As the novel coronavirus (or the illness it causes, “Covid-19”) makes its way across the globe, we’ve seen significant containment and mitigation measures, largely due to the high degree of uncertainty over the virus—its morbidity and mortality rate, its relative risk, and so on. It’s certainly larger than other recent outbreaks like SARS 2002 or MERS 2012. And it appears to be somewhat more dangerous than the typical seasonal flu, although the degree of danger and the effect on certain subpopulations remains deeply uncertain.

I’m no epidemiologist, so I’ll leave it at that. I did want to focus, however, on the containment and mitigation measures as they affect higher education more generally and legal education more specifically.

Universities are, of course, shutting down international study abroad programs in places with travel advisories, returning students home, and having those students self-quarantine for fourteen days. Universities are also regularly sharing the same kinds of information: the risk to the university population remains low; faculty and student travel, particularly internationally, should be flexible and responsive to ongoing changes in circumstances; preparations for distance-learning or remote learning are underway in the event of shutdowns.

These are preparations for the start of worst case scenarios, so it may never come to this at most places. At the same time, what can higher education do? Some have thoughts elsewhere, and, to be sure, many with many good ideas should be heeded. There are things the university health services should be doing, but I set those aside for the health professionals and university administrators to consider. On the pedagogical side, however, here are a few thoughts, inspired by Prof. Karen Grepin’s Twitter thread.

Anticipate the local disruption of canceled study abroad programs. If your university or your law school sends, say, 10% of its study body abroad each year, and those study abroad programs are canceled, it will be highly disruptive to the education community—the equivalent of admitting a much larger class than usual. Classrooms will be tighter, more classes or sections might need to be offered— that is, faculty might need to teach more and grade more. Student housing will also grow tighter for the term or the year. On the flip side, students from abroad may not be able to participate in programs here or may need to defer enrollment in degree programs. That loss of revenue should be anticipated now.

Begin recording or live-streaming lectures now. I have mixed feelings on recorded lectures. But schools should start doing this now, not when the university decides to shut down for a period of time. Only a few students are absent each class at the moment, so this allows faculty to start to learn how to use technology and make errors in a much smaller audience. It then becomes routine in the event the entire class must hear some lectures remotely. It also gives faculty some time to think about how pedagogy may differ online. (This is particularly true, I think, as I consider the Socratic method or the seminar discussion remotely.) If you are concerned about recorded lectures, live-streaming from Zoom or another remote presentation software in lieu of recording it may be preferable.

Accommodate sick leave for students and staff. Faculty have the greatest flexibility concerning sick leave, apart from days they teach. But ensuring that staff have paid sick leave, and are encouraged to take it, is essential to the health of the community. But related to the point above and concerning pedagogy, live-streaming lectures gives sick students—or self-quarantined students—the opportunity to stay home and not feel like they’re missing anything.

Increase exam flexibility. Whether that means take-home exams, self-scheduled exams, and flexible deadlines for exams, reducing student anxiety about remaining away from campus can be significantly helpful. It also means thinking about preparing exams that could accommodate such methods of test-taking.

I don’t have great answers. I only offer a few thoughts and hope universities and law schools are anticipating these big-picture changes that could happen in a very short time period and that could have lingering effects through the 2020-2021 academic year.