Reflections on Valuing Wellbeing in Higher Education: Reforming Our Acts of Self-care

This book focuses on the lived experiences of higher education professionals working in the face of stress, pressure and the threat of burnout and how acts of self-care and wellbeing can support, develop and maintain a sense of self.

In considering the place of self-care in higher education, we are challenged with the tension that exists when it comes to the valuing of self-care and our individual and collective wellbeing. In Reflections on Valuing Wellbeing in Higher Education, authors present and explore the ways in which they manage and reframe their wellbeing and self-care, through mindfulness, compassion, connection to breath, ref lection, demonstrating individual and collective embodiment and resistance to neoliberalism and environmental destruction. Covering various contexts of higher education, such as learning and teaching, research, leadership and engagement, this book offers practical strategies grounded in literature and evidence-based research.

The self in self-care is relational. It is not just about self. We need others for inspiration, motivation and, indeed, the act. This book will be of great interest to professionals and researchers specifically interested in studies in higher education, wellbeing and/or identity as well as those navigating a career in higher education.

Narelle Lemon is an interdisciplinary researcher in the fi elds of education, positive psychology and arts, holding the positions of associate professor in education and associate dean (education) for the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.