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Author Biography

Shmuel Shenhav is Head of the Graduate School of Education at Michlalah Jerusalem College, in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, Israel, Head of the Avney Rosha Program for the training of school leaders in the Israel Ministry of Education, and Head of the National-Religious Center for Leadership in Israel. He served as a school principal for many years. He is a national speaker on issues related to educational leadership and has published in journals such as the International Journal of Educational Reform. shenhav@huji.ac.il

Abstract

I knew that serving as an administrator-leader is challenging under any circumstance. However, grappling with an almost unforeseen crisis tested my endurance and commitment to new levels. I am honored to serve as a college administrator overseeing four different master's degree programs at Michlala Jerusalem College. I soon realized that there was a need for a new kind of pedagogical leadership as the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. The need for college administrators and instructors to remain "agile" to adapt to the challenges of moving instruction online was apparent. So I utilized practitioner inquiry as my approach to conducting this study because it was best-suited to allow reflection in-and-on action. My study, based in Israel in a religious Jewish college, aimed to ascertain the degree to which college faculty were able to transition to online instruction and how well administrators managed the crisis in terms of supporting instruction. Findings indicate the enormous challenges instructors experienced as well as the attempts by the administration to address the sudden crisis. The major contribution of this study is to indicate ways any school administration needs to grapple with intractable, often unforeseen crises.

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