Navigating Tensions and Transitions in Higher Education: Effective Skills for Maintaining Wellbeing and Self-care(Wellbeing and Self-care in Higher Education)

With a focus on skills development, this book provides guidance on how to navigate transitions between career stages in higher education and how to maintain wellbeing in the process. In a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, a career path in higher education can demand rapid transition. This book provides comprehensive coverage of the kinds of transitions one may face in higher education and how to navigate them successfully while focusing on wellbeing and self-care. Centred around first-person accounts, the chapters illustrate the key issues around transitions and their impacts and provide suggestions for how to adapt through self-care. The authors offer insights from their own personal experiences, enabling the reader to develop an action plan of their own or to share with and guide students and early career mentees. The tools and strategies outlined in the book make up a library of resources that can be called upon at any stage of the journey. Written with all career stages in mind, this book will be an essential resource for new and experienced researchers alike.

Table of Contents:
1. Lived experiences of transition and wellbeing in higher education: Revealing hidden spaces SECTION 1: The evaded, hidden, and often unsaid transitions 2. Body in the loop: Navigating academic midlife 3. Transitions in and out of your first sabbatical: A walk in the forest 4. Embracing transitions: Stories along the career paths of four Japanese women in higher education 5. Deciding not to die: On becoming an academic SECTION 2: Transitions of opportunity 6. Transitioning towards AI-powered academia: A self-care perspective 7. Who I am in transitions to online teaching: A social practice theory-based autoethnography SECTION 3: Transition from industry to academia 8. The rise of academic apprenticeships in the UK: How professionals experience the transition from industry to academia 9. From Researching Professional to Professional Researcher: Learning the Rules of the Game 10. Self-discovery, flow, and facilitating transformative threshold spaces as an act of self-care in higher education SECTION 4: Ambiguity, possibility, and identity (re)formation of transformations 11. Designing my path through higher education: Identities, transitions, and instigations 12. Transitioning from PhD student to full-time academic: An autoethnographic study of two early career researchers 13. Postgraduate research suite – A place of peer support at different transition points during the PhD journey 14. Adjust, Balance, Connect: The ABCs of self-care practices during a doctoral journey 15. A Kitchen of My Own: The process of making food as a form of self-care 16. Becoming a Jellyfish – Floating in Emotions to Find Life in Academia 17. Mind the gap! International doctoral scholars’ and supervisors’ perspectives of wellbeing and help-seeking behaviour

About the Author :
Kay Hammond is a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health and Interdisciplinary Studies at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. Her diverse background in education, psychology, language teaching, and performing arts influences her teaching, research in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and staff/student experiences of wellbeing. Narelle Lemon is a vice chancellor professoriate research fellow and professor in education at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. She is an interdisciplinary scholar specialising in arts, education, and positive psychology. Her research focuses on enhancing wellbeing literacy in K–12 schools, teacher education, higher education, and community settings, emphasising evidence-based practices for proactive flourishing.