The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0968-4883.htm

Higher
Rapid, centralised decision-making education
in a higher education emergency emergency
Brigid Freeman
Australia India Institute, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
393
Peodair Leihy
Encuesta Nacional de Compromiso Estudiantil, Santiago, Chile Received 23 December 2020
Revised 26 December 2020
Ian Teo 4 June 2021
11 July 2021
Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Australia, and Accepted 20 July 2021

Dong Kwang Kim

Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to explain the primacy that rapid, centralised decision-making gained in higher
education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on Australian universities.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on discussions regarding policy problems of an
international, purpose-convened on-line policy network involving over 100 registrations from multiple
countries. It analyses emerging institutional policy governance texts and documents shared between network
participants, applies policy science literature regarding traditional institutional policy-making routines and
rapid decision-making, and references media reportage from 2020. The paper traces how higher education
institutions rapidly adjusted to pandemic conditions and largely on-line operations.
Findings – The study finds that higher education institutions responded to the COVID-19 crisis by
operationalising emergency management plans and introducing rapid, centralised decision-making to transition to
remote modes of operation, learning and research under state-imposed emergency conditions. It highlights the need
to ensure robust governance models recognising the ascendance of emergency decision-making and small-p policies
in such circumstances, notwithstanding longstanding traditions of extended collegial policy-making routines for
big-P (institutional) Policy. The pandemic highlighted practice and policy problems subject to rapid reform and
forced institutions to clarify the relationship between emergency planning and decision-making, quality and
institutional policy.
Practical implications – In covering a range of institutional responses, the study advances the
possibility of institutions planning better for unexpected, punctuated policy shifts during an emergency
through the incorporation of rapid decision-making in traditionally collegial environments. At the same time,
the paper cautions against the normalisation of such processes. The study also highlights key practices and
policies that require urgent reconsideration in an emergency. The study is designed as a self-contained and
freestanding narrative to inform responses to future emergencies by roundly addressing the particularities of
the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as it affected higher education.
Originality/value – There is only limited research on policy-making in higher education institutions. This
research offers an original contribution on institutional policy-making during a prolonged emergency that
deeply changed higher education institution’s governance, operations and outlook. Particularly significant is
the synthesis of experiences from a wide range of sector personnel, documenting punctuated policy shifts in
policy governance (meta-policy), institutional policy-making routines and quality assurance actions under
great pressure. This paper is substantially developed from a paper given at the Association for Tertiary
Education Management Institutional Policy Seminar, 26th October 2020.
Quality Assurance in Education
Keywords Decision-making, Higher education, Policy-making, COVID-19, Vol. 29 No. 4, 2021
pp. 393-407
Education in emergencies, Institutional policy, Delegations © Emerald Publishing Limited
0968-4883
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/QAE-12-2020-0154
QAE Introduction
29,4 The replicability and fairness of decision processes is one way to think about higher
education quality, and this article is illustrated with examples especially from Australia,
whose Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) monitors risk levels
through threshold standards. Wherever possible, decisions must accord with government
regulation and institutional governance artefacts including higher education standards,
394 enabling and delegated legislation, plans, institutional policies and delegations of authority.
Certainly, provisions in these regulatory instruments and institutional governance artefacts
can be disconnected from reality; although, institutional policy is normative, stating
principles that govern practices. In emergency conditions, however, exceptions to
institutional policy and traditional policy-making routines may be exacted through rapid,
centralised decision-making to ensure operational continuity whilst instantiating and
renewing quality. This approach is not unique to Australia and reflects the broader, global
phenomenon that higher education sectors have had to operate in with greater initiative and
reactiveness during recent unprecedented events.
As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) advanced globally in 2020, governments
centralised power, albeit with variations in terms of “start, speed and scope of response”
(Capano et al., 2020, p. 297). At the organisational level, higher education institutions
transitioned to remote modes of operation wherever possible. In a major departure from
established governance practices, much decision-making occurred centrally amongst senior
management members or in on-line meetings, using on-line meeting technology (e.g. Zoom,
Microsoft Teams), document sharing platforms, inbox communiqués and electronic
signatures. This transformation highlighted a distinction between decisions and policy,
whilst altering the ways in which people worked, used technologies, interacted on-line and
evidenced decision-making. This article considers how the COVID-19 pandemic shaped
understandings of the quality of higher education under great duress, despite largely
suspending traditional policy-making routines.
From early 2020, as COVID-19 shocked the world, government public health restrictions
demanded that higher education institutions make high-stakes decisions, quickly. Policy
equilibrium was punctuated by rapidly changing demands. Amri and Drummond (2020)
found that in such circumstances, “policy-makers and bureaucrats, reputed as defenders of
the status quo and glacially paced, are capable of moving nimbly when seized with
necessity” (p. 33). Baumgartner and Jones’s (1991, 2010) punctuated equilibrium theory
accommodates such demands. According to punctuated equilibrium theory, political
systems, typically stable, are occasionally punctuated by radical reform (i.e. disequilibrium)
where issues surface onto the policy agenda. The disaster metaphor has been used to
illustrate such disequilibrium: “Like earthquakes or landslides, policy punctuations can be
precipitated by a mighty blow, an event that simply cannot be ignored” (True et al., 2019,
p. 160). In such instances, rapid change involves shifts in the framing of policy images and
venues of policy decision-making or action (i.e. political institutions, committees or policy
actors). Where the venue of policy reform changes, “those who previously dominated the
policy process may find themselves in the minority” (Baumgartner and Jones, 1991, p. 1047).
Unlike most policy theories, punctuated equilibrium theory encompasses stability (i.e. policy
stasis or incrementalism) and change (i.e. policy punctuations). True et al. (2019) suggest
that such policy punctuations “spring from either a change in preferences or a change in
attentiveness” (p. 163). Punctuated equilibrium theory has been used to gain insights into
shifts arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in health policy (Amri and Drummond, 2020),
environment policy (Garfinkel, 2021) and quarantine policy (Moloney and Moloney, 2020).
 Faced with an emergency, higher education institutions paid attention. They scrambled Higher
to rapidly develop radical responses without being able to assess extensive information or education
possible ramifications with any confidence. As governments closed national borders,
mandated lockdowns and introduced a raft of COVID-safe measures, institutions shuttered
emergency
campuses, (some) laboratories and field stations, libraries, events, sports facilities and
seasons, along with retail outlets. They recalled faculty from overseas, restricted further
mobility and directed employees to work from home. Worldwide, institutions transitioned to
emergency on-line teaching, and, in turn, progressive on-line assessment and terminal 395
examinations. These changes were implemented over time, with varying degrees of ease
and success.
Countries hosting large numbers of international students, including Australia, the USA,
the UK and Canada, waited with bated breath to see how many of them would pay tuition,
residential accommodation and English language education fees. Finance departments
closely monitored budgets and institutions issued ominous projections regarding declining
enrolments, faltering revenue streams and mounting COVID-safe expenditures,
highlighting (again) the dependence on international student fees to co-fund public higher
education in these countries. Importantly, these changes largely occurred regardless of what
meta-policies, policy-making routines and individual policy statements institutions had in
place. It seemed that, irrespective of any pre-existing policy frameworks, delegation of
authority arrangements or entrenched tendency towards stability, change or academic
autonomy, higher education institutions faced similar challenges. Such challenges and
policy problems presented themselves throughout higher education systems despite
variations in levels of emergency preparedness (Izumi et al., 2020). Instead, the legitimacy of
practices would depend on the extent to which learning, enquiry and research could be
salvaged in on-line formats and rapid decision-making could be effected.
Institutions also faced different levels of disruption and policy dilemmas reflecting
variations in government response, risk of openness (see the University of Oxford
COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, OxCGRT and Risk of Openness Index) and
coronavirus caseload (Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, 2020; World Health
Organization, 2020). In some countries, including the UK, institutions reopened after
initially closing (O’Malley, 2020) and remained at least partially open during the second
lockdown (Havergal, 2020) despite predictable health risks. For many institutions, this
step resulted from competitive market pressures, as well as political, social and broader
economic concerns (Devlin, 2020).
Particularly in an emergency, decisions shaping responses have far-reaching
consequences, as the USA case illustrates. As many colleges and universities continued face-
to-face and hybrid teaching, the New York Times (NYT) reported nearly 400,000 COVID-19
cases (at 1,800 institutions) by mid-December 2020, including 90 fatalities in the institutions
themselves (2020a). Furthermore, the greater exposure of elderly people living in proximity
to colleges, particularly in nursing homes, saw higher mortality rates than in counties
without colleges (NYT, 2020b). According to Cevasco et al. (2020), “university decisions may
have had a significant impact on national community spread” in the USA (p. 6). Marris
(2020) describes a “gigantic, unorganised public-health experiment – with millions of
students and an untold number of faculty members and staff as participants” (para. 3).
Despite COVID-safe changes introduced on-campus to mitigate risk (e.g. plexiglass,
ventilation, mask-mandates, physical distancing), social gatherings off-campus and
communal residential arrangements have driven up case numbers (Diep, 2020). In other
countries, like Japan, areas with lower rates of infection were gradually re-opened (Chunichi
Shimbun, 2020). In India, government-mandated lockdowns and high coronavirus caseloads
QAE meant extended closures from mid-March 2020, with the commencement of the 2020-2021
29,4 academic calendar for public institutions delayed until November–December 2020. In these
countries – the UK, the USA and India – governments and markets have heavily influenced
institutional decision-making around closing, transforming academic practices, assuring
quality and re-opening.
In responding to the COVID-19 emergency, institutions were tasked with the seemingly
396 impossible: to transform institutional practices in the midst of an unfolding public health
crisis to accommodate mandated lockdowns. In most cases, institutions were forced to make
punctuated policy decisions rapidly with limited information for an uncertain future, and
without the luxury of traditional policy-making routines involving extended consultations
with policy experts. As Berger et al. (2020) found, “decisions within a pandemic context have
to be made under an overwhelming time pressure and amid high scientific uncertainty, with
minimal quality evidence, and potential disagreements amongst experts and models” (p. 3).
In the context of this pandemic, Capano et al. (2020) also observed “the possibility of over
and under reactions; and different levels of trust in government, technical know-how, [and]
political support for certain kinds of interventions” (p. 288).

On-line and into unchartered territories

Institutions that shifted and stayed largely on-line were able to mitigate the spread of a
contagious disease on campuses and maintain some semblance of pre-COVID-19 teaching,
learning and research norms. These reflexive shifts would test adaptive capacities and
institutional autonomy. Such shifts included the activation of emergency management plans
and the invocation of emergency powers to reset their academic, corporate and governance
practices. Clearly, some institutions, faculty and professional staff and students were better
prepared and resourced than others, whilst those from other institutions were left behind by
relatively abrupt policy and practice change. Students’ learning, experience and
participation levels changed, not least because of the digital divide. Some research and
international collaborations ground to a halt, whilst others continued largely unchanged or
indeed flourished. Work practices, locations and conditions of employment changed; for
some, overnight. In institutions in many countries, job losses quickly mounted, especially for
casualised academic labour – the gig academy (Kezar et al., 2019) – in the absence of
government-funded safety nets.
Critical decisions were taken by each higher education institution and promulgated on-
line. Walker (2020) chronicles A Timeline of University COVID-19 Decision-making at
Brown University in Providence, RI. He reports decisions to temporarily prohibit travel to
high-risk countries (China, Iran, Italy, South Korea), cancel in-person events with over 100
attendees, suspend all international travel, cancel athletics events, cancel in-person academic
instruction, require students to vacate their residences, postpone commencement, provide
community meal services and COVID-19 specific research funding, establish a Health Fall
2020 Task Force, suspend on-campus summer programs, announce a three-semester (or to
be pedantic, quadrimester) plan, schedule phased re-entry and gradually reopen campus
facilities. Somewhat similarly, Lapovsky (2020) observes that USA colleges and universities
would have to make “nimble” decisions about transitioning to on-line learning, providing
virtual student services, granting refunds for unused residential accommodation, adjusting
tuition fees, changing assessment practices and conducting graduation virtually. News
outlets across the world reported transformational changes to higher education systems and
institutions from early 2020.
Behind these changes lay emergency decision-making, and in some but not all instances,
institutional policy text change to address emerging policy dilemmas. In public policy,
government decision-making can be differentiated from and manifested by policy with Higher
public policy instruments and formalised texts including “law, regulation, executive order, education
local ordinance, and court decision (amongst others)” (Weible et al., 2020). This
differentiation between decisions and policies essentially conceptualises public policy
emergency
instruments as formal, public manifestations of a subset of government decision-making. As
Althaus et al. (2013) suggest, “government decision making is far deeper with much, like an
iceberg, hidden below the visible parliamentary and electoral level” (p. 144).
Similarly, within higher education institutions this distinction between decisions and 397
policies has also been observed (Pfaffenroth, 1997; Hodgkinson and Starbuck, 2008). Policy
practitioners typically understand that decisions, frequently referred to as small-p policy,
manifest in an open-ended mass of uncountable instances. Decisions are made by
governance bodies and people holding nominated positions (e.g. executive management
members and other approved delegates), either in person or remotely, frequently using
technology that evidences or workflows approvals. This includes decision-making by
committees involving sharing technology (e.g. Zoom, Sharepoint) and decision-making by
persons holding nominated positions deploying electronic signatures and workflow
administrative systems (e.g. finance and human resources). Decisions are reflected in
institutional budgets, strategic and operational plans and initiatives. Decision-making
frameworks are formally established, including texts referred to as enabling and delegated
legislation (i.e. university act, by-laws, regulations, rules) and delegations of authority
policies, registers and databases. Delegations documents articulate decision-making
principles and codify individual financial, human resources and on occasion, academic
decisions. Such decisions are typically distinguished from big-P (or institutional) Policy,
which includes a countable number of texts that together evoke a body of principles. These
big-P (or institutional) Policy texts are frequently referred to as policies, procedures and
guidelines and govern corporate and academic practices.
These big-P (or institutional) Policy texts promote compliance with government
requirements; they express senior management commitment; they communicate values and
expectations; they articulate responsibilities; and they facilitate internal efficiencies. The
policy may be aspirational or preferably, “tempered by a sense of the real” (Bostic, 1988,
p. 89). The institutional policy is, by definition, principles-based, regardless of form
(presentation) or application. The job of institutional policy is to articulate principles that
govern practices and assure quality: to steer, regulate and standardise practices – in concert
with other governance instruments including delegations of authority. In some cases,
principles articulated in institutional policy are intentionally or unintentionally ambiguous
(Raaper, 2019) or vague (Deygers and Malone, 2019). Broad, umbrella principles allow
evaluative judgement, discretion, and hence variability in policy implementation and
practice. In other instances, principles articulated in institutional policy are intentionally
prescriptive (Ferrell, 2012).
Regardless of the approach adopted at an institution – loose steering or highly directed –
the pandemic called into question policy governance (meta-policy or policy on policy after
Dror, 1971) as traditional policy-making routines have been set aside. However, despite a
large body of public policy literature on government education policy (Ball, 2015), higher
education policy (Goedegebuure et al., 2014; Scott, 2018) and higher education collegial and
corporate governance (Shattock, 2006; Rowlands, 2017), there is limited theoretical or
applied research on higher education institutional policy-making. There is also a limited
history of research on emergency in education policy decision-making in higher education
(Illanes et al., 2020), despite longstanding and recent research in the K-12 school education
sector (Chand et al., 2003; Reimers and Schleicher, 2020; Cullinane and Montacute, 2020).
QAE Attesting to this, Blobaum et al. (2005) concluded that “little information was found on
29,4 best practices and processes for policy development in higher education” (2005, p. 3). More
recently, Clark et al. (2012) reported that “little is known about the inner workings of
institutional policy systems, that is, how individual institutions create and maintain their
own institutional policies and policy systems” (p. 12). This gap persists despite empirical
studies regarding the development or review of individual institutional policy statements
398 (Romana, 1975 which uses Baldridge’s Political Model; see Shieber and Suber, 2015;
Omonhinmin et al., 2014), and research on individual institutional policies concerning key
academic matters (e.g. assessment, academic integrity, intellectual property), student
administration (e.g. admissions, credit transfer, attendance) and administration (e.g.
copyright, sexual harassment and quality).
The limited body of applied research on institutional policy-making (Ford et al., 2001;
Capell et al., 2004; Freeman et al., 2013; Freeman, 2014) reveals traditional routines involving
staged policy-making broadly adhering to the policy cycle heuristic (Freeman, 2020).
Institutional policy-making approaches in higher education broadly follow public policy-
making cyclic models elaborated initially by Lasswell (1951), and subsequently by others
(May and Wildavsky, 1978; Hogwood and Gunn, 1984; Althaus et al., 2013), notwithstanding
contestation regarding the theoretical foundations of such models for public policy-making
purposes (Colebatch, 2006). Cyclic approaches broadly encompass agenda-setting, policy
formulation (including consultation with policy actors), policy decision-making, policy
implementation and policy evaluation. Such routines readily accommodate small, linear,
incremental policy changes over time, sometimes referred to as “muddling through”
(Lindblom, 1959, p. 79). They also accommodate radical policy change (e.g. changes arising
from institution-wide policy suite reviews) taken over a period of time following complex,
collaborative policy-making processes. What they cannot accommodate is rapid policy
change, be it incremental or radical.
The transformations that took place during 2020 and 2021 required rapid policy change
in higher education institutions not known for agility in decision-making. Confronted with
the COVID-19 pandemic, policy practitioners in higher education institutions faced
questions about policy governance, policy-making, the future direction of policy
management, the place of institutional policy, and its relationship with other governance
texts and decision-making processes. Particularly, the ability of traditional, lengthy
consultation, endorsement and approval routines and the capacity of institutional policy to
guide and essentially vouch for institutional quality was shaken. The emergency also drew
attention to the unique set of entangled globally, nationally, and locally pitched policy
vulnerabilities that are inherent within all institutions. Policy, moreso rapid policy change, is
only as good as its conversance with operational realities.

Results and discussion

A practical example of “intra-crisis learning” (Weible et al., 2020, p. 234) emerged with the
COVID-19 Institutional Policy Virtual Network. This policy network demonstrated how
higher education institutions adopted small-p decision-making to rapidly respond to
punctuated policy shifts demanded during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sponsored by Australia and New Zealand’s Association for Tertiary Education
Management, this policy network gained over 100 registrations from people working in or
with higher education institutions in Australia (95), New Zealand (5), India (2) and Malaysia
(2). A total of 48 higher education institutions were represented by these registrations, with
approximately 50–65 participants attending most network meetings conducted fortnightly
from April to July 2020. Faculty, practitioners and consultants working in Chile (1), Japan
(1), Saudi Arabia (2), Kuwait (1) and the USA (1) also participated. Participants worked in Higher
seven breakout groups broadly encompassing nominated policy problems as follows: education
 Group 1: Impact of COVID-19 on higher education institutional practices.
emergency
 Group 2: Risk, crisis management and business continuity.
 Group 3: Assessment and academic integrity.
 Group 4: Admissions, enrolment, progress and fees.
399
 Group 5: Policy management.
 Group 6: Governance: Decision- and policy-making.
 Group 7: Research and research training.

Within these breakout groups, participants extensively discussed policy possibilities and
shared emerging policy and record-keeping documentation. Nine higher education
institutions from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia shared model decision- and policy-
making documentation, whilst others discussed documentation under development. From
this networking initiative would emerge an on-line panorama of shared challenges,
unexpected developments and similarities in emergency responses.
For Australia, like many other countries, decisions were directly influenced by system
regulation shifts at the national level, whilst much of the COVID-19 containment effort fell to
the states and territories, quite successfully in the sense that outbreaks were mostly closely
tracked and kept within immediate communities. Australia’s Commonwealth Government
has jurisdiction over migration, which extends to international students enrolled with
universities established under state and territory legislation (with the exception of the
Australian National University). With large numbers of international students injecting
vital revenue into universities and city economies in general, regulatory limitations on the
proportion of course credit that might be pursued on-line required alleviation. Redress was
specific to international students based in Australia; however, visa processing reforms were
also introduced to accommodate those locked out of the country by the pandemic.
More broadly at the national level, the sector regulator, TEQSA, regulates higher
education quality through the implementation of the Higher Education Standards
Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015. The Threshold Standards establish provider
obligations regarding corporate governance, corporate monitoring and accountability and
academic governance, which includes academic policy development and review. The
Threshold Standards recognise that a provider’s governing body has an essential role in
articulating roles and delegating authority to ensure effective governance, institutional
policy development and management, as well as ensuring there are credible business
continuity plans. Complementing these quality requirements, the Threshold Standards state
that academic governance processes and structures include “developing, monitoring and
reviewing academic policies and their effectiveness [and] [. . .] confirming that delegations of
academic authority are implemented” (2015, s. 6.3.2.a-b). As such, the regulator imposes
broad obligations explicitly establishing a central role for delegations of authority and
institutional policies in ensuring quality at Australian universities.
Rather than requiring changes to these broad standards, the COVID-19 emergency saw
TEQSA reducing some administrative requirements (TEQSA, 2020a) and focusing on
providing broad guidance regarding academic quality to accommodate the immediacy and
scale of the changes to academic practices. TEQSA progressively curated a body of
materials regarding best practice on-line learning, student experience and assessment
integrity. TEQSA also tapped into international perspectives and shared on-line webinars,
QAE podcasts and expert advice hubs to encourage rapid capacity building, networking and
29,4 sharing (TEQSA, 2020b).

Institutional responses
Policy network discussions revealed that punctuated policy shifts changed academic
practices (i.e. teaching and assessment, curriculum and qualifications), academic and
400 student support, corporate practices (i.e. finances, human resources), international mobility
(i.e. international student and faculty visas), research and research training and governance
and leadership. Many of these shifts resulted from small-p decision-making.
In terms of academic practices, the shift to emergency remote teaching and learning
impacted assessment practices including progressive assessments and terminal
examinations. This obvious transition garnered much attention, both within institutions and
within the wider community. Public health restrictions that impacted business operations
and student mobility, in turn, impacted students’ capacity to fulfil mandated work
integrated learning obligations. Research and research training programs were severely
struck, particularly programs involving international collaborations, fieldwork and/or
mobility and library, museum and laboratory infrastructure and materials. In many
instances, institutions were neither able to adhere to academic policies nor comprehensively
consider policy alternatives.
In terms of student administration, institutions introduced hardship scholarships and
made changes to admission requirements and enrolment practices to acknowledge
disruptions to senior secondary school examinations, entrance examinations and related-
tests (e.g. medical and language tests). Acknowledging disrupted student learning and
ongoing restrictions limiting physical gatherings, institutions considered student retention
and exclusion requirements, along with policies governing orientation and graduation. With
the rapid shift to on-line learning and assessment, practices around academic integrity and
privacy associated with technology-enabled assessment received considerable attention. In
some locations, the digital divide represented an obvious challenge to student participation
and learning. In terms of corporate practices, institutions urgently examined risk
management, crisis management and business continuity frameworks, plans and efforts.
Reflecting public health orders and border closures, institutions radically restricted
international and domestic travel and urgently reformed working from home policies
wherever practicable. Again, this shift to home-based work garnered much attention.
In terms of governance, consideration was given to policy management, policy
governance and policy-making, notwithstanding differences in country context, regulation,
autonomy, as well as policy traditions and cultures. Understandably, delegations of
authority changed as the locus of authority shifted to foster agility, frequently towards the
centre. Undoubtedly, some decisions were taken without appropriate authority and some
questionable proposals were vetoed.
Having activated emergency management plans and invoked emergency powers, some
institutions relied on the expedited authorisation of policy exceptions (i.e. exemptions) to
accommodate circumstances punctuated by radical change. Such expedited authorisation
involved, in exceptional circumstances, disregarding meta-policy requirements concerning
extensive agenda setting and extended policy formulation processes involving consultation.
For example, the Flinders University meta-policy (Policy Framework) was amended to
clarify that:
An exception to or departure from a policy may be authorised by i. the Chair of Academic Senate
within the policy areas reserved for Academic Senate set out in Schedule A; ii. The Vice-
Chancellor within all other policy areas - in circumstances justifying an exception to or departure
 from the policy, as determined by the Chair of Academic Senate and the Vice-Chancellor, Higher
respectively. (2020, s. 4.1.e)
education
Similarly, Western Sydney University amended its Policy Framework Policy by introducing emergency
a new section enabling the suspension or rapid variation of policies in emergencies or urgent
circumstances:
(1) Under Part E of the Delegations of Authority Policy, the Board of Trustees has
delegated authority to the Chair, Academic Senate to suspend or vary policies or 401
procedures approved by the Academic Senate where there is an emergency or an
urgent circumstance. This authority may only be exercised subject to certain
conditions specified in Part E of the Delegations of Authority Policy.
(2) The requirements under Parts A, B, C, E and H of these Procedures do not apply to
any suspension or variation made by the Vice-Chancellor and President, in respect
of a policy or a procedure made by the Vice-Chancellor and President where that
suspension or variation:
 is reasonably necessary to respond appropriately to an emergency or urgent
circumstance including, without limitation, a natural disaster, a health
pandemic or epidemic, civil unrest or armed conflict; and
 is for a specified period of time (but it may be extended or renewed for a further
specified period of time); and
 is promptly notified to all affected staff and students of the University (2020,
Part J).
In some instances, institutions adopted a more traditional approach to change by amending
existing governance instruments or institutional policies. For example, New Zealand’s
University of Waikato inserted a new Part 8 Grade Reconsideration under COVID-19 in their
2020 Assessment Regulations, which could readily be revoked post-pandemic. Similarly,
Curtin University (2020) inserted new provisions into their Selection for an Offer Procedures
(in their Admission and Enrolment Manual) and University Grading System Procedure (in
their Assessment and Student Progress Manual). La Trobe University (2020) waived some
provisions within their email for Official Correspondence with Students Policy to ensure that
significant correspondence could be sent only by email during the pandemic. In each
instance, these governance instruments and institutional policies were amended without
extended agenda-setting or policy formulation processes.
By contrast, some institutions introduced completely new policies superseding existing
ones without having undertaken policy evaluation or extended policy formulation processes.
This represented an exception to traditional policy-making routines. For example, Griffith
University’s (2020) COVID-19 Assessment and Examination Adjustments Policy states that
“the adjustments in this policy will supersede the provisions outlined in [. . .] policies” (p. 2)
governing assessment, proctoring, academic standing, progression and exclusion, honours
and postgraduate qualifications. On occasion, institutions’ changed practices (e.g. new
grades and grade point average calculations) were given effect through systems rather than
policy text changes (J. Bond, personal communication, July 13, 2020).
There are surely many other examples and novel approaches; however, institutions
facing time pressures, financial constraints and on-line, remote modes of operating had little
appetite or capacity to fundamentally reconfigure swathes of institutional policy. Nor were
they able to proceed over an extended period of time through stable or incremental policy-
making routines involving extensive agenda-setting, policy formulation, devolved and/or
time-consuming policy decision-making and policy evaluation. Rather, facing
QAE disequilibrium, institutions had to respond and accommodate radical reform, rapidly,
29,4 frequently through exceptional small-p decision-making. Institutional policy or big-P Policy,
still had a job, although, in the face of a public health crisis, this job had changed. Policy
practitioners were forced to rethink the ways in which plans, meta-policy, institutional
policies and practices interact. To think about new policy dilemmas. To think in terms of
emergency decision-making. To work in new ways, with new technologies and new
402 pressures. Policy practitioners were forced to think about the job that meta-policy and
individual institutional policy statements play – and the ways they can enable and
accommodate radical if time-limited, practice change. As always, questions of recourse,
evidence and accountability remain top of mind.

Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of the government’s higher education
quality standards concerning governance and accountability, and academic operations more
generally, being sufficiently broad to accommodate shocks punctuating the equilibrium and
requiring immediate, system-wide, policy shifts. At the institutional level, the pandemic
highlighted the urgency of accommodating rapid, robust governance and accountability
models to ensure the continued quality of academic and corporate operations. More
explicitly, it highlighted the need for institutions to amend policy governance (meta-policy)
documentation or practices to accommodate rapid policy decision-making by excluding, in
exceptional circumstances, extensive agenda-setting and policy formulation involving
consultation processes and including centralised approval authorities. Such amendments
are needed to accommodate small-p decision-making in an emergency, rather than
traditional big-P (institutional) Policy-making involving extended collegial processes.
Despite punctuated policy shifts made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher
education institutions should ensure that such arrangements are exceptional rather than
normalised, given the centrality of consultative academic decision-making. Whilst
imperative to incorporate in meta-policy (or other instruments or practices) as an exception,
the normalisation of rapid decision-making necessary to facilitate such shifts would
represent a regressive step for higher education institutions already increasingly divorced
from collegial decision-making.
Australian universities introduced rapid, centralised decision-making to transition to
remote modes of operation, learning, assessment and research under state-imposed
emergency conditions. The sense of immediacy, scale and disequilibrium had been largely
unimagined by higher education institutions, notwithstanding pre-existing business
continuity plans. The COVID-19 pandemic required that Australian universities transition
from traditional, stately policy-making routines for big-P (institutional) Policy to centralised,
small-p decision-making to ensure continued operations, in remote mode.
Future-proofing higher education institutions involves reconceptualising the relationship
between emergency decision-making, crisis management plans, delegated legislation and
institutional policy. The COVID-19 experience has not just seen strategic, operational and
capital development plans shelved for the duration, but the need to recast previous plans to
reflect a new reality. Planning for the unforeseeable, unexpected and uncertain involves a
stock-take of those mechanisms and governance instruments that can be relaxed to allow
proactive, rapid responses and trust in centralised judgement within academic communities.
Rapid and properly robust governance and policy-making facilitate consideration of key
academic, corporate and governance policies, as illustrated in the following figure (Figure 1).
In addition to individual policy statements, it is necessary to rethink institutional policy
governance (meta-policy) and management, the role of sharing and decision-making
 Higher
Teaching and learning: education
Assessment policy emergency
WIL policy
Academic integrity policy
Curriculum (courses) policy

Governance:
Research:
403
Risk management
policy Research policy
Meta-policy Research
Delegaons of training policy
Policies
authority policy requiring
Privacy policy attention

Student administration:
Admissions and enrolment
policy Figure 1.
Corporate: Student retenon policy
Travel policy
Punctuated policy
Orientaon policy
Working from home Graduaon policy
shifts required for
policy Fees policy key individual big-P
Student support policy (or institutional)
policies

technology, effective change communication, versioning and record-keeping for big-P Policy.
In all, it is important to examine the function of institutional policy in ensuring that
institutions are better prepared for and able to respond to future emergencies,
countenancing the tight channelling of power and decision-making authority as necessary.
Even when institutional policies and traditional policy-making routines ignore or
simply do not connect with pressing issues through extended agenda-setting, policy
formulation or policy evaluation processes, higher education institutions have found
novel governance solutions to rapidly respond to the COVID-19 emergency through
punctuated policy shifts. Here, the relationship between the quality of institutional
policy and the credibility of the institution only comes more to the fore as exceptional
decisions mount. Within the state of exception of a crisis, the decisions may not be
replicated in the same form or spirit, but they do reflect and underpin institutional
quality and aim to overcome disequilibrium. An institution is only as good as its
people’s ability to govern wisely, meet accountability requirements and enact policy,
not only in emergencies but also in the regular business of the continuity of learning
and pursuit of new knowledge.

References
Althaus, C., Bridgman, P. and Davis, G. (2013), The Australian Policy Handbook, Allen and Unwin.
Amri, M.M. and Drummond, D. (2020), “Punctuating the equilibrium: an application of policy theory to
COVID-19”, Policy Design and Practice, pp. 1-11.
Ball, S.J. (2015), “What is policy? 21 years later: reflections on the possibilities of policy research”,
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 306-313.
Baumgartner, F.R. and Jones, B.D. (1991), “Agenda dynamics and policy subsystems”, The Journal of
Politics, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 1044-1074.
QAE Baumgartner, F.R. and Jones, B.D. (2010), Agendas and Instability in American Politics, University of
Chicago Press.
29,4
Berger, L., Berger, N., Bosetti, V., Gilboa, I., Hansen, L.P., Jarvis, C., Marinacci, M. and Smith, R. (2020),
“Uncertainty and decision-making during a crisis: how to make policy decisions in the COVID-
19 context?”, working paper No. 2020-95, Becker Friedman Institute.
Blobaum, P.M., Ford, T.M., Hipchen, T. and Petersen, R. (2005), “ACUPA: exploring the campus policy
process (working paper)”, available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/214273125.pdf (accessed
404 8 May 2021).
Bostic, M.J. (1988), “A written collection development policy”, Collection Management, Vol. 10 Nos 3/4,
pp. 89-103, doi: 10.1300/J105v10n03_07.
Capano, G., Howlett, M., Jarvis, D., Ramesh, M. and Goyal, N. (2020), “Mobilizing policy (in)capacity to
fight COVID-19: understanding variations in national responses”, Policy and Society, Vol. 39
No. 3, pp. 285-308, doi: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1787628.
Capell, N., Ford, T.M. and Spellacy, P. (2004), “Institutional policy development: effective practices and
solutions”, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association of College and
University Business Officers (NACUBO), Milwaukee, WI, available at: https://slideplayer.com/
slide/704963/ (accessed 1 October 2020).
Cevasco, K.E., North, H.M., Zeitoun, S.A., Gregory, A.F., Wofford, R.N., Hassan, M.H. and von Fricken,
M.E. (2020), “How US public universities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in march 2020:
lessons learned from the variations in timing of key decisions”, doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-28634/v1.
(accessed 12 December 2020).
Chand, V.S., Joshi, S. and Dabhi, R. (2003), “Emergency education: the missing dimension in education
policy”, Educational Research for Policy and Practice, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 223-235, doi: 10.1023/B:
ERPP.0000034507.09754.f6.
Chunichi Shimbun, C. (2020), “Universities in chubu returning to face-to-face classes”, The Japan Times,
available at: www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/09/national/chubu-universities-classes-
coronavirus/ (accessed 15 December 2020).
Clark, S.C., Griffin, R.A. and Martin, C.K. (2012), “Alleviating the policy paradox through improved
institutional policy systems: a case study”, Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 11-26.
Colebatch, H.K. (2006), Beyond the Policy Cycle: The Policy Process in Australia, Allen and Unwin.
Cullinane, C. and Montacute, R. (2020), “COVID-19 and social mobility impact brief #1: school
shutdown”, The Sutton Trust, available at: www.suttontrust.com/our-research/covid-19-and-
social-mobility-impact-brief/ (accessed 25 May 2021).
Curtin University (2020), “Admission and enrolment manual”, available at: https://policies.curtin.edu.
au/local/docs/policy/Admission_and_Enrolment_Manual.pdf (accessed 15 October 2020).
Curtin University (2020), “Assessment and student progress manual”, available at: https://policies.
curtin.edu.au/local/docs/policy/Assessment_and_Student_Progression_Manual.pdf (accessed
15 October 2020).
Devlin, K. (2020), “Coronavirus: universities to be asked to abandon face to face teaching ahead of christmas
break”, Independent, available at: www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/
coronavirus-university-christmas-lockdown-face-to-face-virtual-outbreak-b1041384.html (accessed 16
October 2020).
Deygers, B. and Malone, M.E. (2019), “Language assessment literacy in university admission policies,
or the dialogue that isn’t”, Language Testing, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 347-368.
Diep, F. (2020), “The 5 biggest lessons we’ve learned about how coronavirus spreads on campusThe
chronicle of higher education”, available at: www.chronicle.com/article/the-5-biggest-lessons-
weve-learned-about-how-coronavirus-spreads-on-campus?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in
(accessed 20 December 2020).
Dror, Y. (1971), Design for Policy Sciences, Elsevier Publishing Company.
Ferrell, G. (2012), “A view of the assessment and feedback landscape: baseline analysis of policy and Higher
practice from the JISC assessment and feedback programme”, available at: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/
documents/programmes/elearning/Assessment/JISCAFBaselineReportMay2012.pdf (accessed 20
education
December 2020). emergency
Ford, T.M., Petersen, R. and Spellacy, P. (2001), “Better than letterman: the top 10 policy issues and best
practices”, Paper presented at the annual meeting of EDUCAUSE, Indianapolis, IN, available at:
https://slideplayer.com/slide/704980/ (accessed 1 October 2020).
Freeman, B. (2014), “Benchmarking Australian and New Zealand university meta-policy in an 405
increasingly regulated tertiary environment”, Journal of Higher Education Policy and
Management, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 74-87.
Freeman, B. (2020), “Policy cycle in higher education, theories of”, in Teizeira, P. and Shin, J.C. (Eds),
Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Springer.
Freeman, B., Hatwell, M. and Jensen, K. (2013), “Policy without (much) pain: a guide to better practice in
institutional policy development and policy management in Australasian tertiary education
institutions”, Association for Tertiary Education Management.
Garfinkel, A. (2021), “Will punctuated equilibrium theory help us explain the developments
surrounding COVID-19 and environmental policy?”, Dissertation, University of Colorado.
Goedegebuure, L., Kaiser, F., Maassen, P., Meek, L., van Vugth, F. and de Weert, E. (Eds) (2014) Higher
Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective, Pergamon Press.
Griffith University (2020), “COVID-19 assessment and examination adjustments policy”, available at:
https://policies.griffith.edu.au/pdf/COVID-19%20Adjustments%20Policy.pdf (accessed 15
October 2020).
Havergal, C. (2020), “Universities to stay open during England’s second Covid lockdown”, THE World
University Rankings, available at: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/universities-stay-
open-during-englands-second-covid-lockdown (accessed 12 December 2020).
Hodgkinson, G.P. and Starbuck, W.H. (Eds) (2008), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision
Making, Oxford University Press.
Hogwood, B.W., Gunn, L.A. and Archibald, S. (1984), “Policy analysis for the real world”, Oxford
University Press, Vol. 69.
Illanes, P., Law, J., Mendy, A., Sanghvi, S. and Sarakatsannis, J. (2020), “Coronavirus and the campus: how
can US higher education organize to respond?”, McKinsey and Company, available at: www.
mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/coronavirus-and-the-campus-how-can-
us-higher-education-organize-to-respond (accessed 28 May 2021).
Izumi, T., Sukhwani, V., Surjan, A. and Shaw, R. (2020), “Managing and responding to pandemics in
higher educational institutions: initial learning from COVID-19”, International Journal of
Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 12 No. 1, doi: 10.1108/IJDRBE-06-2020-0054.
Johns Hopkins University and Medicine (2020), “COVID-19 dashboard by the center for systems science
and engineering (CSSE) at johns hopkins university (JHU)”, available at: https://coronavirus.jhu.
edu/map.html (accessed 15 December 2020).
Kezar, A., DePaola, T. and Scott, D.T. (2019), The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal
University, Johns Hopkins University Press.
La Trobe University (2020), “Email for official correspondence with students policy”, available at:
https://policies.latrobe.edu.au/document/view.php?id=308 (accessed 15 October 2020).
Lapovsky, L. (2020), “COVID-19: decisions colleges and universities need to make now”, Forbes,
available at: www.forbes.com/sites/lucielapovsky/2020/04/09/critical-decisions-colleges-and-
universities-need-to-make-now-in-response-to-covid-19-changes/#7e0e005d1bfc (accessed 15
December 2020).
Lasswell, H.D. (1951), ‘“The policy ‘orientation’”, in Lerner, D. and Lasswell, H.D. (Eds), The Policy
Sciences: Recent Developments in Scope and Method, Stanford University Press, pp. 3-15.
QAE Lindblom, C.E. (1959), “The science of ‘muddling through”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 19 No. 2,
pp. 79-88.
29,4
Marris, E. (2020), “Millions of students are returning to US universities in a vast unplanned pandemic
experiment”, nature”, available at: www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02419-w (accessed 18
December 2020).
May, J.V. and Wildavsky, A.B. (Eds). (1978), The Policy Cycle (Vol. 5), SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
406 Moloney, K. and Moloney, S. (2020), “Australian quarantine policy: from centralization to coordination
with mid-pandemic COVID-19 shifts”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 80 No. 4, pp. 671-682.
New York Times (2020b), “Young people have less Covid-19 risk, but in college towns, death rose fast”,
available at: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/covid-colleges-nursing-homes.html (accessed 18
October 2020).
O’Malley, B. (2020), “US and UK universities hit by thousands of new COVID cases”, University World
News, available at: www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201010150538589
(accessed 18 October 2020).
Omonhinmin, C.A., Omotosho, O.E., Akomolafe, A. and Atayero, A.A. (2014), “Policy for development
and use of open educational resources in covenant university: an open access policy in covenant
university [Paper presentation]”, International Conference on Web and Open Access to Learning,
available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICWOAL.2014.7009198.
Pfaffenroth, S.B. (1997), “Clarifying institutional policy toward international students: a community
college self-study model”, ERIC, available at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED409945 (accessed 28
May 2021).
Raaper, R. (2019), “Assessment policy and ‘pockets of freedom’ in a neoliberal university: a foucauldian
perspective”, Manathunga, C. and Bottrell, D. (Eds), Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education
Volume II, Palgrave Critical University Studies, pp. 155-175.
Reimers, F.M. and Schleicher, A. (2020), “Schooling disrupted, schooling rethought: how the Covid-19
pandemic is changing education”, OECD, available at: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=
133_133390-1rtuknc0hi&title=Schooling-disrupted-schooling-rethought-How-the-Covid-19-pandemic-
is-changing-education (accessed 24 May 2021).
Romana, F.A. (1975), “An examination of the political processes involved in the development of the
student class attendance policy at trenton state college”, Partial fulfilment for Doctoral
dissertation, Nova University, ERIC, available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED111254.pdf
(accessed 24 May 2021).
Rowlands, J. (2017), Academic Governance in the Contemporary University, Springer.
Scott, P. (2018), “Policy process in higher education”, In, Teizeira, P. and Shin, J.C. (Eds), Encyclopedia of
International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Springer, doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-9553-
1_151-1.
Shattock, M. (2006), Managing Good Governance in Higher Education, McGraw-Hill Education.
Shieber, S. and Suber, P. (2015), “Good practices for university open-access policies”, available at: http://
cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies (accessed 24
May 2021).
Tertiary Education Quality Standards Authority (2020a), “Reducing the administrative burden of
regulation – frequently asked questions (FAQs)”, available at: www.teqsa.gov.au/reducing-
administrative-burden-regulation-frequently-asked-questions-faqs (accessed 20 December 2020).
Tertiary Education Quality Standards Authority (2020b), “Online learning good practice”, available at:
www.teqsa.gov.au/online-learning-good-practice (accessed 20 December 2020).
True, J.L., Jones, B.D. and Baumgartner, F.R. (2019), “Punctuated-equilibrium theory: explaining
stability and change in public policymaking”, In Theories of the Policy Process, Routledge,
pp. 155-187.
Walker, J. (2020), “A timeline of university COVID-19 decision-making”, The Brown Daily Herald, Higher
available at: www.browndailyherald.com/2020/10/08/timeline-university-covid-19-decision-
making/ (accessed 12 December 2020). education
Weible, C.M., Nohrstedt, D., Cairney, P., Carter, D.P., Crow, D.A., Durnova, A.P. and Stone, D. (2020), emergency
“COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives”, Policy Sciences, Vol. 53
No. 2, pp. 1-17.
World Health Organization (2020), “WHO coronavirus disease (COVID-19) dashboard”, available at: https://
covid19.who.int/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwt4X8BRCPARIsABmcnOrYQjT4_Z-tYFG-91xAaGMaeVVBf6jV 407
YO4uiVsAWNk9WSc1Wz9NppsaAordEALw_wcB (accessed 20 December 2020).

Further reading
Australian Government (2015), “Higher education standards framework (threshold standards) 2015”,
available at: www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2015L01639 (accessed 26 December 2020).
Cairney, P. (2020), “The UK government’s COVID-19 policy: assessing evidence-informed policy
analysis in real time”, British Politics, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 1-27.
Flinders University (2020), “Policy framework”, available at: www.flinders.edu.au/policies/framework
(accessed 15 October 2020).
Times Higher Education (2020), “How COVID-19 is improving university governance”, available at: www.
timeshighereducation.com/hub/pwc/p/how-covid-19-improving-university-governance (accessed 17
December 2020).
The New York Times (2020a), “Tracking COVID at US colleges and universities”, available at: www.
nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html (accessed 13 December 2020).
The New York Times (2020b), “Young people have less covid-19 risk, but in college towns, deaths rose
fast”, available at: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/covid-colleges-nursing-homes.html
(accessed 12 December 2020).
University of Oxford (2020), “Coronavirus government response tracker”, available at: www.bsg.ox.ac.
uk/research/research-projects/coronavirus-government-response-tracker (accessed 12 December
2020).
University of Waikato (2020), “Assessment regulations”, available at: https://calendar.waikato.ac.nz/
assessment/assessment.html (accessed 12 October 2020).
Western Sydney University (2020), “Policy framework policy”, available at: https://policies.
westernsydney.edu.au/view.current.php?id=00121 (accessed 12 October 2020).

About the authors

Brigid Freeman is a Senior Researcher and academic fellow with the Australia India Institute at the
University of Melbourne, with research interests in higher education, policy, governance and
comparative education. Brigid Freeman is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: brigid.
freeman@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Peodair Leihy studies higher education and society and is co-editing a forthcoming special issue
of Quality Assurance in Education covering higher education in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking
countries.
Dr Ian Teo works as a Researcher in the Centre of Education Policy and Practice, which is located
in the Australian Council for Educational Research.
Dr Dong Kwang Kim is a Professor at Okayama University’s Institute of Global Human Resource
Development and teaches Global Studies.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com