Research universities had many challenges even before the COVID-19 pandemic started. These were many faceted and involved mainly funding shortages, public relations issues, student demographic issues, lack of faculty diversity, administrative bloat, unnecessary competitions and, varied delivery of teaching methodologies. These were being dealt with piece-meal and were considered primary issues that were in most university strategic plans. COVID-19 changed all that in one fell swoop. We now have challenges that are primarily a threat to the very survival of research universities as we know it.

As I see it, post-pandemic era will force us into working on three primary challenges:

a) Reclaiming Trust and Relevance – Even before the pandemic hit, most research universities were dealing with issues of trust in relation to expertise that governmental entities relied on to serve the public. There was a general perception that universities have become elitist and distant from the urban/rural divide that had plagued our political landscape. To the same extent, universities were also dealing with the question of relevance as far as public funding was concerned among the legislators and the public. Post- pandemic these two issues will coincide to create many new challenges to the survivability of research universities.

b) Recruiting and Retaining Personnel (Students and Faculty) within Academia – Demographic shifts have already forced universities to seek changes within the student recruitment (undergraduate and graduate) policies and the lack of outreach to the diverse groups that we have to cater to. These issues have only become more significant with the changing national demographics and the international supply of students within the last few years. Coupled with this is the fact that our faculty/staff diversity in many universities have not kept pace with the current times. Moving forward recruiting good students and faculty/staff and retaining them within the academia will be a formidable challenge to all public research universities.

c) Finding Funds for Creative Endeavors and Infrastructure– There has been a clear recognition for more than a decade that our federal funding scenario has not kept pace with the competitions that we have with nations abroad who seem to spend more as a percent of their GDP in research at universities. This has become more of an issue as our economy is still buffeted by the pandemic effects. Research in many areas that are beneficial to humanity still requires adequate funding and infrastructure which only the research universities are capable of addressing because of the intellectual capabilities that rest in them. This fact will require sustained lobbying of our legislators who need to think strategically in deploying limited resources for maximum benefit.

All three of the above challenges can be met by public research universities as we have clearly shown in the past. Public research universities at at cross roads with respect to what they can take on and accomplish with considerations to the local situations first and national implications in the overall picture. We have to remain vigilant in that we should not come across as elitist and has to be ingrained within the communities that we serve so that our relevance is very clear and transparent. We need to remain impartial arbiters of all of the nation’s problems and help find appropriate solutions to them.