Higher Education in a “Post” - Pandemic Era: Lessons Learned for Faculty and Administration

The COVID-19 global pandemic greatly impacted education systems across all age groups and grade levels. Teachers, students, parents, administration, academic advisors, and other stakeholders experienced varying levels of distress, trauma, and a multitude of academic and personal challenges. This article focuses on the positive lessons learned in higher education as a result of this tumultuous and transitional period in history. As the world gradually progresses into a post-pandemic era, it is necessary to utilize lessons learned to improve the overall educational experience for learners and teachers of all ages. At the higher education level, many implications emerged for managing crises, improving online and remote instructional management systems and teacher training, expressing flexibility to accommodate learner needs, enhancing advisement procedures to include greater course delivery options, incorporating student and faculty wellness screenings, considering socio-cultural development, and introducing needed community resources. A robust post-pandemic educational institution models and offers opportunities for regular self-care, mentoring, professional development, and constructive supervision experiences. Student and faculty needs are often most easily identified by administrators and academic advisors, because their roles inherently result in developing a vast knowledge of university resources and communicating regularly with students and nearly all campus facilities. Every academic organization, and particularly administrators, is best served by reflecting on the lessons learned during the pandemic to evaluate current practices and implement necessary improvements that result in optimizing academic advisement, student achievement, and overall satisfaction with student services.

Academic Advisement in Higher Education: Critical Practices in a Global Pandemic

This article will describe critical practices for academic advisors in higher education, particularly during a time of global pandemic and crisis in the 2020-2021 academic year, prior to the widespread availability of preventative vaccines. Academic institutions at all levels transitioned to remote delivery during the lockdowns resulting from the COVID-19 global pandemic. Some such transitions were seamless while others took months to streamline to offer user-friendly and effective instructional delivery. Many administrators and educators had little time to adequately plan and prepare for this transition and others had serious deficiencies in navigating synchronous and asynchronous instructional methodologies. They simultaneously dealt with the universal upheaval of crisis, trauma, illness, fear, and death at astounding rates across communities (Daniel, 2020;Izumi et al., 2021). Students and families likewise may have had insufficient or no preparation in online instructional forums, and in impoverished communities, their access to technological devices and reliable Internet access was further limited. Achievement gaps grew wider and depression and anxiety also increased at alarming rates. To bridge these gaps, many educators and student support specialists reached beyond their job descriptions to offer a range of services, particularly in supporting students in crisis and those with special needs. Student wellness, resilience, and retention trumped curricular objectives, and the importance of academic advisement services emerged as a significant bridge to reaching students who were struggling and underserved. The functions of academic advising in maintaining rapport, screening for crisis and trauma, and providing information and resources will be reviewed (Dorn et al., 2020;Abumalloh et al., 2021).

Online Instruction during a Pandemic: Faculty Collaboration and Self-Care

This article will provide an overview of the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019, also known as COVID-19, pandemic on educators. The transition from face-to-face to online instruction revolutionized perspectives on synchronous and asynchronous course modalities. New live media methods of interaction were adopted with little to no training for teachers and students. Simultaneously, educators, counselors, students, and families faced a multitude of challenges occurring in their own lives and those of their students. These challenges included but were not limited to anxiety and depression, low self-efficacy, fear, domestic violence, substance abuse, oppression, and trauma (Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020;Dorn et al., 2020). The conversion to online instruction during periods of governmental lockdowns, particularly in large cities with high population density, greatly obstructed lifestyles, expectations, and self-care routines for individuals across age groups and socioeconomic levels. While many dramatic changes were occurring due to a healthcare crisis, teachers, counselors, and administrators were troubleshooting student difficulties while working from home and often with limited resources and support (Stone, 2020). The article documents the realities of educating students during a pandemic and the changes that may impact education indefinitely, as well as lessons learned regarding the importance of collaboration, flexibility, and self-care.