Voices in Crisis: High-Salience Stakeholders’ Experiences and Perceptions of Communication During Educational Management Crisis

This paper investigates how important stakeholders (professors and students) were informed and updated about the 2016 IUP faculty and Staff Strike crisis. The paper employs a qualitative case study methodology in which a group of four participants, two professors, and two graduate students, were snowballed and interviewed in a semi-structured interview style. The paper sought to answer the following questions: How did the professors and students experience the strike, and how did they perceive the way IUP handled communication during the strike crisis? The participants’ responses were recorded, transcribed, and coded for analysis. The study’s findings were reported in nine themes that show the nuanced and multifaceted dimensions of the experiences and perceptions of the participants, showing the dynamics at play during this critical period. This study provides a comprehensive analysis that contributes to the broader discourse on crisis communication in university settings, emphasizing the importance of stakeholders’ perspectives and experiences in shaping effective crisis communication strategies.