Virtual Workshops on the Response of Higher Education to COVID-19

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This project will contribute to the national needs for a strong STEM workforce, resilient STEM research enterprise, and a public that understands science and technology. To this end, the award will support a series of public, online workshops that will explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, including undergraduate and graduate studies, STEM teaching, and the STEM research enterprise. They will also identify potential best practices for responding to the pandemic, thus providing a starting point for broader national conversations. The Board on Science Education and the Board on Higher Education and Workforce at the National Academy of Sciences will convene the workshops, which will focus on sharing of challenges and responses among stakeholders. These conversations will illuminate the areas of greatest challenge, including challenge areas that disproportionately affect certain populations of students, faculty, or types of institutions. As the nation addresses the immediate impacts of COVID-19, these workshops will provide an opportunity to deepen understanding of the resiliency of the postsecondary education system in the U.S. in terms of disaster preparedness, the ability to provide access and accommodation for all students and faculty, and the ripple effects of this public health event on the research enterprise. The workshops will provide an opportunity for institutions to share strategies and lessons learned in the early months of the pandemic. By providing a forum for institutions of all types to come together and learn from each other, the workshops will make it possible for institutions to modify their strategies in real-time and, thus, can have an immediate impact on campuses across the country. Furthermore, the workshops will examine how institutions’ responses might have differential effects on students and faculty depending on their backgrounds (race/ethnicity, gender, SES), age, disability status and other factors in their lives. These insights can help institutions examine the impacts on their own campuses and adapt their responses to better serve all members of the educational and research communities they serve. This award is co-funded by the NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education and the Division of Graduate Education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.