Making the Grade during Pandemic: Early-stage and Late-stage Provisional Institutions. (October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kinney, Alexander B.; Rowland, Nicholas J.
• Other Names: Davis Andrew P. guest-editor.; Rambotti Simone guest-editor.; Hill Terrence D. guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Sociological perspectives. Volume 64:Number 5(2021)
• Page Start: 1012
• Page End: 1031
• Publication Date: 2021-10
• Subjects: provisional institutions -- COVID-19 -- shared governance -- halfway technology -- team-based methods; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.1177/07311214211028616
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0731-1214

Abstract

This is an article that draws on the institutional work literature about provisional institutions. To date, nearly every U.S. sector has been impacted by COVID-19. To sustain their core missions, highly institutionalized organizations such as universities have had to rethink foundational structures and policies. Using a historical ethnographic approach to investigate records from faculty senate deliberations at "Rural State University" (RSU), the authors examine the implementation of a temporary grading policy to supplement traditional, qualitative grades spring 2020 during the outbreak. The authors find that RSU implemented a temporary, supplemental grading policy as a provisional institution to momentarily supersede traditional grading as a means to—as soon as possible—return to it. This finding contrasts with the common understanding that provisional institutions operate primarily as a temporary solution to a social problem that leads to more stable and enduring, ostensibly nonprovisional institutions. The temporary grading policy, the authors argue, constitutes a "late-stage" provisional institution and, with this new lens, subsequently characterize the more commonplace understanding of provisional institutions as "early-stage." This contribution has theoretical implications for studies of institutions and empirical implications for research on shared governance and disruption in higher education.