Towards The Compassionate University

This book makes a significant contribution to the need for compassion in the 21st-century neoliberal university. Compassion is a process that involves (i) noticing that suffering is present in an organization; (ii) making meaning of suffering in a way that contributes to a desire to alleviate it; (iii) feeling empathic concern; and (iv) taking action. There is increasing recognition of the crucial role of compassion as a core concern in education, health and social care, and globally to ensure the future sustainability of humankind and the planet. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary, theoretical, and professional perspectives—including social sciences, modern Darwinism, intersectionality, higher education policy, and organization studies—the book addresses the key challenges facing 21st-century universities. For example, intersectionality and higher education, staff and student health and well-being, and responding to global challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic. The book is relevant to university leaders, policy makers, educators, researchers, university staff, and students aspiring to develop their own understanding of the role of compassion in professional life. It is an important marker of the compassion turn in higher education and what this means for contemporary academic leadership, followership, and pedagogical practice.

This book examines the role of compassion in refiguring the university. Plotting a reimagining of the university through care, other-regard, and a commitment to act in response to the suffering of others, the author draws on various humanities disciplines to illuminate the potential of compassion in the campus. The book asks how the sector can reclaim the university from the tides of neoliberalism, inequalities and increased workloads, and which moral principles and competencies would need to be championed and instilled to build inclusive citizenship and positive connection with others. A value that is too scarcely taught, experienced, or advocated in contexts of higher education, compassion is reframed as an essential pillar of the university and a means to an epistemically just campus and curricula.

This book offers a moral rather than instrumental notion of university education whilst locating the university within society. It reflects a balancing of the instrumentalization of higher education as a mode of employment training and enhances the notion of the students’ well-being being at the core of the university mission. Compassion is examined in this volume as a weaving of diverse cultures and beliefs into a way of recognizing that diversity through a common good offers a way of preparing students and staff for a complex and anxious world. This book provides theoretical and practical discussions of compassion in higher education, it draws contributors from around the world and offers illustrations of compassion in action through a number of international cases studies..

Already Ready For What Will Come - SEL For A Culture Of Care Is your school prepared to care for all of the students, staff, and families in your community? Sadly, your school might be the only point of care for many. Be already ready--Establish a compassionate cultural foundation for strong relationships and holistic skills to weather stress, trauma, and promote well-being for your entire school population. Help your school or district use available resources to create a compassionate culture of justice and care for all by leaning into this book’s approach to leadership and social emotional learning. Discover a collaborative visioning process to elevate compassion through dialogue, policies, and protocol. Readers will find: Practical strategies for working with parents and communities Activities for the whole school An implementation framework for elementary, middle, and high school Deeper understanding of trauma, ACEs, and mental health concerns Support for teachers’ mental health What not to do – practices that don’t work, and why In-depth case studies and vignettes Read this and usher in transformational and compassionate change that may be the difference in whatever today, tomorrow, or the next day may bring.

In Compassionate Leadership for School Belonging, Kathryn Riley draws on 40 years of international research and professional practice to show how schools can be places of safety and fulfilment, even in the most difficult of circumstances. When belonging is a school’s guiding principle, more young people at all levels experience a sense of connectedness and friendship, perform better academically, and come to believe in themselves; their teachers feel more professionally fulfilled, their families more accepted. The originality of this highly readable book lies in its scope. It offers international analysis from the OECD alongside insights from the author’s extensive research in schools, powerfully supported by observational vignettes and drawings from the children, young people and teachers who have been her co-researchers. The book reveals patterns of dislocation, disaffection and exclusion, and highlights the points of intervention in policy and practice needed across school systems to create the conditions for school belonging. The methodologies, concepts and research tools offered can be used by practitioners and researchers in their own contexts, and to guide school leaders towards creating their own places of belonging. This is an urgent book of hope, offering knowledge so that schools can open up possibilities to all children and young people in an increasingly uncertain world.

This book explores the importance of compassion and empathy within educational contexts. While compassion and empathy are widely recognised as key to living a happy and healthy life, there is little written about how these qualities can be taught to children and young people, or how teachers can model these traits in their own practice. This book shares several models of compassion and empathy that can be implemented in schooling contexts, also examining how these qualities are presented in children’s picture books, films and games. The editors and contributors share personal insights and practical approaches to improve both awareness and use of compassionate and empathetic approaches to others. This book will be of interest and value to all those interested in promoting compassion and empathy within education.

This collection addresses intersections and gaps between practice, theory, and research that both connect and divide compassion and pedagogies. In foregrounding practice, it makes an important contribution to the growing call for universities and educators to adopt inclusive student-centred approaches that challenge us to fundamentally re-think what universities do. It celebrates the role of students as co-creators of knowledge, locating them at the heart of what pedagogies of compassion in higher education should feel like and look like. It examines how compassion can become both critical and strategic in order to disrupt systems and orthodoxies that are no longer fit for purpose in a post-pandemic world. The ultimate goal the book aims to address is the need for humane universities driven by compassion, rather than profit, which can help to build fairer and more socially just societies. The book extends the theoretical and practical discussions of compassion as a fundamental organizing principle in higher education. It brings fresh interdisciplinary thinking, theories and approaches including the neuroscience of compassion, classical Eastern philosophies, intersectional compassion, sustainability, and environmental stewardship. It also includes critical reflection on experiences, challenges, barriers, and enablers, across multiple levels and perspectives. These range from reflections on compassion in the classroom to compassion in the boardroom, as well as in the many other spaces and places where learning occurs. It offers a creative collection of essays on compassionate practices in higher education, and appeals to anyone who is concerned about the moral standing of the university. ‘For some time now, we have been told that universities must be viewed on the business model, but this has only discouraged faculty, students and staff. As the contributors show, however, the very idea that teaching and educational practices could be more closely linked to compassion is definitely appealing, and it gives us a more inspiring way of thinking about the university of the future.’ Richard J. White, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA

While American colleges and universities are unparalleled in their ability to produce disciplinary-based knowledge through research and scholarship, their ability to encourage students to use the information and methods about which they are learning to create positive social change has lagged. Aware of the magnitude of today's global issues and dissatisfied with the current disparity between the world's reality and university curricula, scholars have begun to re-imagine the role of higher education in forming the leaders who will face our most pressing problems. Founded to provide education integrated with the formation of values, a significant number of Catholic colleges and universities claim the cultivation of compassion as a primary purpose. The mission statements of such institutions frequently reference goals such as "preparing leaders dedicated to compassionate service" (University of San Diego, 2004). The ambition of such statements, however, is unmatched by a rigorous examination of the reality of those objectives. Despite the massive amounts of research conducted on the impact of college on students, almost no empirical work has been done on whether students grow in compassion. Therefore, this explanatory sequential mixed methods study investigated whether University of San Diego undergraduates demonstrated change in compassion across their first two years of study. This study found that the majority of USD students do change in compassion during their first two undergraduate years, but not all in the preferred direction. While half of the students demonstrated an increase in compassion, 35% decreased in compassion and another 15% remained unchanged. Regression analyses established that community service and immersion trips were associated with an increase in compassion while Greek life and community service-learning were associated with a decrease in compassion. Student interviews revealed the importance of, among other facets of university life, campus involvement, community service experience, peer influences, financial pressures, and disorientating experiences. These results extend the work already done on how college affects students by focusing on a heretofore under-examined construct - compassion. This research also contributes to an improved understanding of how universities might better structure their co-curricular offerings in order to achieve their goal of cultivating compassion in their students.

This book makes a defence of compassion as an essential and significant quality that should be at the heart of the education of young people. It provides a careful exploration of what compassion means; how it is relevant to the various relationships among students, teachers, and the wider community; and the particular pedagogical processes that can and might develop compassion. Understanding and justifying compassion as a virtue, this book argues that compassion is a virtue central to all human relationships from the familial, to the communal and to the global. It will be of interest to academics, research and students of education.

Compassionate Music Teaching provides a framework for music teaching in the 21st century by outlining qualities, skills, and approaches to meet the needs of a unique and increasingly diverse generation of students. The text focuses on how six qualities of compassion (trust, empathy, patience, inclusion, community, and authentic connection) have made an impact in human lives, and how these qualities might relate to the practices of caring and committed music teachers. This book bridges the worlds of research and practice, discussing cutting-edge topics while also offering practical strategies that can be used immediately in music studios and classrooms. Each chapter is addressed from multiple perspectives, including: research in music, education, psychology, sociology, and related fields; insights from various students and teachers across the United States; and an in-depth study of five music teachers who represent a broad range of genres, student ages, and pedagogical approaches. The book is dedicated to exploring those conditions that help students not only to learn, but also to grow, thrive, and freely express—and become compassionate musicians, teachers, performers, and people as well.