In spring of 2020, a global pandemic shifted American institutions of higher education into a crisis with unprecedented unknown information, guidelines that changed continuously, and impacted the personal and professional lives of students, faculty and staff. This study examined the relationships (1) between campus size, geographic setting, locus of control in Midwest and Mountain American higher educational institutions and their instructional mode in fall 2020, and (2) between those institutional characteristics and the number of reported campus COVID-19 cases in the fall of 2020. Using a multinomial logistic regression and a negative binomial regression with an estimated parameter dispersion, the study suggested that campus control and campus setting did relate to the instructional mode response. Campus size, instructional mode, and campus setting related to the number of COVID-19 cases in fall 2020. One major implication of the findings would be to include an evaluation of instructional mode and a consideration of a campus' size and location to impact a campus crisis response, specifically for COVID-19. Additionally, providing faculty support to overcome barriers found during COVID-19 is essential to the future planning for similar crises. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]