This presentation is a review and discussion of some of the crucial lessons we are learning from the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on global public health. How will we in the public health academic community contribute to addressing these challenges through our research, our teaching, and our engagement with policymakers and the public? Is it business as usual or do we ＂step up our game?＂ If the latter, what are our goals, and how should we reshape, re-frame and re-energize our three missions (research, education, community engagement) to achieve them? Importantly, what can we in academic public health do to connect ourselves better globally for coming public health challenges?