1st Edition
Reflections on Valuing Wellbeing in Higher Education Reforming our Acts of Self-care
This book focuses on the lived experiences of higher education professionals working in the face of stress, pressure and the threat of burnout and how acts of self-care and wellbeing can support, develop and maintain a sense of self.
In considering the place of self-care in higher education, we are challenged with the tension that exists when it comes to the valuing of self-care and our individual and collective wellbeing. In Reflections on Valuing Wellbeing in Higher Education, authors present and explore the ways in which they manage and reframe their wellbeing and self-care, through mindfulness, compassion, connection to breath, ref lection, demonstrating individual and collective embodiment and resistance to neoliberalism and environmental destruction. Covering various contexts of higher education, such as learning and teaching, research, leadership and engagement, this book offers practical strategies grounded in literature and evidence-based research.
The self in self-care is relational. It is not just about self. We need others for inspiration, motivation and, indeed, the act. This book will be of great interest to professionals and researchers specifically interested in studies in higher education, wellbeing and/or identity as well as those navigating a career in higher education.
1. Reforming our acts of self-care in higher education: Developing a sense of self individually and collectively
Narelle Lemon
Section 1: Being present and non-judgmentally aware of self-care
2. Yoga and the Contemplative Path: Placing Meaning at the Centre of Self-Care and Wellbeing in University Life
Ajit Pyati
3. Finding the Spaces In Between
Marni J. Binder
4. Wellbeing through self-reflexivity: Understanding our underlying motivations, gratitude, strength identification and support.
Anuja Cabraal
5. Self-care and environmentalism: Finding a socially-just balance as an early career social work researcher
Michelle Newcomb
6. Tales from the soft play fifth shift: mother, teacher, mentor, academic and student
Aimee Quickfall
7. A community of practice-educators as self-care: a sustainable strategy for both academic and practitioners alike
Mim Fox
Section 2: Awareness in caring for self and others
8. A systems pathway to self-care in academia: Me, We, and Us as avenues to integrated long-term self-care
Rebecca J. Jarden and Aaron Jarden
9. Cultivating whole-heartedness in the academy during a time of COVID: Insights from/within an inter-collegial friendship
Monica Green and Sherie McClam
10. Peer reviewing journal articles: A duoethnographic exploration of emotion in the digitalised space
Kay Hammond and Narelle Lemon
11. Finding an audience who care: Examining research crowdfunding through a lens of self-care
Jonathan O'Donnell
12. "Ding!" Co-creating wellbeing in a Friday online research writing group
Kay Hammond, Julie Trafford, Amira Hassouna, Ljiljana Jowett, Amanda Lees, Patricia Lucas, Nicola Power and Caroline Stretton
Biography
Narelle Lemon is an interdisciplinary researcher in the fi elds of education, positive psychology and arts, holding the positions of associate professor in education and associate dean (education) for the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.
