In Case of Emergency, Hope
The past few weeks have brought uncertainty to our work in higher education. While some manage changes to funding opportunities, others are advising students as they navigate through quickly changing future contexts. Uncertainty by definition means we are not sure what to expect of the future. What might come next? Naturally, for some of us in this situation, the answer is anxiety: we don’t know, but we can imagine some very negative possibilities. This way of thinking can compel us to shut down or hem ourselves in; we feel safer when we tighten the radius of what we know and can count on around us. What would happen, though, if in this situation we drove the opposite direction, leaning into uncertainty in search of hope? According to many scholars who study higher education, this is not only an option for us, but part of what higher education as an institution is built to do.
Neuroscientist and education researcher Mays Imad’s research on the impacts of trauma on learning was heavily circulated as higher education adjusted to the covid-19 pandemic. In a recent article for Inside Higher Ed, Imad (2024) points out that hope is a driver for students: “Hope is what keeps students moving forward, even in the face of uncertainty, and what allows them to imagine a different future for themselves and their communities” (para. 10). The role of educators is twofold: to provide the foothold students need to keep climbing toward their hoped-for futures, as well as stoke that hope through encouragement and support. In times of uncertainty, it can feel difficult if not disingenuous to do that second half of the work, as we may be low on energy as well as faith that those futures are possible. Historian and scholar of teaching and learning Kevin Gannon, who will visit UAF later this month, tells us that this is precisely when we should reach for hope. “Teaching is a radical act of hope,” he writes in his book, Radical Hope (2020). “It is an assertion of faith in a better future in an increasingly uncertain and fraught present. It is a commitment to that future even if we can’t clearly discern its shape” (p. 5).
Takeaways
- Uncertainty interrupts learning and research
- Hope helps educators and students maintain connection to values and one another
- Hope is a practice that identifies and builds toward alternative futures
While it may seem naive or at least unproductive to reach for hope rather than action plans or new strategic initiatives, the advantage of hope is that it does not require us to compromise our values or vision – in fact, it invites us to reconnect to those very things that drew us to higher education to begin with. Hope is not an alternative to strategy, design, or action. Rather, it is a starting point and vision that compels us to continually connect our strategic thinking and actions to the values we want to guide our futures. Mariame Kaba, an educator and justice movement leader had this to day in a podcast episode of The Intercept Briefing, “It’s work to be hopeful. It’s not a fuzzy feeling – you have to actually put in energy, time, and you have to be clear-eyed, and you have to hold fast to having a vision” (Scahill, 2021. 31m55s).
On that same podcast episode, the host asked Kaba about a quote that she often uses: “hope is a discipline” (Scahill, 2021. 30m59s). Kevin Gannon adapted this in his own work to “hope is embodied in practice” (Stachowiak, 2020, 3m55s) – specifically the practice of teaching in higher education. Not dissimilar to the Backwards Design framework, in which we design our courses by starting with articulating the “big ideas” of the discipline with which the course connects, the practice of hope begins with being clear about our values, why we are here, and then aligning our decisions as instructors back to those values. For example, how we design our courses, select materials, and engage with students and our surrounding community.
In addition to practicing hope in our courses and with our students, we can go further and adopt this perspective for the entire institution. David Staley, who studies the history of higher education, writes in Alternative universities: Speculative design for innovation in higher education, that “at its heart, the university exists to transform subjects – be they students or faculty – such that they leave the institution a different person than when they arrived” (Staley, 2019. p. 10). Staley argues against purely transactional frameworks for the role of higher education, suggesting that students and faculty alike must leave their higher education experiences with more than “a new skillset” (p. 10). Staley reimagines higher education institutions in drastically changed future contexts, where these institutions actively create transformative learning experiences that respond to future contexts. The transformative experiences that we offer at UAF are here for all of us, and we can fuel them by committing to hope for what’s on the other side of that transformation.
But how exactly do we do this work of hoping? How do we take this work seriously, understanding hope as more than a passive, cerebral activity? Continuing to do the work of teaching and research can be a practice of hope, if we root our approaches in our values, connect with one another, and persist in believing that this work matters.
Articulate Values and Purpose
“If we want to restore the idea of higher education as a space of transformation, of emancipatory learning, then we need to start with the ways in which we talk about its purpose and value” (Gannon, 2020, p. 110). Most of us got into education and/or research because we believe they are important not just for launching the careers of our students and mentees, but because they have the power to impact and improve our communities at multiple scales. Laura Rendón, who researches higher education administration, offers a four-step process for identifying and shifting the values with which we are working. Rendón (2005) suggests that we articulate, interrogate, and eventually recast the “agreements” that we adopt when we join an industry or institution and learn to work within its explicit and implicit norms and values. This begins with an acknowledgement of where we are, followed by reflection on what is and is not working, eventually leading to development of a new set of agreements – ones with which we actually agree. For example, Rendón identifies an “Agreement of Separation” in higher ed, which contains assumptions that learning is a linear, uni-directional process that flows from educator to student and that educators should keep distance from their students. But, Rendón argues, teaching and learning are improved when faculty and students behave as connected co-learners. In this case, we might point our work of hoping, toward education as co-creation, a vision that Staley described in his imagined “Platform University: “organised and managed organically through the unregulated interactions between teachers and students” (Staley, 2019. p. 15).
Interested in working with colleagues on our educational values? Join Kevin Gannon’s “Finding Our Agency, Naming Our Practices” workshop at UAF on Thursday, February 27.
Connect, Collaborate
Unsurprisingly, many brains are better than one when it comes to imagining our most hopeful futures. We may already have people we know we can trust – friends, colleagues, your sister out of state – with the vulnerability of naming and sharing hope. Many of the scholars mentioned above encourage us to include students in this short list. Gannon advises that we must understand our students as “allies not adversaries” (Gannon, 2020. p. 132), as they are subject to the same uncertainties as we are. In fact, as many of us have struggled lately with uncertainty, students are also struggling. For students, feeling lost in uncertainty and plagued by anxiety can be destructive to mental health and consequently academic performance and engagement. Students need to be drawn in with us into this project of hoping. “After 20 years teaching in higher education,” writes Gannon, “I have concluded the three most powerful words we can say to our students might just be, ‘I don’t know.’” (Gannon, p. 133). This admission of not knowing might be followed with an invitation: let’s find out, let’s answer these questions – big or small – together. Likewise, Rendón’s critique of the “Agreement of Separation” reminds us that teaching and learning should be “participatory and relational, allowing both teachers and students to be holders and beneficiaries of knowledge” (Rendón, 2005. p. 3).
Gannon’s visit to UAF will include a workshop titled “Mattering is Motivation: Humanizing Teaching and Learning in the classroom and online,” which will offer strategies to build and improve connections with all our students.
Imagine through possibility
What are these imagined futures that we are actually tacking our hope to? What could they look like? Having identified your values, and maybe in dialogue with students and colleagues, it’s now time to imagine a future in which those values are embodied and prioritized. The imagining you might do should be outrageous, as educator and science fiction writer Walida Imarisha encourages us to be “utterly unrealistic […] because it is only through imagining the so-called impossible that we can begin to concretely build it” (Imarisha, 2015. para. 8). In some cases, the imagined alternatives you come up with may lead to full realization (one can hope!), while in others they will lead in the right direction. The point, though, is not necessarily to build all the things – not even the very best ideas that we come up with. Rather, one role of speculative design is to “promote new ways of thinking by presenting an alternative vision” (Staley, 2024, p. 18). Perhaps a hopeful imagination session leads us back then to the project of naming new values exposed by these alternatives. Meanwhile, if you find that the scale of this kind of imagining is beyond reach for now, know that the work of hoping does not always have to be as grand and energetic as imagining idealized utopias. Rather, Kaba being interviewed on The Intercepted podcast reminds us that in any given moment, we need only make the best next choice available: “So what’s the next best thing you can do from where you are? For you, in this moment, in this possibility space that you have, what’s the next best thing?” (Scahill, 2021. 34m43s). There is opportunity, even as uncertainty reigns, and the practice and discipline of hope is to grow those opportunities by putting our weight behind their realization.
One of the consequences of living in uncertainty is a tendency to hold more tightly to what stability we have in the present. If things may get worse, how do I at least hang on to what I have now? We can get stuck imagining only two alternatives: the way things are and the way things are likely to go. But of course, there are many more alternatives than the inevitable present and future. “Because I have hope,” says Gannon. “I cannot abide by the status quo because I know what could be” (Stachowiak, 2020, 6:08). By borrowing hope as our fuel, we can both imagine and build toward many more alternatives.
References
Gannon, K. (2020). Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. West Virginia University Press.
Imad, M. (2024, November 7). After the Election: Breaking Shells, Bearing Light. Inside Higher Ed.
Imarisha, W (2015, February 11). Rewriting the Future: Using Science Fiction to Re-Envision Justice. Walidah Imarisha. https://www.walidah.com/blog/2015/2/11/rewriting-the-future-using-science-fiction-to-re-envision-justice
Rendón, L. (2005). Realizing a Transformed Pedagogical Dreamfield: Recasting Agreements for Teaching and Learning. Spirituality in Higher Education, 2(1), 1-12.
Scahill, J. (Host). (2021, March 17). Hope Is a Discipline: Mariame Kaba on Dismantling the Carceral State [Audio Podcast]. In The Intercepted Podcast. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2021/03/17/intercepted-mariame-kaba-abolitionist-organizing/
Stachowiak, B. (Host). (2020, April 9). Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (No. 304) [Audio podcast episode]. In Teaching in Higher Ed. Innovate Learning. https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/radical-hope-a-teaching-manifesto/
Staley, D. J. (2019). Alternative universities: Speculative design for innovation in higher education. JHU Press.
Kendell Newman Sadiik
Associate Director of Transformative Teaching
Instructional Designer
LION Liaison