SCUP

COVID-19 Response and Planning

Resources for your pandemic response and recovery

There’s an end in sight to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it doesn’t bring much clarity to the scope and depth of the challenges awaiting higher education. What will “return to normal” look like? How severe will the financial repercussions be? These resources on recovery planning can help your college or university in its current response efforts and as it plans for the future.

COVID-19 recovery planning: scenarios, contingencies, continuity

Recovery planning develops and executes initiatives in response to crises, emergencies, and disruptive events. It’s an integrated approach that helps institutions mitigate consequences in the short-term while also determining a long-term path forward.

Recovery planning brings together three planning disciplines: scenario, contingency, and continuity planning:

  • Scenario planning helps you anticipate the outcomes of external events and forces. It clarifies an ambiguous future into distinct, realistic possibilities that can guide your decisions.
  • Contingency planning supplements scenario planning. It outlines how an institution will respond to a scenario.
  • Continuity planning keeps your college or university moving forward during an operational interruption.

Help with COVID-19 recovery planning

Post-pandemic life will not look like pre-pandemic life. The resources on this page will help you both with your current response to COVID-19 and with your preparations for your institution’s future after the pandemic.

Featured Resources

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Integrated Planning Coaching

Get quick, timely problem-solving advice from planning experts with boots-on-the-ground experience. We’re here to help. Let’s talk!

SCUP Member Directory

Find the right experts to assist you. Available to members only.

SCUP Community Listserv

How are your peers responding to the impacts of COVID-19? Sign up for this email-based community to ask questions, share your ideas, and learn from other SCUP members. Available to members only.

COVID-19: Resource Allocation Considerations

Chapter 13 of College and University Budgeting, 5th Edition by Larry Goldstein, discusses the difficult decisions that arise when an institution faces severe economic challenges—whether driven by broad-based economic catastrophes, natural disasters, or simply poor management—and offers both short- and long-term responses to difficult financial times. Shared courtesy of NACUBO.

Example Plan

Consolidated Business Continuity Plan for Academic Affairs (California State University-Northridge)

Webinar Recordings

Pivot Complete. Now What? Planning Through the Pandemic to a Sustainable Future

Higher education has become accustomed to a volatile environment. How do institutions navigate through this volatile environment? Scenario planning. Scenario planning generates multiple well-crafted contradictory narratives about the future to anticipate possible outcomes of environmental forces with the potential to impact an institution.

All SCUP COVID-19 Resources by Topic

Click a link from the list below to see all SCUP COVID-19-related resources on the topic.

Academic Planning

Continuity Planning

COVID-19 Response

Crisis Management

IT

Learning Environments

Online Learning

Resource Planning

Scenario Planning

Strategic Planning

Other Resources

The SCUP team has collected a few other resources from around the web:

Conferences, Courses, and Workshops of Interest

Conference

SCUP 2023 Annual Conference

 July 30, 2023 - August 1, 2023
Cleveland, OH
SEE ALL RELATED CONFERENCES AND PROGRAMS
RELATED PLANNING TYPES
Continuity PlanningStudent Affairs PlanningCampus PlanningAcademic Planning
Alan Cox

Why I’m a SCUP Member...

"SCUP has pushed the concept of planning and integrated planning into higher education, providing sound training and creating a strong network of planning professionals and a resource for planning insights and trends."
Alan Cox
Special Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives
Georgia Gwinnett College



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