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Small pops of why: on keeping going in academia when everything is effed
After stumbling across a whole genre of books declaring the death of higher education, I found myself laughing, then reflecting. How can I love academia so deeply when it is also so deeply flawed? This post explores that tension, confronting the systemic challenges we cannot ignore while holding onto the small, meaningful moments that keep…
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Turning down the noise: on taking a break from academic social media
Lately, scrolling LinkedIn has started to feel less like learning and more like standing in the middle of a crowded room where everyone is speaking at once. So I took a break, and found something unexpected in the quiet.
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What if we’re wrong about our academic insecurities?
As the year winds down, I’ve been noticing something: many of the things I once saw as weaknesses have quietly become my strengths. What if the academic insecurities we carry are actually holding us up?
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Can we have higher education debates without being unkind?
A recent UK news article mocked publicly funded PhD projects on “queer pirates” and “the history of fatness” as proof that universities have lost the plot. It raised valid questions about what higher education is for, but asked them in all the wrong ways. We can debate the value of the humanities without cruelty. We…
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Rethinking Kindness in Academia: Exploring how kindness, unlike niceness, fosters genuine connection
In academia, kindness is often confused with niceness, but their meanings, and their implications, are very different. Tracing their linguistic roots reveals that while niceness tends to prioritise politeness and comfort, kindness is grounded in kinship, integrity, and genuine connection. This post explores how rethinking kindness can transform the way we teach, lead, and learn…
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Is making attendance optional actually kind?
Attendance policies might seem administrative, but they hold real implications for kindness in higher education. Flexibility recognises students’ complex lives, yet empty classrooms affect lecturers, tutors, and peers. This post reflects on whose needs are met—and whose are missed—when attendance isn’t required, and asks: what does kindness really look like?
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The unseen gardener
When I’m out walking or running through my neighbourhood, I often stop. To an onlooker, it probably looks like I stop because I can’t breathe, or because I’ve got a stitch, or because (let’s be honest) my stamina’s not quite where it should be. For what it’s worth, all of those things are often true…
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Beyond the blip: what the COVID dip in higher education data still has to teach us
The COVID dip in student engagement and wellbeing wasn’t just a blip – it was a signal. This post asks what we can still learn from it, and how it might guide us toward a more caring, sustainable future in higher education.
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Student belonging: for what? For who?
Student belonging is a hot topic in higher education, but belonging for what? And for whom? Is our focus rooted in care, or are we using belonging as a means to improve performance and rankings? In this post, I reflect on what’s driving the belonging conversation and why it matters that we ask.
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The kindness of complacency in academia
In academia, we’re taught to keep pushing toward impact, innovation, and promotion. But what if there’s kindness in simply being where we are? This post explores the quiet resistance of self-acceptance, and how choosing stillness in a culture of striving can be a radical act of care.
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Kindness at scale: five practical strategies to build connection in large university classes
As class sizes grow, kindness in teaching can feel out of reach. But even in lecture theatres of 300 or more, small acts can have a big impact. In this post, I share five tangible strategies for practising kindness at scale – no extra budget or hours required. From how you smile to how you…
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Kind or complicit? Challenging individual acts in unkind academic systems
When do our individual acts of kindness in academia help perpetuate unjust systems? Exploring Noel Cazenave’s provocative critique of how personal kindness can serve as an alibi, allowing unkind structures to persist unchallenged. This post examines the tension between immediate compassion and the deeper work of transforming academic institutions to be systemically kind.
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Transforming universities with multi-dimensional kindness
The opening chapter of Noel Cazenave’s Kindness Wars: The History and Political Economy of Human Caring has my mind buzzing with fresh perspectives on what kindness could mean in our universities. Cazenave challenges us to see kindness not as something sweet or sentimental, but as inherently political force that can either reinforce or disrupt existing…
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Kindness as leadership: seeing the human in the system
A guest post by Claudia Crosariol From Gabi: I’m delighted to welcome Claudia Crosariol, Director of Program Operations & Student Experience at Lifelong Learning @ UNSW, as our guest contributor. Claudia and I connected through the UNSW Kindness Network, a community bringing together like-minded university colleagues. In “Kindness as Leadership: Seeing the Human in the…
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Kindness for whom? A stakeholder take on kindness in HigherEd
Our central student admin team emailed me earlier this week with a request: a student wants to enrol in my course, three weeks late. A third of our ten-week term has already passed, an assessment is due the very day they’d be enrolled, and the course itself is a prerequisite for their degree. Normally, late…
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Kind classrooms need kind students
By now, you know I’m on kinda a kindness kick in my academic life, right? I underpin all my interactions with students with respect, compassion and empathy. I build these into my course design, assessment, teaching style, and student communication. I encourage my tutors to do the same. I build networks with other academics who…
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Rethinking student motivation: from carrots and sticks to gardens
As we’re heading towards the end of our academic year, I’m finally taking some time to breathe the year out. 🧘🏽♀️ I’m embracing the slower pace because this term, I faced one my biggest teaching challenges yet.. literally! I convened a course with 1688 students – my largest course yet. That’s 1688 humans to keep…
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Why not be kind? Addressing common resistance to pedagogy of kindness in higher education
I’ve just finished reading Catherine J. Denial’s (2024) “A Pedagogy of Kindness” and found myself nodding along and fiercely underlining throughout. The book shares practical strategies for infusing kindness into every aspect of our academic practice – from assessment design to curriculum planning, from classroom management to self-care. But it was her concluding question that…
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Practicing kindness in peer review (or how NOT to be Reviewer 2)
I just spent two hours writing detailed feedback on a paper I was reviewing. As I clicked “submit,” that familiar academic anxiety crept in: Was I being helpful, or just adding to the weight of academic criticism that we all carry? The paper had potential – an interesting premise that could contribute to our field.…
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I’m proudly nice AND kind: why academia needs both
I’ve noticed an interesting pattern when discussing kindness in academia with my colleagues. (Yes – this is what academics talk about over lunch. Who ever said academia isn’t sexy?). Whenever someone says they practice kind or compassionate pedagogy, they often quickly follow up with: “But I’m not nice.” It’s almost like a defensive reflex, a…
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Kindness in Higher Education: Beyond the lollipop
I recently read an article about whether compassion in higher education is the “fashion or future” for relational pedagogy (Waddington & Bonaparte, 2024). This got me thinking about my relationship with the concept of kindness I’ve always considered myself a generally kind person, yet it feels like I slipped into the pedagogy of kindness practice…
Hello,
I’m Gabi
Welcome to The Kind Academic, a space where kindness, learning, and wellbeing come together. Join me as I explore the transformative power of kindness in education — through reflections on teaching, research, and self-care. Whether you’re navigating the classroom or academic systems, discover how kindness can inspire growth, connection, and a deeper sense of purpose.
The Kind Academic 