Adventures in Academe
In her final column for University Affairs, Dr. Riddell asks, how do we restore balance in higher education? We need to listen.
Together we can transform for the better if we can model purposefulness and empathy – and avoid saying everything is great when it isn’t.
It’s never been more urgent for students to learn how to harness the power of persuasion as a force for good.
There’s much to admire in Canada’s higher education system, but we can do so much better.
Audience members, like students, are key participants and crucial collaborators, not merely passive consumers.
The term is ubiquitous in university mission statements, but students seem to understand it differently than we do.
Perpetuating such a myth downplays the value of discipline, energy and effort.
Disruption does not occur without dissonance. The more disruptive the idea, the higher the likelihood of significant disturbance.
Normalizing failure without taking a hard look at the system within which it happens may do more harm than good.
Chaucer’s Arthurian story, The Wife of Bath’s Tale – with its governance model based on a roundtable – offers us a tantalizing clue on how to frame the issue.
As academics, we grapple with failure all the time and in a myriad of ways.
A postdoctoral teaching fellowship could be part of a multi-pronged approach to combatting increasingly challenging working conditions.
The saviour trope versus critical hope.
We do not pretend that there is a singular answer or indivisible truth. Instead, we must embrace complexity.
How students respond to failure is a strong predictor of future success.
“Encountering different voices singing different tunes has the potential to create new and powerful combinations.”
This fall I returned to teaching after a three-year hiatus. Two maternity leaves plus a sabbatical meant that, although I kept myself busy with other forms of scholarly activity, I had not stepped foot in a classroom for three years. That’s almost the lifespan of an undergraduate cohort, and in some ways the cultural imagery […]
When I was pregnant with my first child, I experienced the usual mix of delight and trepidation that comes with impending parenthood. However, I was also concerned with how my pregnancy might threaten to disrupt the professional identity I had so assiduously constructed for myself as a young, female professor in the early stages of […]
On faith, metrics and the neoliberal university.
Disciplinary experts have a responsibility to engage in nuanced thinking about teaching and learning.