Join us for a special book release event and panel discussion celebrating the publication of The Pivot: One Pandemic, One University (Duke University Press, 2022), detailing how Duke University shifted everything to meet the challenges of the pandemic head-on.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented higher education with an unprecedented challenge: How could institutions continue the basic work of teaching and research while maintaining safe environments for their faculty, staff, and students? In The Pivot, Robert J. Bliwise interviews people across Duke’s campus: from bus drivers and vaccine researchers to student activists, dining hall managers, and professors in areas from English to ecology. He explores the shift to teaching online and the reshaping of research programs; how surveillance testing and reconfiguring residence halls and dining sites helped limit the virus spread on campus; the efforts to promote student well-being and to sustain extracurricular programs; and what the surge in COVID-19 cases meant for the university health system.

Although the pandemic put remarkable pressures on the campus community, Bliwise demonstrates that it ultimately reaffirmed the importance of the campus experience in all its richness and complexity.

Bliwise will be joined by three Duke faculty members profiled in the book, who will discuss teaching during the pandemic and lessons learned. Panelists include:

• Thomas J. Ferraro (Professor of English)
• Omid Safi (Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)
• Kristin Goss (Professor of Public Policy)

Copies of the book will be available for sale.

Co-sponsored by Duke University Press and Duke Learning Innovation.

About the Author

Robert J. Bliwise is Editor Emeritus of Duke Magazine, where he served as Editor for almost forty years.