Addressing challenges to recovery and building future resilience in the wake of COVID-19

While organisational crisis theory posits a predictable set of stages involving pre-planning and preparation, acute crisis response, adaptation and recovery, the prolonged and cyclical nature of public-health restrictions related to COVID-19 presented new challenges for institutions of higher education and conditioned students, faculty and staff to adopt a crisis mindset as their baseline. Consequently, moving from crisis to recovery posed unique obstacles at both individual (eg anxiety, exhaustion and post-traumatic stress) and organisational levels (eg transition logistics, labour market changes and student preparation). This paper describes an effort at a large, urban, research-intensive university to directly address the evolution from pandemic crisis to recovery and future resilience. The University Resilience Project recruited a team of senior staff charged with identifying and adopting promising practices created during the pandemic and decommissioning or archiving less useful policies, procedures and activities, with a view to strengthening the university’s resilience. Over the course of more than 300 meetings with academic leaders, staff leaders and student leaders, team members created a space to share the experiences of COVID-19, reflect on successes and challenges over the crisis, and identify opportunities to enhance the resilience of the university. This work raised critical insights into the process of adapting to change in an institution of higher learning.