I'm just back from a conference (the National Academic Advising Association Region 2 Conference, if you're curious) where the kick-off keynote from Dr. Jasmine Lee was titled Student Success Through a Lens of Radical Love and Belonging— themes which continued to show up again and again in the sessions I attended.
The concept of belonging is an age-old one in higher ed. At its most basic, it's the idea that students are more likely to complete college (or persist to graduation as the scholarly literature would say) if they feel connected to their university community through relationships with peers, advisors, mentors, and/or faculty. Post-COVID closures and the isolation that brought with it, we're talking about belonging with renewed gusto.
But for the first time I can recall, we're also talking openly about love.
We have likely shied away from the concept of love in professional contexts, university or otherwise, because of its typical use in conjunction with familial love or romantic love. If we don't subscribe to the notion of colleagues as family and we don't want to seem as if we're promoting workplace romances (particularly in an educational setting), it seems to follow that love would fall out of our vocabulary.
So why is love suddenly back in the professional lexicon? Why has the book All About Love by bell hooks been quoted over and over, not only at this most recent conference but in other professional settings?
It's because we're at a point of reckoning.
Loneliness is at an all-time high. So much so, we're calling it an epidemic. Strong words. And when we're using strong words to describe the problem, then it follows that we need equally strong words for the solution.
Radical love.
Not familial love. Not romantic love. But a love that shows up in places and spaces where we don't typically talk about love. Where maybe it isn't invited because it shakes up how we've always done things. Radical.
We can't move fast and slow down enough to really listen to people at the same time. We can't be worried about retention metrics (or whatever optimization looks like in your work) while also holding space for the fact that maybe this time, right now, at this moment isn't the best time for the human sitting across the desk from you to pursue traditional education.
Metrics and statistics and best practices won't ever provide the same information as taking the time to get really, really curious about the people our business serves and how they make sense of the world. Then it takes courage to change course to solve the problem they actually have instead of the one we assumed they did.
The love Dr. Lee was talking about at her conference keynote was radical because it calls us to push back against the notions of optimal results above all else. To push back against the notion of doing more with less. To push back against the individualistic mindset that we should have all the answers within ourselves.
To seek instead a new definition of success rooted in enough instead of the most. To slow down, focus, and really listen to others. To co-create solutions with those we seek to help instead of assuming we know best.
Radical implies big changes to ingrained habits and systems. Radical isn't easy. Not by a long shot. And yet, right now, today we can declare enough and slow down that treadmill we're running on just a little bit. Ask someone how they are, really? Then pause and listen. Get curious about truly understanding someone else's struggle without jumping in to solve the problem.
Perhaps those seem like little things. Maybe they are. But every journey starts with a step.
And every revolution starts in much the same way.
Beautiful Thing of the Week
Just one little something I found inspiring this week (read last week’s longer list here):
📺 Since I was just at a higher ed conference, it feels congruent to share this article in defense of the time travel sequence at the end of the late 90s TV show, Felicity. Huge thanks to the author for a solid, well articulated case for a point I’ve been making for YEARS!
Yes to love! Most definitely, YES to LOVE. The world needs it.