Prioritising Wellbeing and Self-Care in Higher Education by Lemon, Narelle;

Short description:

This book illuminates international voices of those who feel empowered to do things differently in higher education, providing inspiration to those who are seeking guidance, reassurance or a beacon of hope.

Long description:

This book illuminates international voices of those who feel empowered to do things differently in higher education, providing inspiration to those who are seeking guidance, reassurance, or a beacon of hope.

Doing things differently comes with an awareness and curiosity to explore what can be. Increasingly, more and more professionals in higher education are choosing themselves, happiness, families, relationships, kindness, and compassion over arbitrary notions of institutional prestige, continuous pressure to overwork, and competitiveness with others. The chapters in this book do more than highlight flaws in the system, they call for proactive engagement in interrupting and reimagining what is broken. The authors share their own experiences as a way of encouraging readers to take small steps towards self-care, to notice their surroundings, and to embrace change as an empowering tool. The focus is on becoming the change we aspire to see, with a collective readiness to instigate positive transformations.

Sharing ambitious ideas to encourage change, this book is a valuable resource for those seeking to enhance their self-care and wellbeing in the higher education context, and for those seeking to engage with others in support of these efforts.

Table of Contents:

Part 1: The Setting 1. Rethinking Expectations in Academia: How Lowering Expectations of Ourselves and Others Improves Wellbeing 2. Laughter as survival, selfcare, solidarity, and resistance in academia 3. Queer visibility and self-care in academia: Exploring the contradictions of identity, activism and silence 4. Killing the Binary Part 2: Repositioning Learning and Teaching for Self and Others 5. Confronting failure as self-care: Critical honesty as a springboard for positive change in teaching and learning 6. Exploring belonging: Reflections on valuing lived experiences and centering healing in compassionate and meaningful interactions 7. Beware the awareness gap 8. Things Differently through the Lenses of Gestalt Philosophy and Practice-based Learning: A Hopeful Outlook on the Benefits of Co-creating with Students to Support Wellbeing in Higher Education 9. It’s about Place: Inside Indigenising the curriculum Part 3: Connection, Interconnection, and Companions 10. A meditation on the idea of heterotopia and the need for spaces of hope and possibility in higher education 11. How A Unique Student Fellowship Model Enables Proactive Wellbeing 12. Fostering an ecosystem of connection 13. A cat named Jiji: belonging, identity and navigating cultural displacement in academia Part 4: Emerging Researchers, Mentoring and Finding One's Self 14. Raising self-awareness by thinking beyond the boundary fence: Exploring the potential boundaries around international doctoral students 15. With awareness comes great power: Self-discovery and acceptance as strategies for thriving in academia 16. Does belonging affect wellbeing? A researcher experiences of transition from a conflict-affected country to Australia Part 5: Taking a Closer Look at Leadership 17. Leading with kindness: A self-care (and survival) way of being for an academic administrator 18. Expansive Leadership, Expansive Engagement: Two viewpoints on learning into spacious leading 19. Finding an equilibrium? Is that possible when you are thrown into leadership?