TOWNS AND GOWNS: A Study in Crisis Leadership

Educational institutions across PreK–12 and higher education claim to be entry points for policies of greater community partnerships and commitments to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). In the United States educational institutions were forced into emergency, remote measures to navigate the COVID-19 crisis testing their commitments to both their communities and JEDI. This project attempts to document and craft nuanced understandings of the experiences of educational administrators under extreme crisis to ascertain what might be learned for educational leaders and institutions to better respond to crises in the future. Using phenomenological methods and photovoice these narratives were collected from educational leaders. The focus of this chapter is on the distinct differences in the ways that higher education and K–12 school districts engaged with their community during the beginning of the pandemic. Our results indicate the use of vastly different manners of engagement which are caused by and contribute to the decline of democratization in higher education, including the reliance on mimetic isomorphism, the lack of civic engagement, and the continued ascendency of the neoliberal institution.