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Schools are preparing to launch the Fall 2020 semester under a cloud of uncertainty over further COVID-related school closures. 13% of US higher ed institutions have announced that they will either be fully online (6%) or have proposed various hybrid models (7%). Students suffered through the hastily cobbled-together Zoom lectures when schools first closed but they will not want to continue college if the Fall semester was a repeat of the remote learning model of the second half of the Spring 2020 semester. 

The tragic killing of George Floyd and the events of the last few months have shone a spotlight on the disparate experiences of the Black community that have been marred by a culture of white supremacy and prejudiced systems and individuals. We know that these experiences are not new, and we know that change is long overdue. Now is the time for us to come together. Now is the time for us to speak up. Now is the time for action.

We work with many nonprofit organizations that are trying to move their value-delivery — that is, their training, courses, and workshops — online. In this article, I use such a framework to analyze the value that attendees get from face-to-face events and then discuss how these events might be moved online while simultaneously increasing their value by improving both the access to and the effectiveness of their training.

This last entry of the strategy series both highlights important points from the series and also lays out the decisions that must be made to carry out the strategy during and after the pandemic. I start by laying out the assumptions that I make about the reader, her organization, and the operating environment. Next, I highlight some important point about management of changing expectations.

Higher Education Strategy Series: This is the 15th and last entry of this series. This page describes the whole series and provides links to all of the articles.

Questions: Why and how will the institution obtain sufficient returns to undertake this effort? Will it be through scale advantages (either per program or investments that pay back across multiple programs) that are going to lead to lower costs? Will it be through premium prices due to a difficult-to-match learning experience (via technology, pedagogical approaches, community building, student service provision, etc.)? Will it be through superior marketing strategy and insights (and appropriate execution) that allow the institution to significantly affect the value profiles of prospects?

Higher Education Strategy Series: This is entry #14 of this series. This page describes the whole series and provides links to all of the articles.