Resilience and Transformation: The Pandemic’s Effects on Texas Community Colleges

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Division J Section 6: Roundtable 3

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption across higher education. Amid the pandemic, studies documented the ways in which community colleges immediately adapted how they operated and delivered services to mitigate the pandemic’s consequences on student outcomes. Our research, focused on ten Texas community colleges, reports on administrators’ retrospective perspectives on their responses to the pandemic, and how some adaptations to the crisis have endured. Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined how institutions responded to COVID-19 across several areas, including instruction, student support services, and technology, and explored the longer-term effects, including whether any responses were institutionalized, and what challenges remain five years later. We situate our findings within the academic literature on organizational resilience.

Authors

• Katherine Hughes, EdWordian, LLC

• Holly Kosiewicz, University of Texas at Dallas

• Trey Miller, University of Texas - Dallas

• Arslan Khalid, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville