Staying on Course
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March, 2020, it sent shockwaves through communities, schools, businesses and, most especially, health care institutions. Suddenly everyone—whether a single, private citizen or an entire health care university—had to adjust to a new normal that would have been unthinkable just weeks before, for the sake of protecting our country’s most vulnerable citizens. Ketchum Magazine sat down with MBKU President Dr. Kevin L. Alexander to discuss the experience of leading MBKU through this unprecedented time.
Ketchum Magazine: When did you begin to understand that COVID-19 was something grave, and what were your first steps in confronting it?
Kevin Alexander: About Christmas time, we began to hear reports about this virus, and scientists were already talking about how this was going to be a serious one. We watched it carefully, and it was pretty clear this thing was going to spread quickly. By January, it had already spread to Japan, which we were paying close attention to because we have student rotations there. By early February, I made the decision to pull our students from the rotation in Japan, halt any further rotations there, and any exchange of faculty or students that we had with the Eulji University in South Korea.
That first week of February I met with the leadership team, which consists of all the vice presidents and the deans, and I added to that team our Director of Marketing & Communications, our Director of Multimedia, our Director of IT, and our Chief Medical Officer. I directed the leadership team to develop a notebook of options, in which we considered all the scenarios, from mild flu virus to full shutdown. I wanted us to already have a plan of what we might do in these different scenarios. That resulted in a very thick action plan, a playbook if you will, which gave us direction. We continued to watch the situation very carefully, and then by early March I was already thinking that we were going to have to shut down the university.
KM: What were some of the main challenges you faced in shutting down the University for a period of time?
KA: Well, once you get over the shock of being in a pandemic and having to shut down, then you have to ask: ‘what are the priorities?’ I really have two overriding priorities. First and foremost, everything that we do has to be for the safety of the students, employees and patients. Number two, what can we do – and this is my favorite phrase with my team – to “keep the ball bouncing” toward graduation? Those were the things I lost sleep over in the beginning as I tried to determine how we would respond. How am I going to keep everyone safe, how am I going to graduate my 2020 classes, and how am I going to keep these programs moving?
KM: What did you do to meet those challenges?
KA: Optometry and Pharmacy were really looking forward to 2020 commencement. For Optometry—it’s a small thing, but still—it’s pretty cool to be the Class of 2020! And for our College of Pharmacy, 2020 was the very first graduating class, the culmination of the hard work of these students and faculty who built the program. So, of course the pandemic required that we do a virtual commencement, and I think we did one of the best. I watched the commencements of a number of other schools just to get an idea of what works, and I think ours was very professional and meaningful.
By May, we began to develop a plan to reopen. We did it incrementally. By early June we allowed students to come back for some laboratories, but only in groups of 10, so they had to double up. Then, following the proper CDC guidelines, we began allowing students back into Ketchum Health and the rotations to start up again. Now, as you can imagine, remote education is a really important part of this. All of our didactic education is remote, which is difficult for all, but works well. However, health professionals at some point have to learn how to use their instruments, and learn how to see patients. We put it all together, with remote lectures, small labs, and tightly controlled clinics with over-the-top protective gear and cleaning protocols. In the meantime, we’ve modified the space on campus so that we can socially distance properly. We tried it all over the summer, saw that it worked, and made the decision to go ahead and continue into the fall, and that’s how we’re running the school now. All of our students should be able to remain on pace and graduate on time.
KM: What has this whole experience reaffirmed about how you approach leadership?
KA: I think it’s really important in a crisis like this for the entire leadership team to be open and communicative so that it’s clear to everyone that there’s thoughtful planning and thoughtful consideration for all possible solutions to a problem. And it’s imperative to put yourself in the shoes of everyone in the community, to be calm, patient and deliberate, and to have your reasons for decisions lined up and ready to go.
KM: Speaking of community, what has impressed you about the people at MBKU through this pandemic?
KA: Well, we figured out how to pivot to online instruction in about two to three weeks, and I couldn’t be more proud of the faculty. They stepped up, the students were patient, and our technology and multimedia teams, led by Sam Young and Matt Breneman, respectively, were wonderful. At every institution I’ve ever been, there’s always a little bit of, shall we say, inertia. During the pandemic, there hasn’t been a whole lot of that here. Once people knew about a problem, we didn’t even have to ask, they just stepped up and solved it, through all three programs. Everyone came together and said, “What do we have to do to keep things moving for our students?” This is why I can say with sincerity that, through it all, everything we did was 100% for the students.