ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism is ubiquitous in higher education. In its dedication to efficiency and measurement, neoliberalism poses threats to the arts and humanities, especially their least measurable, most human qualities. Guided by an institutional logics framework, this multiple case study gauged how arts and humanities faculty can navigate this tension as they develop new academic majors and minors. Findings detail collaborative and top-down decision-making and the importance to faculty of supporting students and advancing academic fields. Faculty showed how they employed hybrid logics by striking balances and compartmentalizing actions. Their actions emphasized adaptations to neoliberalism while advancing academic and democratic logics.

ABSTRACT

How can we provide a quality student experience, cultivate human connections, and create learning and working environments in which all members of an institution can thrive? The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how the Appreciative Education theory-to-practice framework can help guide institutions in becoming Appreciative Campuses by providing a fully human-centered approach for rehumanizing, recentering, and reinvigorating college campuses. We highlight the strides and strategies by which institutions may become Appreciative Campuses, to ultimately address postsecondary challenges through an intentional, human-centered approach.

ABSTRACT

This New Directions in Teaching and Learning issue has focused on rehumanizing higher education. Authors have highlighted a wide array of important topics that are relevant to ensuring the humanizing purposes of higher education are met by today's and tomorrow's colleges and universities. The author highlights reminds us that higher education is part of a larger system, including communities near and far that shape and are shaped by tertiary institutions. The author highlights central principles and practices (Mutuality, Asset-based, and Relationship Stewardship) that should inform humanizing work. The author highlights also includes an admonishment for members of the higher education communities to recognize and embrace the wisdom that exists outside of the ivory tower.

New Directions for Teaching and Learning, EarlyView.

ABSTRACT

This chapter responds to the recent crisis surrounding developments in large language models (LLMs) and generative AI with a relational view of education informed by the emerging world-centered approach to education and a synthesis of personalist character formation with feminist care ethics. It proposes that the instinct to manage student use of generative AI with carceral practices, characterized by surveillance and control, undermines the project of forming students as whole persons who can evaluate and use or reject emerging technologies in a mature way. The chapter concludes with practical suggestions for the classroom that can be aligned with institutional strategic plans.

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we reconcile vocationalist and humanist education by embracing pre-professional programs’ humanizing potential. Inspired by Freire and hooks’ critical praxes, we define “humanization” as facilitating mutual relationships and respect between people. We draw from our experiences as educators and clinical supervisors in pre-professional programs to build on Wendell Berry's notion of “work” as a humanizing endeavor. We offer concrete examples from our respective teaching practices in student affairs leadership and recreational therapy to reveal how our pedagogies invigorate professional competencies by emphasizing humanizing principles. We conclude by summarizing lessons learned as humanizing educators and offer suggestions for practice.

ABSTRACT

The push toward efficiency in higher education is occurring as increasing numbers of faculty and students are struggling with mental health concerns and the world appears progressively polarized. However, education, at its core, can foster hope and effect positive change. This chapter presents a pedagogy of authentic hope that relies on constructivist, community-engaged teaching. As students become involved in responding to community issues, they develop a first-hand understanding of societal issues that fosters self-efficacy. These experiences can ultimately inspire students to be aware that they are part of shared, collaborative efforts that have the potential to dramatically improve our societies.

ABSTRACT

Higher education institutions are facing challenging fiscal environments that require an examination of practices from the perspective of efficiency and effectiveness. While many institutions have taken similar approaches to resolving budgetary predicaments, examining the effect of these decisions on students should be one of the first considerations when evaluating a budget cut or shift in educational practice. This chapter explores the impact of extreme cost-cutting in the academy through a lens of dehumanization in an effort to identify the ways in which student learning and success are impacted. The chapter concludes with considerations for those in higher education leadership.

ABSTRACT

This article explores the response of higher education to the global refugee crisis, highlighting the notably low 6% enrollment rate for individuals with refugee backgrounds. We discuss the struggles of refugee students and trace the evolving support efforts by humanitarian and educational organizations. Recognizing the daunting task of identifying actionable steps in the face of extensive displacement, we introduce LCC International University in Europe as a model of effective engagement. We conclude that while policy frameworks are foundational, the real transformation within higher education stems from the actions of individuals, emphasizing the role of compassion in rehumanizing education.

ABSTRACT

Drawing from Scholarship of Teaching and Learning alongside belongingness research, this manuscript examines why students perceive the dependence of academic belonging on performance, especially early in an academic program. It then offers suggestions for crafting learning environments that (a) grow student capacities to (re-)envision perceptions of competence and (b) broaden student perceptions of sources that support their academic belonging. Suggestions provide possibilities for shifting students’ belonging-performance dependence to a belonging-competence mindset, thereby rehumanizing learning for students and facilitating welcoming, equitable, and learning-centered (vs. performance-centered) environments.

ABSTRACT

Deeper life interactions with students—which include conversations and relationships that occur around meaning, value, and purpose—have been shown to positively influence student success. The promotion of these interactions offers a dual-purpose: help retain students and impact the student experience beyond retention. In doing so, these interactions have a utilitarian purpose as well as a humanizing one. This chapter emphasizes the value of these interactions and explores opportunities for faculty to weave deeper life practices into their pedagogy in curricular and cocurricular spaces. Through deeper life interactions, faculty can more fully participate in rehumanizing the educational experience while helping their institutions flourish.

ABSTRACT

In late May 2022, 19 students and two adults were killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Weeks later, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision in the Dobbs case, turning abortion regulation back to state control. As instructors of a graduate level course on educational crises and emergency response and as residents of Texas, we grappled with academic expectations at the intersection of real-life crises unfolding in real-time. In this article, we write about the juxtaposition between planning and teaching a course about crises and emergencies and the humanism of going through these very crises alongside students.

ABSTRACT

This chapter uses critical perspectives on whiteness to critique higher education's institutional research practice. After briefly describing institutional research, we summarize scholarship about autonomy, ethics, and predictive analytics to illustrate how existing guidance and beliefs about institutional research often dehumanize students by neglecting critical considerations of oppressive systems, including racism. Universities collect and use data to shape students’ lives and experiences, yet without consideration of oppressive systems, existing guidelines, and scholarly recommendations often reinforce dehumanizing perspectives that maintain racialized inequities. This chapter contributes to ethics, privacy, and autonomy considerations by reframing assumptions about institutional data with critical attention to whiteness.