Stephen Taksar, Westfield State’s vice president for administration and finance, served as a panelist at a Dec. 3 remote discussion titled “The Future of Learning,” offered by global architectural firm Perkins&Will.
He and his fellow panelists—who represented Brown University, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Wentworth Institute of Technology—spoke about how higher education institutions are adapting to changes necessitated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and how the education industry will continue to transform.
“[At the beginning of the pandemic], at Westfield State, we gathered people together who might not normally interact to form our strategic direction over the next 12-to-18 months,” he shared with the panelists and remote attendees. “We formed a 26-person committee [Safe Fall Opening Task Force], which is quite large, but it’s also indicative of the collaboration we are trying to initiate to deal with the issues that have surfaced in the last nine months. So I think, for us, it’s a strategy to overcome the silo-ization of higher education by bringing everyone together, being honest about the issues, and, collectively, providing a direction to the campus for the future.”