panel 25
Who Cares for Whom in Academia? Co-creating Cultures of Care In and Out of the Classroom
Who Cares for Whom in Academia? Co-creating Cultures of Care In and Out of the Classroom
This panel discussion, enriched by the unique perspectives of our diverse panel of academics from Brandon University, will delve into the theme of “co-creating cultures of care.” Through a cross-disciplinary exploration of the cultures and tensions of care within academia, we aim to shed light on how care manifests (or doesn’t) within academia and explore strategies to foster an environment where all can thrive. In this first stage of their collaborative research project, our panelists will engage in a dynamic dialogue that weaves across disciplinary boundaries, inviting attendees to reflect on the multifaceted nature of care within post-secondary education and the strategies that we use – not always successfully – to repair or alleviate some of the struggles and crises that affect our lives as educators and academics.
Dominique Hétu will guide us through an exploration of how the intersection of comparative literature and care ethics informs her teaching praxis. As she mobilizes the concept of “ordinary care” to reconfigure relationality in the classroom in a post-COVID era, her insights on the importance of interrogating and reimagining care structures to disrupt neoliberal university expectations and respond to teaching and learning changes are particularly timely and relevant.
Sheika Henry will explore the intersection of ethics and care within higher education institutions. Drawing from Nel Noddings' framework of care ethics, Sheika advocates for a reevaluation of the role of caregivers within universities, emphasizing the need for greater recognition and support for those tasked with providing care to students, particularly considering challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As educators navigate the complexities of balancing caregiving responsibilities with professional advancement, Sheika highlights the disparity between the value placed on care and other academic pursuits, calling for a reevaluation of institutional priorities to incorporate an ethics of care into the operational mandate of universities.
Michelle Lam will delve into the complexities of institutional systems and the tensions they create within academia. Drawing inspiration from UA Fanthorpe’s poem, Atlas (1995), and against the backdrop of challenges such as settler colonialism, economic upheavals, climate crisis, and the aftermath of the pandemic, she will underscore the urgency of learning to embrace this form of love to co-create environments of care.
Lastly, Gretta Sayers will contribute her expertise in exploring how learning with kindness, vulnerability, and empathy can create a culture of care in a first-year undergraduate music theory course. Dr. Sayers will describe her adaptation of pedagogy to foster a culture of care in a first-year undergraduate music theory course. Recognizing the challenges students face in their transition to university, she emphasizes the importance of creating a supportive environment that addresses their emotional well-being and sense of belonging. Through self-reflection and ongoing dialogue, she aims to cocreate trust and foster a community of care within the classroom, acknowledging the increased burden of support often placed on instructors in small institutions with limited resources.
A Praxis of Ordinary Care: Teaching Voice and Language through Hospitable Classroom Relations
Dominique Hétu
In this paper, I will examine how my research work at the intersection of comparative literature and care ethics informs my teaching praxis, which I do in an anglophone university’s department of francophone studies and languages. Informed by care and ordinary ethics and politics, I will discuss the “co-shaping motion” created at the interaction of literature, care, and pedagogy by reflecting on teaching and learning strategies developed to reinforce accountability, responsibility (responseability), and agentic engagement. Drawing on the work of thinkers whose critical ideas illuminate and confront different experiences and cultures of violence and vulnerability, such as bell hooks, Christina Sharpe, Carol Gilligan, Naïma Hamrouni, Sandra Laugier, and Veena Das, I am interested in further understanding the ethics and politics of collective care in plurilingual spaces that can help mitigate – through a pedagogical lens in my context of second-language acquisition in a minority setting – the effects of marginalization, isolation, and lack of voice. Regarding the power dynamics and structures that shape relations in the classroom, I argue that this pedagogy of ordinary care helps disrupt neoliberal university expectations and respond to post-COVID teaching and learning changes. Regarding disciplinary competencies, I notice that this pedagogy helps destigmatize struggles associated with additional-language acquisition and serves as a valuable catalyst for critical thinking and intellectual exploration by fostering an environment where students are seen in their particularity as individuals (hooks, 1994, p. 7) and where they encounter other lives that deserve to be seen in their particularity. Moreover, since the classroom should be a space of reciprocity, I will interrogate how this work is a constant reminder that “care is a shared risk” (Sharpe, 2023, p. 325): implementing a praxis of ordinary care in the language and literature classroom also brings the question of how I can embody care and vulnerability in my relationships with students and others who contribute to our situated experience, such as guest speakers and authors. Informed by literary and cultural studies, this praxis of ordinary care, as I intend to show, allows for more open, inclusive, and hospitable communication, which in turn seems to facilitate, through this co-creation of a culture of care – the disruption of educational and intercultural injustices.
References
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom, Routledge.
Sharpe, C. (2023). Ordinary notes. Knopf.
Dr. Dominique Hétu (she/her) is a bilingual Canadian (French-English) scholar trained in Canadian literatures who has been Assistant Professor in the Department of Francophone Studies and Languages since August 2020. Dr. Hétu is a specialist in comparative literary and cultural studies whose theoretical approach aligns with the concept of culture from below. She predominantly examines the functions and responses of contemporary literary and cultural production in Quebec and Canada to interpersonal and sociopolitical struggles, focusing on vulnerability narratives, poetics of care, and representations of belonging, responsibility, and relationality, critical notions for thinking through minoritized and vulnerable experiences, as well as for teaching a language such as French in a minority setting.
Exploring the Frontiers of an “Ethics of Care” in Higher Educational Institutions:
Challenges and Opportunities
Sheika Henry
In this discourse, I apply an “ethics of care” viewpoint through the lens of Nel Noddings (2013) to discuss care within higher educational institutions and its implications on productivity, in order to advocate for new considerations for caregivers in the promotion and enhancement of care at the university level. The type of care being referenced in this discussion is based on the action-oriented character of care ethics and describes care as “consisting of performed acts that promote the wellbeing and flourishing of others and ourselves based on knowledge and responsiveness to the one cared for” (Hamington, 2019, p. 92). As higher educational entities become more institutionalized, there is a need to provide care for students with learning disabilities and for those who face barriers that can hinder the successful completion of their studies. These challenges have been exacerbated following the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacts successful learning outcomes (Moghimi et al., 2023). Consequently, educators are often tasked with the selfless responsibility of providing care beyond their call of duty to students while ensuring they fulfill the mandate for professional advancement. However, care is not always “valued” the same as research and other professional opportunities. As such, a commensurate level of reward is not always reciprocated to caregivers in the professional advancement at universities. The frontier in the “ethics of care” is froth with unknowns in relation to higher educational institutions. This means that priorities must be given to the design and development of pathways for incorporating the “ethics of care” into the operational mandate of institutions. The end goal here is to institutionalize a culture of care that is ethically inclusive and value-added. Furthermore, the notion of ‘ethics of care’ and implicit inclusivity and advocacy for diversity is consistent with the equity, diversity and inclusivity mandate being pursued by higher educational institutions across Canada.
References
Hamington, M. (2019). Integrating care ethics and design thinking. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(1), 91-103.
Hamington, M. (2012). A performative approach to teaching care ethics: A case study. Feminist Teacher, 23(1), 31-49. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.23.1.0031
Moghimi, E., Stephenson, C., Gutierrez, G. et al. (2023). Mental health challenges, treatment experiences, and care needs of post-secondary students: A cross-sectional mixed-methods study BMC Public Health, 23, 655. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15452-x
Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. University of California Press.
Pratesi, A. (2011). The productivity of care: Contextualizing care in situated interaction and shedding light on its latent purposes. Ethics and Social Welfare, 5(2), 123-137. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2011.571063
Dr. Sheika Henry (she/her) is an Assistant Professor on a two-year term position in the Department of Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies. Dr. Henry serves on the Master of Environment and Life Science (MELS) Committee in the Faculty of Science as well as on the BU President’s Anti-Racism Committee and has also served in a supervisory/advisory role for both graduate and undergraduate students at BU and Université de Moncton. Dr. Henry has taught at the secondary and university levels and received a BU Research Committee (BURC) New Researcher Award. She has also received a European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholarship and an Organization of American States (OAS) Scholarship.
The Kind of Love Called Maintenance: Exploring Tensions between Pedagogies of Care and Institutional Ideas about Success
Michelle Lam
Reflecting on UA Fanthorpe’s poem, Atlas (2018 [1995]), I examine the role of relational and institutional love, and how the permanently rickety elaborate structure of academia is upheld by this kind of care. I describe the precarity, demands, and damaging nature of current academic realities and cast a vision of an alternate academe guided by Fanthorpe’s description of love rather than arbitrary measures of success. Educating within, for, and against a milieu marked by the interwoven effects of settler colonialism’s violent erasures and ongoing injustices, economic turmoils of late-stage capitalism, a looming climate crisis, post-pandemic realities, and systems of formal education which continue to perpetrate spirit murder (Love, 2016) and soul wounds (Brooks, 2017), there is an urgency to learn the kind of love called maintenance to co-create a culture of care. Educating this way requires constant affirmation of the core values of love, care, dignity, and respect (Green et al., 2022), continued commitment to nourishing the other (Peck, 1978), and courage (hooks, 2001). I call for a shift from survivance to thrivance, which necessitates “working within the wound” (Palulis, 2002, p. 4), guiding us to a place where all can thrive. If, as philosopher Paul Tillich wrote, “Love is the drive towards the unity of the separated” (1954, p. 26), then love is the way to move a system predicated on competition towards collaboration, on separation towards interdisciplinarity, on rugged individualism and bootstrap mentality towards collective action and social justice.
References
Brooks, D. (2017). (Re)conceptualizing love: Moving towards a critical theory of love in education for social justice. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 6(3), 102-113. https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/handle/20.500.12876/52431
Fanthorpe, U. A. (2018 [1995]). Atlas. In William Sieghard (Ed.), The poetry pharmacy: Tried and true prescriptions for the heart, mind, and soul. Particular Books.
Green, K. L., Coles, J. A., Lyiscott, J. & Ohito, E. O. (2022). Pedagogies of care, dignity, love, and respect: An epistle to our future. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(3), 211–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2021.2023277
hooks, b. (2018). All about love: New visions. William Morrow Paperbacks.
Love, B. L. (2016). Anti-Black state violence, classroom edition: The spirit murdering of Black children. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 13(1), 22–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2016.1138258
Palulis, P. (2009). Geo-literacies in a strange land: Academic vagabonds provoking à pied. Educational Insights, 13(4), 1-13. https://einsights.ogpr.educ.ubc.ca/v13n04/articles/palulis/index.html
Peck, M. S. (1978). The road less traveled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth. Simon and Schuster.
Tillich, P. (1995). Love, power, and justice: Ontological analysis and ethical applications. Oxford University Press.
Dr. Michelle Lam (she/her) is a faculty member in the Curriculum and Pedagogy Department at BU and Director of the Centre for Applied Research and Education in Indigenous, Rural, and Remote Settings (BU CARES). Her research focuses on community education, rural migration, and antiracism. She has managed multiple federal funding grants and has single-authored and co-authored national and international publications on areas such as equity, ethics, positionality, and research methodology. She has also produced four anti-racism education films and is interested in arts-based research methodologies and innovative approaches to research and knowledge mobilization.
Learning with Kindness, Vulnerability, and Empathy: Creating a Culture of Care in a First-Year Undergraduate Music Theory Course
Gretta Sayers
I will describe how I have adapted my pedagogy in a first-year undergraduate music theory course to create a culture of care with and among students to mitigate some of the challenges faced by many in their first year of university. Undergraduate students often experience a mixture of excitement and overwhelm in their first year as they adjust to the expectations of post-secondary study while navigating their independence and new social contexts. Additionally, the transition to adulthood can prove especially challenging, and many are vulnerable to depressive, anxiety, or substance use disorders (Auerbach et al., 2018). Current undergraduate students are also dealing with the repercussions of their phone-based childhoods (Haidt, 2024) and the COVID-19 pandemic (Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, 2022), both of which have affected their mental and emotional well-being and subsequent preparedness for academic study. In recent years, I have observed undergraduate students increasingly struggle with personal development, individual and social identity, sense of belonging, and emotional regulation. The need for student support often outweighs availability, particularly at small institutions with limited resources, leaving instructors with an increased burden of care in the classroom. These practices begin with the instructor’s pedagogy of care and their ability to create trust with students (Pilato, 2018). Co-creating trust requires an inclusive classroom environment, which necessitates dismantling practices normally found in formal educational spaces that privilege one way of learning (Green et al., 2022). Studying music provides an opportunity to engage with care practices for young people, as music can help with emotional development and identity creation (Saarikallio & Skewes McFerran, 2022). It can also bridge the transition to academia through student-centered and inclusive classroom activities focusing on embodied listening with diverse repertoires. Through self-reflection, students report on how class activities affect their emotional well-being and sense of belonging throughout the course. Tensions of care in the classroom, experienced by instructors and students, are a product of the type of care students need, the instructor’s desire and ability to care for students, and how much the institution values care work.
References
Auerbach, R. P. et al. (2018). WHO World Mental Health Surveys International College Student Project: Prevalence and distribution of mental disorders. Journal of abnormal psychology, 127(7), 623-638. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000362
Haidt, J. (2024). The anxious generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. Penguin Press.
Saarikallio, S. & Skewes McFerran, K. (2022). Musical care in adolescence: Supporting healthy musical identities and uses of music. In N. Spiro & K. R. M. Sanfilippo (Eds), Collaborative insights: Interdisciplinary perspectives on musical care throughout the life course (pp. 71-85). Oxford University Press.
Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (2022). The new abnormal: Student mental health two years into COVID-19. https://www.casa-acae.com/the_new_abnormal_report
Dr. Gretta Sayers (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Aural Skills in the School of Music. Dr. Sayers’ research centers on music theory pedagogy and musical form and formal functions of Western Art Music composed around the turn of the twentieth century. She explores how formal functions, traditionally applied to tonal music, can be refined and adapted for post-tonal music. She also collaborates with a singer to explore how the language and tools of formal analysis can facilitate an embodied, physical experience in performance to help musicians bridge the gap between the intellectual and physical aspects of music making.
Location
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
Contact info Louis van den Hengel
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