Relationality, belonging, and inclusion in academic development

Universities have traditionally focused on the development of knowledge and cognition. Students’ minds were to be trained in a way that led to the creation of scholars producing new knowledge towards never-ending progress. Learning was to be focused on thinking and knowing, certainly not on being and feeling. Increasingly, however, as our institutions themselves and the individuals within them diversify, it is becoming apparent that thought alone, disconnected from our bodies and our hearts, is not enough to build the worlds in which we wish to live. As a result, while empowering students with knowledge remains critically important, we increasingly find ourselves, individually and collectively, reflecting on and embracing the affective side of our humanity: our feelings, emotions, and attitudes as they interconnect with our thinking selves. In this way, as we get to know ourselves better and grow as individual learners, we can create stronger communities that benefit from embracing the whole person, and we can begin to bridge the divides that exist within and between our institutions of higher education globally. In a sense, embracing the whole person is particularly important for academic developers because building relationships based on trust is fundamental to effective academic development, which, in turn, involves emotional as well as cerebral investment, perhaps in equal measure.