Cultures of Care in Higher Education – 11th June 2021

Cultures of Care in Higher Education was our launching event for the programme.

11^th June, 2.00-4.30pm (online)

How do we care at work? What part does recognition play and how are systems of recognition embedded to create an organisational culture of care? This gathering will consider how to generate, nourish and sustain cultures of care at work. The focus is Higher Education, but case studies are drawn from diverse fields. Part reflection on the overwhelm which is being experienced in Higher Education and other areas as a result of the pandemic, and part forum for blue-sky thinking, this event is for all who care about people and the organisations and cultures we create.

Format of the event

Introduction to Cultures of Care            Prof Nick Wilson (CMCI)

Part 1:  Learning from practice 

The Care Manifesto      Dr Jamie Hakim (CMCI) and The Care Collective

The Care Manifesto puts care at the heart of the debates of our current crisis: from intimate care, childcare, healthcare, elder care, to care for the natural world. The authors want to reimagine the role of care in our everyday lives, making it the organising principle in every dimension and at every scale of life. Jamie and colleagues will introduce and discuss the manifesto, arguing that we must put care at the heart of the state and the economy.

Chiltern Music Therapy                         Jessica Atkinson (CMCI PhD) and Rosie Axon (Director)

Jessica and Rosie, from Chiltern Music Therapy, will respond to the question: How do we create, sustain and allow to thrive a culture of care in a non-profit social interest music therapy company? This will include a focus on creating a pathway of caring, developing an ethic and culture of care, and exploring issues of integrity (undividedness).

We’re trying to do things differently     Freya Aquarone and Laura Nehéz-Posony (Education, Communication & Society)

We’re trying to do things differently: the challenges of relationships and recognition in higher education was co-authored in 2020 by Freya Aquarone (Education) and a group of students from the BA Social Sciences programme – a relatively new programme with an ethos grounded in relationships of care, and student-staff partnership. In this session Freya and Laura (two of the co-authors) will share insights, including as they relate to emotional care, and engaged pedagogy, the role and limits of free speech in the classroom, and how to deconstruct enduring currents of inequality and marginalisation.

Part 2: Reflections

In this second part we will hear from three sets of respondents on what they have heard and how this relates to their own experiences of developing cultures of care in Higher Education:

Centre for Humanities & Health                         Prof Patrick ffrench (French) and Prof Neil Vickers (English)

Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Creative Economies           Dr Tamsyn Dent (CMCI), Dr Jonathan Gross (CMCI) & Dr Roberta Comunian (CMCI)

Arts Health & Wellbeing                                    Nikki Crane (King’s)

Part 3: Open discussion

In the final part of the gathering we invite all participants to share ideas, thoughts and views on cultures of care in Higher Education. A guiding question is ‘how do we (better) care at work?’

Issues discussed in this Cultures of Care in Higher Education gathering will be collated and written up in a report after the event and shared on the project website: www.culturesofcare.com.