Practicing Care-Centered Leadership in a Pandemic: Narratives and Notes on Care Ethics Experiences and Practices in Extraordinary Times

Oct 15, 2026

This case explores experiences of practicing care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. It presents an anonymized narrative of responding with care ethics to pandemic challenges and navigating the complexity of transitioning into a new leadership role in 2020. Teaching notes and activities prompt readers to consider how pandemic-enabled compassion for students can be sustained afterward, how flexibility in teaching and learning modalities might persist, and how the crisis enables critical examination of educational leadership practices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Case Narrative

A Pandemic Begins

Towards a Practice of Care-centered Leadership in a Pandemic

Practicing Care-Centered Leadership in a Pandemic: Narratives and Notes on Care Ethics Experiences and Practices in Extraordinary Times Christie Schultz University of Regina Abstract This case explores experiences of practicing care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case narrative is the author’s anonymized account of responding with care ethics to specific challenges encountered during the pandemic and the complexities of transitioning into a new leadership role in 2020. The teaching notes and activities invite readers to consider the ways in which care-centered leadership practices might continue beyond pandemic times by asking: In what ways might pandemic-enabled compassion for students be sustained post-pandemic; in what ways might flexibility for teaching and learning modalities persist; and how has this crisis offered an opportunity to critically examine the ways in which we lead in educational settings? Keywords: Care ethics, higher education, educational administration, leadership, pandemic Case Narrative A Pandemic Begins On the heels of nearly two decades working at her alma mater in increasingly senior roles, in February 2020, Lee accepted a decanal position leading a university continuing education academic unit at anew-to-her university in a new-to-her province. By the beginning of March 2020, Lee was beginning to prepare for the transition that would take place over the summer months, meeting colleagues at the new institution, preparing a transition plan for the work that she was leaving, and completing a dissertation on the experiences and practices of care-centered leadership in higher education. In the midst of this transition, on Thursday, March 12, 2020, everything changed. Even though Lee had been reading everything she could about COVID-19 for weeks, connecting regularly with a friend in Barcelona as if those stories were a glimpse into the future, the turning point still caught Lee off guard. On March 11, the National Basketball Association (NBA) cancelled its season. The morning of March 12, Lee met with her Faculty colleagues in anticipation of some kind of change at her university, but without knowing what direction would come from central administration. That afternoon, Lee invited the instructional designers and eLearning specialists on her team to make sure they had everything they would need to work from home immediately, to buy the software they would need for their home computers right away, just in case. That evening, Lee shared a glass of wine with a colleague at a restaurant and they hugged before parting. And that night, in the wee hours, the university cancelled all in-person classes effective Friday, March 13. And with that decision, Lee experienced the pandemic’s beginning. Like many working in education, the early days of the pandemic were very long days as Lee worked to transition from a face-to-face world to an online one, figuring out what to say to students, instructorsand teachers, and colleagues. She felt like she knew what to do, what her small part of the immediate response needed to be. Like many, Lee’s focus was on the tasks at hand, working with the faint hope that the pandemic might be a two-week problem, but expecting the possibility of something much worse. Thoughts of Lee’s research lingered as a backdrop to her experience. She wondered how practicing care ethics might guide her decisions—and if she could live the care ethics she had been drawn to as a researcher—when called to make very real and very difficult pandemic-driven decisions. Towards a Practice of Care-centered Leadership in a Pandemic When Lee first encountered Nel Noddings’ work and the idea of care ethics in education (Noddings, 2013/1984), she wondered if care ethics could be at home in leadership practice too, much as care ethics had found a home in teaching practice. She wondered if (and how) it would even be possible that leaders in higher education settings mig

FAQs

What is the main focus of this case about care-centered leadership?

The case examines experiences of practicing care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, using care ethics to respond to challenges and leadership transition complexities in 2020.

How does the narrative describe the beginning of the pandemic for the protagonist?

It recounts a leadership transition in early 2020 that rapidly changed when COVID-19 triggers cancellations of in-person classes, forcing an immediate shift from face-to-face to online work and teaching.

What challenges does the case highlight in living care ethics during the pandemic?

As organizational context shifts—especially with funding cuts—she must deliver difficult decisions like layoffs and non-renewal of contracts, balancing personal responsibility with the non-negotiable nature of the system’s actions.

Oct 15, 2026

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