The "new normal": institutional policy changes in response to COVID-19

On Friday, March 6, 2020, my university announced that they were “closely monitoring the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak domestically and internationally,” but that classes and business should continue as normal. This would be the first of many subsequent, almost daily, public announcements they would make in response to the pandemic. With every announcement came a new change: events modifications, travel restrictions, in-person meeting guidelines, class alterations, etc.

By Thursday, March 12, they had cancelled all in-person classes and moved most of their office workforce remote. All business travel was halted and all on-campus events cancelled. In the middle of spring semester, when the halls would normally be alive with thousands of students, faculty, staff, and visitors, Utah Valley University was a ghost town. 

I don’t think any of us could have been fully prepared (both personally and on an institutional level) for the swift and stark snowball caused by COVID-19. Not only did it result in a rapid-fire of radical and necessary responses at the onset of the pandemic in March and continually since, but also will continue to transform the ways we live and work in the coming months as we transition into what public policy administrators are calling the “new normal.” But what does the “new normal” look like for your institution?

As college and university policy administrators, we are particularly concerned with keeping institutional action and response aligned with official policy and addressing policy gaps. Over the past few months, I have seen a number of such gaps in policies identified and addressed at my university (we even had to alter our policy that governs our university’s policy process to allow for extensions due to “extraordinary circumstances”). These policies were written in the BC (Before Coronavirus) time, when we were all a little more innocent and unaware that anything like this could happen. As such, our policies naturally do not account for changes caused by a world-wide pandemic. 

As our institutions navigate this unprecedented new territory, what kind of policy changes have you seen motivated by the events of the recent months? Has your institution had to update travel policies to account for sudden travel restrictions, require travel disclosures, or impose other requirements? Have they had to alter events policies to address cancellations and extended periods of event blackouts? Will your institution require face masks in public areas, enforce social distancing, or impose other restrictions, andare these requirements aligned with their current policies? What about student health policies, work from home, classroom management, academic scheduling, grading, sick leave? The list is endless. No arena seems to be untouched by the implications of COVID-19 and the never-ending adjustments we make to navigate it. This is the New Normal. Let’s talk about it.