Creating an Agile University During COVID: A Case Study of the American University of Afghanistan

Introduction

Higher education is bestowed with the task of solving greater socio-economic problems in every country. Globalization, mobility of students, dwindling of resources and, aggrandized competition with advancement in technology have put a strain on the existing system and have forced institutions of higher education to beef up their internal and external processes. Universities are expected to be catalysts of social change and adapt to the ever-changing needs of society. The need of today’s society demands that universities focus on building both human capital and social infrastructure and become agile, open and, dynamic. Researchers in the past have argued that universities have to be flexible and conduct their day-to-day activities in a resource- saving, faster and efficient manner (Prange & Chen, 2016). Universities are becoming more market-oriented and trying to accommodate the demands of their students.

The global pandemic has turned the world upside down and universities have been thrown into facing some inevitable challenges. If we go back to 1947 when the earth was healing from the devastating effect of war, albeit only in some parts, academics and philosophers wrote about changes that could be implemented in the existing system, while outlining processes that would enable their peers to adapt. Around that time, John Gaus (1947), in his classic Reflections on Public Administration, spoke about the role of catastrophe and its impact in reshaping public administration and policy systems. To elaborate on his concept, he added that “the ebb and flow of the functions of government … people, place, physical technology, social technology, wishes and ideas, catastrophe, and personality” (p. 9). While defining the context of catastrophe he writes that it “not only is destructive, so that relief and repair are required on a scale so large that collective action is necessary, but [that] it also disrupts, jostles or challenges views and attitudes, and affords to the inner self as well as to others a respectable and face-saving reason for changing one’s views as to policy” (pp. 16–17). Eighty years hence his concepts can be still re-visited and applicable in today’s world.

Academics have started researching changing trends in Higher Education, and how these can be managed more efficiently in an attempt to predict what would be the ideal approach, as well as how universities may respond better to the student community’s needs. We have noticed numerous publications noting the various challenges that universities have to confront (Christensen & Eyring, 2011). Some universities have predicted that the future belongs to a research-based university, while some have been stressing global rankings, accreditation and, benchmarking. Common to all is the declining source of revenue, limitation of government funding, the potential of technological disruptions from the growth of computer hardware, software and networking and hence a sudden surge of usage of technology in the teaching- learning methods with open learning, online courses and, an attempt to become an agile university.

In every generation, researchers and academics have triumphed in marking it as the one that is unique, with unprecedented growth and changes. We marvel at the thought that such pressures that we are witnessing now had never happened before and that our generation is the only one that is dealing with a sudden crisis, catering to greater expectations or competition. The recent scenario of the pandemic is termed as such while we tend to undermine the fact that universities survived and thrived two great world wars and its devastating effect. Innovation is the keyword and time is the essence. Universities require to be less bureaucratic and ought to have an adaptive and accommodating structure that may facilitate such changes in real time (Twidale & Nicolas, 2013).

At this juncture, we need to explore the word ‘agile’ and its usage. The word ‘agile’ is often used as a desirable attribute (Elementa Leadership, 2012). It is used to denote a state of aspiration rather than a description of what currently happens. Agile is used more colloquially and is applied to a person who carries a connotation of flexibility and speed, often with aspects of balance. An agile person is less likely to stumble and fall and is not clumsy and can cope rapidly with both challenging and changing situations. When and if they do (rarely) stumble, they are less likely to injure themselves. These qualities can be ascribed to an organization. “Very often the term denotes an organization has managed to achieve (such as seizing an opportunity, responding to a threat, quickly changing what it does or changing its internal processes in the light of circumstances” (Twidale & Nicholas, 2013 p. 3).