Five Years Later: Reflecting on Institutional Attempts to Repair Pandemic-Era Harms

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium takes up the conference theme to conduct a retrospective of institutional attempts to alleviate and repair COVID-19 pandemic harms and synthesize our takeaways for how colleges can better support vulnerable students and staff through future crises. Each panelist will present empirical research on how the pandemic harmed a vulnerable group within a campus community (e.g. low-income and first-generation students, campus custodians, staff of color) and how their universities sought to alleviate these harms. After detailing a diverse set of institutional innovations, the symposium will zoom out to reflect on the state of these initiatives five years later and what we have learned from this era about how to build more just and equitable colleges and universities.

Sub Unit

• Division J - Postsecondary Education / Division J - Section 6: Society, Culture, and Change

Chair

• Becca Spindel Bassett, University of Arkansas

Papers

• Yet Another Crisis: Local Solutions and External Constraints to Supporting Low-Income, First-Generation Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic - Becca Spindel Bassett, University of Arkansas

• “We Had to Work”: Revisiting the Essential Status of Campus Custodians - Antar A. Tichavakunda, University of California - Santa Barbara; Fátima Andrade Martínez, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Back to “Normal”: Institutional Priorities and Commitments through the Perspectives of Campus Staff of Color - Katherine S. Cho, Loyola University Chicago; Ahjah M. Johnson, Independent Scholar; Lauren Brassfield, University of Denver; Tristen Hall, Miami University (OH); Anika Patel, Northwestern University; Valerie Olivares, City College of San Francisco

Discussant

• Anthony Abraham Jack, Boston University