In this thematic area, participants explored wayfinding, writing in letters and discussing in interviews things like:
- “How did I lose my way?”
- “How do you ‘protect your peace’?”
- “I have my moral compass.”
- “I need to find my way back to….”
Specifically, participants reflected back in time to question how to realize imagined futures in–and departures from–academe. It seemed these reflections and projections trended in relation to the length of time in the professoriate. Futures were topics of hope and daydreaming for some (retirement, new careers, future leadership). In addition, participants anticipated difficulty and having to keep one’s head down to focus on what one can control, given the current state of higher education and other political threats.
Futures that imagined staying in academia were focused on repair and transformation: repairing and undoing the harms participants experienced; and transforming cultures and structures to make academia culturally better in the short term and structurally changed in the future.
What would “structural care”–where self- and community care are built into assumptions of functioning–look like when it comes to our own departments and colleges?
Who will lead the way in organizing our field toward “a bigger yes”?
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