A Rose by Any Other Name...Comparative Analysis of Response Strategies of Three Disparate University Systems in Dealing with COVID-19
Abstract: The advent of COVID-19 has overturned the traditional academic world as we know it. Schools across the globe have been forced to adapt to stay-at-home and other isolationist orders in various ways, which in turn affects both students and their families having to accommodate themselves in response to the 'new normal' cultures they find themselves in. This analysis of three United States Higher Education institutions with coincidentally similar names shows strikingly different strategies that their respective Administrations have utilized to respond to COVID-19. Northcentral University (NCU), the one totally asynchronous and non-sectarian online institution in this study, clearly has the strategic advantage of utilizing distance education techniques to maintain competitive advantage over their competitors. On the other hand, the external community of North Central University, a mostly traditional institution located in Minneapolis, Minnesota has mainly risen to the occasion of assisting the school with remarkable results. Northcentral College, a mostly undergraduate non-sectarian traditional institution founded in 1861 in Naperville, Illinois, is clearly the hardest hit of the institutions investigated in this study. Despite these challenges, they have loaned one of their residence facilities to first responders in truly altruistic fashion. The above lends credence to Shakespeare's famous quote that "a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet".
Presider: Sharonda Lipscomb, University of North Texas