Int. Conference on Improving University Teaching 2025

Redefining Education:

Navigating Sustainability and Innovation in a VUCA World

In a world increasingly subject to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) the goal of sustainability is aspirational, yet elusive.  A UN report published in 2024 notes that “intensifying, interconnected challenges continue to endanger the realization” of the seventeen sustainable development goals identified by the UN Sustainability Conference twelve years ago in Rio de Janeiro.  This is especially true in education, which the report correctly terms “the bedrock of sustainable development.”   It notes the negative effects of the COVID epidemic, regional conflicts, climate shock, and economic turmoil and paints a picture of a planet struggling to make progress towards them. While the big picture may be less than perfect, there is still much cause for hope, as we strive towards a better future.

Against this backdrop, the International Conference on Improving University Teaching seeks to address the challenge of sustainability, equity, and innovation as they affect higher education. In particular, we are exploring how to prepare students for a “VUCA world” in which they will have to contend with multiple challenges, while at the same time ensuring their wellbeing—and that of all academic staff—in the present. By definition, a future subject to uncertainty and ambiguity will require flexibility and adaptability on the part of students. ..

Continued ...

Previously: IUT, VUCA

PHI MAGAZINE (Φ) - Liminal Issue [i]

 Submissions are OFFICIALLY open for our Liminal Issue.

The word ‘Liminal’ encompasses the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the transitional stage of a process, boundary, or threshold. It comes from the Latin word līmen, relating to participants of rites of passage who no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite's liminal stage, participants stand at the threshold. In many ways, this is where the world stands today.

We take all kinds of submissions: prose, photography, poetry, painting, opinion pieces, film or music—you make it, we want to publish it!

Submit to us before 14/02/2022 to be considered for our Liminal Issue.

Submit here: https://phimag.org/submit

For enquiries: submissions.phimag AT gmail.com

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WHAT IS PHI MAGAZINE (Φ)?

Φ Magazine is a quarterly publication aimed at showcasing the creative talents of Philosophy students across the globe outside the academic realm. Be it photography, painting, poetry, prose, or anything in between then it can find a place in the pages of Φ.

My source: 

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/

@PhilosL @LiverpoolPhilos 

Thanks to Chiara at PHI Magazine for the cover image by Taudalpoi.

n.b. I will add a further post to relate the above call to threshold concepts and Hodges' model.

"All in the Mind" (and model): Ambiguous Loss

"Have you ever lost a loved one who was still a part of your life in some way? Did it leave you feeling confused or frozen about how to continue with life? Claudia Hammond examines the distressing phenomenon known as ambiguous loss – the enormous challenge of dealing with a loss when you aren’t sure what’s happened, leaving you searching for answers, unable to move on." 

BBC Radio 4 "All in the Mind" 1st December, 2020 (Available for one year)

 individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

psychological ambiguous loss ambivalence, grief, loss guilt, reality, meaning BOTH-AND thinking -	physical ambiguous loss a body is missing head injury - the impact of dementia on a person