Warren Wilson College president discusses COVID-19 impact
Dr. Lynn Morton reflects on the response to the pandemic and how the college is adjusting
Dr. Lynn Morton reflects Warren Wilson College’s response to the COVID-19 crisis and looks ahead to the challenges the Swannanoa college is facing. Courtesy Warren Wilson College
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
April 27, 2020
The most difficult decision Warren Wilson College President Dr. Lynn Morton has made in her lengthy career in higher education really wasn’t much of a choice at all. As the Swannanoa college prepared for more than 500 residential students to return from spring break in early March, a global pandemic cast a shadow of uncertainty upon the immediate future.
By March 17, the COVID-19 outbreak forced Warren Wilson to announce the closure of its campus for the remainder of the spring semester.
“When the governor of N.C. made the determination that gatherings of over 50 people were forbidden, and Buncombe County began ordering businesses to shut down, we started to see the potential for hospitals to be overwhelmed and realized we had no other option,” Morton said in an April 22 interview in which she spoke about the impact the virus has had on the liberal arts college.
While closing the 1,100-acre campus was the responsible reaction to the health crisis, she continued, the move was “particularly wrenching” for Warren Wilson, which places a priority on on-campus work and community engagement, in addition to education.
“We are such a community,” said Morton. “We’re a work college, so our students work on our campus, side-by-side, with faculty staff. So for us to tell our students that they had to leave this campus, which for many of us feels like home, and send them to places in the country that had a lot more cases of COVID-19 than we had in Wester North Carolina, was really tough.”
Students were asked to leave the campus by March 20.
“Some of our students needed financial assistance to get home because, of course, they hadn’t planned for this,” Morton said. “We have a fund that we draw from in emergencies, so we were able to help the students who needed it.”
Approximately 35 students, unable to return home, remain on the campus in hardship housing during the closure.
“We are adhering to all of the county’s guidelines for social distancing and those students are receiving take-out meals from our meal provider for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Morton said. “They are spaced out in an apartment-style residence hall.”
Warren Wilson College closed its 1,100-acre campus in March, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtesy Warren Wilson College
One immediate impact of closing the campus was an unprecedented request for prorated refunds on room and board for Warren Wilson students.
“Eighty percent of our operating budget comes from room, board and tuition,” Morton said. “So for us, this represented a $1 to $1.2 million hit to our budget. We really needed to be responsible and thoughtful about that decision, and we decided that, even though it would be a financial hit to us, it was the right thing to give refunds for room and board. We also offered students the option to take the refund as a credit toward next year.”
While the college is touted for its hands-on approach to education, faculty and staff have found creative ways to adapt to a remote learning environment.
“Our faculty turned on a dime,” Morton said. “What we typically do is centered around experiential learning, it’s what our programs are based on. We had no way of knowing how fast our staff would adapt to a new modality of learning, but I have been completely blown away by the originality, creativity and hard work that’s gone into our faculty taking their classes from experiential learning to an online platform in just a matter of days.”
The 330-acre farm, maintained by the college since its founding as the Asheville Farm School in 1894, has remained operational during the crisis.
“A lot of people have been worried about that,” Morton said. “We’ve had as many questions about the farm and the animals as we’ve had about almost anything else.”
Farm manager Blair Thompson and a crew of nine students, many of whom worked on the farm crew and remained on campus in hardship housing, continue to operate the Warren Wilson College Farm, which includes a pre-veterinary program.
“Our Dean of Land Resources Dave Ellum has played an extremely important role in keeping all of our land functions running,” Morton said.
As the college looks to the future, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, both short-term and long-term challenges are on the horizon.
In the near future, the college will honor graduates with an online ceremony on May 9, with students unable to return to campus for the annual tradition.
“This is hard, particularly for our seniors,” Morton said. “We’re putting together a virtual commencement, but for them, it’s not going to be the commencement they thought they were going to have. We’re also looking into doing something later where they can actually walk, but we don’t know for sure about a timeline for that.”
Looking into the future, the financial concerns for Warren Wilson are “significant,” according to Morton.
“Clearly, for every college, enrollment is a huge concern,” she said. “We have no way of knowing where this will all go. We don’t know if students will want to stay closer to home or whether our incoming class will defer admission until things settle down.”
As the threat of the virus continues to linger, Morton believes that the future will “probably not be business as usual” for many colleges, including Warren Wilson.
“But, I would also say that there is opportunity in that,” she said. “In higher education we sometimes get into doing things the way we’ve always done them. I think it’s pretty clear to everyone in higher education right now that that will not work for us; we’re going to have to adapt to rapidly changing situations.”