Tag: JLDHE

This fantastic Welcome Lecture’s topic was a stark contrast to this morning’s JLDHE Special Edition: Liberating Learning publication. I couldn’t help but take some time to reflect on this juxtaposition.

Over the last year, I’ve been working with the genuinely fantastic Dr Martin Compton and Dr Rebecca Lindner on a special issue for the Journal for Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE). Wanting to capture learning and scholarship for the Freedom to learn conference (2024) hosted at King’s College London, Martin approached me to posit a special issue to sit alongside this. While I hope we’ll get time to write about this journey separately, the critical bit is that we achieved our goal – and today, the Liberating Learning issue was published.

Ulrich Beck, Paul Virilio, and Carl von Clausewitz

In short, Christopher’s Welcome Lecture took the audience on a journey through a range of theorists. At the top of the list were the works of Ulrich Beck, Paul Virilio, and Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz’s theorisation of war laid the foundation. War is a mixture of hazard, risk, and chance—a field in which a whole mix of human affairs and demands create conflict and friktion. Christopher was careful not to frame higher education as being at war but eloquently argued we are in a phase of uncertainty, hazard, risk and fear.

Then came along Virilio and the politics of speed. Speed can lead to unprecedented speed. It can lead to structural violence. It can lead to desire – a desire for things. Change is necessary, but the key warning here is to avoid kinetosis. The problem of speed and motion is that motion sickness can easily follow. I think this works well as an analogy for the pace of change within the higher education sector. That change might be needed, but it is hard to carefully manage to bring people with it.

Finally, we ended with Beck, who theorised about the risk society. Beck argued we had moved from the ‘welfare state’ to the ‘safety state’. In his framing of modernity, Beck discussed the abundance of risk. We have more knowledge of risk and how it is distributed. Modernity itself has even created new risks – from nuclear radiation and climate crises to financial crashes and vaping. Humans have found many new ways to cause harm – and the management of all this risk is so often within the scope of the nation-state.

So what for higher education?

The journey through Beck, Virilio, and Clausewitz finally turned to the Higher Education sector. The success of Universities has created new frames of risk. Universities are often significant employers and major economic contributors within their respective communities – and far beyond. In a national context, ‘internationalisation’ can be seen as a risk – especially as economies and trade become so intertwined and interdependent. Flows of trade and capital are risky. Modern politics often frame human migration as risky too. What about international students? Are they a risk too?

Christopher argued that Higher Education needs to master the risks of hazard and chance. In doing so, we need to recognise that stress and exhaustion will be present. We need to manage that because wellbeing matters. People matter. The speed of change is very real right now, and that speed offers an advantage. But—just as Virilio warned—we need to be aware of kinetosis.

So – here we have it. A risk-hazard-speed nexus. Does the state recognise the risk universities are experiencing? Or is it small compared to other sectors? Does the state perceive the universities as risky?

Perhaps there are more questions than answers at this point. So what about liberating learning?

Kinetosis and risk ➡️ Liberating Learning

War. Risk. Hazard. Conflict. Kinetosis. Last night’s Welcome Talk really framed the current challenges Higher Education is facing. In all honesty, it can really feel a little bit glum at the moment. I’m not sure I’ve seen a positive national headline for higher education in recent months. Even articles from the likes of Wonke and HEPI are capturing this mood. Funding cuts, university financial deficits, redundancies, challenges – the list goes on. Where do we go from here?

Well, in this context, it feels like we need a little hope—a vision for a future and a pathway to get there. The timing could not be better for the release of JLDHE’s issue 35:

Liberating Learning in the Empathetic University

In Liberating Learning: Educational Change as Social Movement, Rincón-Gallardo presents learning as a practice of freedom and argues that liberating learning requires widespread cultural change in our educational systems. What would this look like in higher education?

The Special Issue led by Martin Compton and Rebecca Lindner aims to pick up the conversation about liberating learning in the context of Higher Education. Built on 39 papers from 99 different authors this special issue brings unique insight into the modern academy and the need for compassion, care and joy in teaching and learning. In the context of last night’s risk-hazard-speed nexus, I certainly feel the need for a little joy.

The sad truth is that higher education institutions and government policy often fixate on student success as a quantifiable outcome of an undergraduate degree, measured via the grading system (usually further extended into graduate employability metrics). But all this does is reduce students to numbers. The obsession over grading undermines curiosity and risk-taking, which remain skills valued in the graduate market (Miller et al., 2025).

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

“I would say the mark itself it doesn’t say the whole story”

Jack (Mynott, 2025)

As Compton and Lindner (2025) state in the editorial, “Liberating Learning is both an aspiration and a practice. It is a response to current challenges, a vision for the future, and an acknowledgement that shaping the educational environment is a constant project”. Their special issue brings together more voices than we can represent in summary, and all I can do is urge you to read it yourself. All articles are available open source via the JLDHE website: No. 35 (2025): Special Edition, Liberating Learning.

Short on time? The Editorials will give you an excellent overview of this special issue:

Liberating learning in the empathetic university

The publication of this issue concludes an immersive piece of work built upon the contributions of 12 Guest Editors, 99 authors, 58 peer-reviewers, 6 copyeditors, 2 JLDHE Editors, and 1 cracking technical editor. It has been an absolute pleasure to be part of the journey, and I urge anyone reading this to join in as one of our readers. Knowing Martin and Rebecca, I also know this won’t be the end of this journey.

Let’s liberate some learning!