Having your cake and eating it: Arden Universitys responses to the COVID-19 lockdowns

The Covid -19 pandemic has necessitated all universities to adapt their approaches to how they teach and support students; changes were made to the typical model of face-to-face interactions between students, their peers, their lecturers and support services, in physical spaces on university campuses. Some changes were immediate as face-to-face teaching and meeting with students in person was not permitted during the first lockdown. Other changes were put into place later on, when some easing of restrictions took place. Arden University, with its unique legacy as a distance learning institution that only in recent times has moved to offer face-to-face teaching alongside online learning, was theoretically well-placed to meet the challenges the pandemic presented. This chapter explores Arden's approach to a particular point in the pandemic-when some face-to-face teaching was possible, but within limits-to ensure students had the opportunity to continue to progress with their studies and to maximise our experience of the affordances and pitfalls of enabling a hybrid experience.