactively to continue to sustain and move their institutions forward in these uncertain times, this special issue seeks to understand aspects that have been instrumental to the sustainability of MSIs at this point in time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually impacted many social institutions and economies throughout the world, and in America, particularly. This was evident in higher institutions when the nation’s colleges and universities had to work around their planned budgetary commitments to invest in technology to quickly transition to online education as the pandemic took hold. The pandemic also further caused problems with budgets across many institutions, as leaders had to prorate students' fees after deciding to close many of the residence halls in the middle of the spring semester on college campuses.
In many cases, the ways in which institutional leaders have worked to navigate their institutions through this pandemic had made national newspapers. For example, some institutional leaders have made difficult decisions to furlough professors and staff in order to stabilize their budgets while others have decided to allow students to move back to campus in the Fall semester to avoid forfeiting critical revenues vital to their operational budgets. Given the already fragile budgets of many Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), their reliance on student tuition as a primary source of revenue generation, and institutional resiliency, the purpose of this special theme issue is to explore, document, and understand the decision-making and leadership style/process leaders of MSIs have engaged in to help guide their institutions through this unforeseen global crisis.
Questions that are especially important to this special issue are:
(1) What leadership style or approach did institutional leaders of MSIs engaged in when making decisions about the sustainability of their institutions?
(2) To what extent, did institutional leaders factor in institutional stakeholders when making critical decisions about the welfare of their institutions?
(3) Finally, what lessons, if any, have leaders of MSIs learned from helping to guide their institutions through this unimaginable crisis and how might these lessons be applied to institutions in the broader higher education landscape?
Although institutions are still working proactively to continue to sustain and move their institutions forward in these uncertain times, this special issue seeks to understand aspects that have been instrumental to the sustainability of MSIs at this point in time.
