Leading the educational response during the COVID-19 pandemic: The perspective from an online campus

The early spring of 2020 began with an extraordinary change for all members of the higher education community of institutions worldwide. A new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the strain of coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading rapidly (World Health Organization, 2020). In the early days of March 2020, institutions of higher education worldwide began a sudden closure of face-to-face instruction to transition to remote teaching. This transition occurred in a matter of days, disrupting educational and administrative operations. The rapid spread pandemic caught many at colleges and universities by surprise and triggered the implementation of strategies to provide continuity of instruction (Morales, 2019). From faculty training to course creation and from student support to the creation of on-the-fly work from home policies (WFH). The abrupt change also brought to the surface the relevance of training, support systems, and academic continuity planning at an institution serving more than 100,000 students annually. The paper examined the role an online campus, part of a college system that operates predominantly face-to-face, played in the transition of faculty to remote educational and operational services during the COVID-19 Pandemic.