List of Titles

Building belonging : A grassroots peer-support network for academic women

- Beaudry, Jennifer, Lemon, Narelle, Scheepers, Helana, Marcello, Flavia, Wilding, Esther, Agius, Christine, Taffe, Simone, Loch, Birgit, Kilbourn, Virginia

Authors: Beaudry, Jennifer , Lemon, Narelle , Scheepers, Helana , Marcello, Flavia , Wilding, Esther , Agius, Christine , Taffe, Simone , Loch, Birgit , Kilbourn, Virginia
Date: 2021
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Healthy Relationships in Higher Education Chapter 6 p. 79-91
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Description: Relationships are one of the core pillars to wellbeing. In the workplace, relationships provide an opportunity for learning with and from one another. In academia, healthy relationships are vital. We see networking, mentoring relationships, and connecting as a part of forming one’s academic identity. This chapter presents the development of the Swinburne Women’s Academic Network (SWAN) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. We discuss why such a network is required, unpack SWAN’s five programs, explain the principles that underpin our vision, and demonstrate how SWAN has connected women in our university. Relationships are key to SWAN’s success. SWAN builds belonging in academia by sharing practical advice and expertise, nurturing networking opportunities, creating safe spaces, and providing tailored financial support. Our experiences, combined with those of our participants, show that a grassroots peer-support network for academic women fosters connections.

Creating care-full communities after COVID : supporting care as a strategy for wellbeing in teacher education

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Reconstructing Care in Teacher Education after COVID-19: Caring Enough to Change Chapter 16 p. 179-188
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Description: This chapter situates teachers as providers and supporters of care during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, positing that teachers too require care to support their wellbeing and their work. Drawing on survey data collected from teachers in Australia during a period of remote learning, the authors identify the kinds of care that are both enacted and required during this time. The authors then interrogate notions of care and consider these in light of both individual and systemic actions and ways of being. They explore the ways that care is a multifaceted concept that involves care of self, care of others, and care for community, arguing that creating caring communities requires systemic and communal engagement versus an individual orientation and responsibility towards care. They close by presenting care as a strategy for individual and communal wellbeing in teacher education. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Melanie Shoffner and Angela W. Webb; individual chapters, the contributors.

Exploring time as a resource for wellness in higher education: Identity, self-care and wellbeing at work

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2024
Type: Text , Book
Relation: Wellbeing and self-care in higher education
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Description: Bringing together international perspectives, this book demonstrates the importance of reframing time in higher education and how we can view it as a resource to support wellbeing and self-care. Time is a central part of our lives and structures our days, and yet often we don't think about the socially constructed nature of time or how we might reframe our relationship with time and our work in ways that support our self-care and wellbeing. Exploring Time as a Resource for Wellness in Higher Education suggests an alternative way to look at how we structure our time to better support our wellbeing. Drawing on a range of theoretical and personal perspectives, the authors advocate for a reconsideration and reconceptualization of our relationship with time. By sharing their experiences, the authors encourage readers to notice how they spend their time and offer strategies for an intentional focus on the relationship between time, self-care, and wellbeing. Whether it's making time, having time, or investing in time, this book explores strategies and reflections necessary to grow, maintain, and protect wellbeing. This book is a valuable resource for those working in higher education, offering individual, collective, and systemic suggestions and strategies for navigating the ways we see time and wellbeing. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Sharon McDonough and Narelle Lemo. All rights reserved.

If not now, then when? Wellbeing and wholeheartedness in education

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2021
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Educational Forum Vol. 85, no. 3 (2021), p. 317-335
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Description: The COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and political and social movements have required each of us to pause. Collectively they signal a unique moment in our history, and we argue that they provide us with an opportunity to consider what matters most as we move forward. Using poetic representation and Brené Brown’s guideposts for wholehearted living as a framework, we offer a series of provocation for readers to consider the role of wholeheartedness and wellbeing in education. © 2021 Kappa Delta Pi.

Interstate dialogues : chronicles of rhythms of time and the art of self-care of a mobile academic

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2024
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Exploring Time as a Resource for Wellness in Higher Education: Identity, Self-care and Wellbeing at Work Chapter 10 p. 102-113
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Description: In this duo-ethnography, we as two scholars and close friends embark on a reflective journey as one transitions to a new job interstate, marking a significant shift in their collaboration and daily lives. Moving from Melbourne, Victoria, to Perth, Western Australia, dubbed as one of the most remote cities globally, we navigate the impact of this change on our friendship, work dynamics, and time utilization. Our writing serves as a live reflection, akin to a diary bound by the first three months or 11 working weeks from October to December 2023, capturing the essence of this transitional period and its profound effect on their perception of time and sense of wellbeing. Embracing dialogical writing as a methodological approach, we depart from traditional academic structures, exploring the rhythms of our new environment, the formation of habits, and the cultivation of collaborations, inviting readers to join in our raw exploration of creating spaces for self-care and wellbeing within academia. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Sharon McDonough and Narelle Lemo. All rights reserved.

Making mindful moments : made artefacts as a form of data visualisation to monitor and respond to self-care and wellbeing

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Creative Expression and Wellbeing in Higher Education: Making and Movement as Mindful Moments of Self-care Chapter 7 p. 105-118
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Description: As academics working in higher education, we find that the embodied practice of making returns us from our heads to our hands, and in this chapter, we provide an insight into the ways that knitting is a form of self-care that fosters and supports our wellbeing. We draw on narratives to illuminate how we use knitting as a form of data visualisation that enables us to monitor our working practices and to adapt and respond to our self-care and wellbeing needs. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Narelle Lemon; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.

Mindfully living and working in the academy : Continuing the conversation

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Mindfulness in the academy : Practices and perspectives from scholars Chapter 17 p. 259-283
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Description: As scholars and administrators in higher education institutions begin to implement mindfulness practices and perspectives, it is worth examining what can be learned through examining their diverse understandings and perspectives. In identifying the formal and informal mindful practices used by the contributing authors of this volume, we argue that they provide others with a basis for reflection on their own practices and perspectives. In this chapter, we present seven approaches to mindfulness as enacted by the chapter authors. We present an overview of these key strategies and approaches and suggest the possibility of such approaches for individual and collective change.

Mindfulness in the academy : An examination of mindfulness perspectives

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Mindfulness in the academy : Practices and perspectives from scholars Chapter 1 p. 1-21
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Description: In a complex and demanding higher education, environment wellness for scholars is an ethical imperative and is an essential component of self-care, required to prevent burnout, distress, and impairment. As we navigate the contemporary higher education environment, it is important to look at ways of working that bring to the forefront self-care and mindfulness. In this chapter, we explore how scholars understand and apply the concept of mindfulness in higher education contexts. We examine ways academics implement mindfulness practices that build the capacity to accept, tolerate and transform mind and body states without reacting so intensively to them by drawing on concepts such as compassion, kindness, gratitude, curiosity, self-awareness and non-judgmental stances. We explore how mindful ways of researching, writing, learning and teaching, leading and engaging with others leads us to be self-aware and engaged in the present. We introduce the notion of Dramaturgical Theory of Social Interaction as a framework for examining mindful practices in academia. This chapter presents a thematic analysis of the work of the authors presented in this volume, situating this in a broader discussion of mindfulness, and we raise questions for further consideration.

Mindfulness in the academy : Practices and perspectives from scholars

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Book
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Description: This book focuses on the way academics understand, embrace and enact the concepts of mindfulness in approaching their work in demanding and dynamic contemporary higher education environments. It examines how they implement formal and informal mindfulness practices that increase the capacity to transform mind and body states by drawing on concepts such as compassion, kindness, gratitude, curiosity, self-awareness and non-judgemental stances. The book provides insights into and highlights the struggles of scholars through their experiences and perspectives in relation to their identities, practices and job enactment. Each chapter author explains their mindfulness practices and their motivations for implementing them, and explores how mindful ways of researching, writing, learning and teaching, leading, and engaging with others leads us to self-awareness and engagement in the present.

Reconceptualising our relationship with time to enhance self-care and wellbeing in higher education

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2024
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Exploring Time as a Resource for Wellness in Higher Education: Identity, Self-care and Wellbeing at Work p. 1-11
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Description: Time is a central construct in our lives. It shapes the structure of our days, and the ways we mark and think about our experiences and our wellbeing. Commonly, we might bemoan a lack of time, however, we rarely consider the cultural and philosophical basis of time. The complexities of the higher education working environment, such as constant change, bureaucracy and administrative demands, funding cuts, and conflicts in values, are all framed within a broader socio-cultural context of how we see and understand time. Interrogating and considering the construct and manifestations of time within this complex higher education landscape creates opportunities for scholars to contribute to a better understanding of the sector and of their own individual and collective wellbeing. The intensified workload and the need for a better work-life balance are significant issues in higher education that threaten the wellbeing of academics, with a culture of overwork and competing demands exacerbating the problem. Academics need to be valued, supported, and heard, and a different approach to wellbeing that is more systematic and sustainable is needed. In addressing time as an under-examined concept in higher education, this volume encourages academics to examine the socially and culturally constructed notion of time and to explore its intersection with notions of self-care and wellbeing. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Sharon McDonough and Narelle Lemo. All rights reserved.

Stepping into a shared vulnerability

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Creating a place for self-care and wellbeing in higher education : finding meaning across academia Chapter 14 p. 187-196
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Description: Those working in higher education face challenging and complex work environments, with academic staff subject to multiple accountability demands. In this chapter we engage in dialogic writing to examine ways to create and promote self-care and wellbeing in the space of higher education. We begin with a brief narrative about our own collaborative relationship before exploring strategies and provocations for ways to create authentic spaces for wellbeing. In doing so, we critique the concept of self-care and wellbeing as a performative tool that functions to reinforce individual responsibility and contend that creating space for self-care and wellbeing is a shared, collective and systemic responsibility that invites us to stand in a shared vulnerability.

‘Stretched very thin’ : the impact of COVID-19 on teachers’ work lives and well-being

- McDonough, Sharon, Lemon, Narelle

Authors: McDonough, Sharon , Lemon, Narelle
Date: 2024
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice Vol. 30, no. 7-8 (2024), p. 1070-1082
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Description: The spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe has had a significant impact on teachers and teaching with countries around the world closing schools in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Such a mass cessation of traditional face-to-face teaching has required schools and teachers to move rapidly to remote and, primarily, online learning and teaching. In this paper, we draw on a study conducted in Australia during the period of June–July 2020 to examine the impact of this shift to remote teaching on teachers’ work lives and well-being. Using an ecological framework to guide the study, we collected data from 137 Australian teachers via an online questionnaire. The findings reveal the multiple challenges teachers faced as they sought to implement quality teaching and learning for their students. The challenges facing teachers included an intensification of work; managing caregiving responsibilities while teaching remotely; being the subject of media debate; and learning new technologies and ways of working. We argue that given both the dynamic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the skills developed by teachers, there exist opportunities to enact change at both an individual and systemic level to support more equitable practices and foster teacher well-being. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

“I feel like nothing else will ever be this hard” : the dimensions of teacher resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic

- Lemon, Narelle, McDonough, Sharon

Authors: Lemon, Narelle , McDonough, Sharon
Date: 2023
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Educational Forum Vol. 87, no. 4 (2023), p. 304-318
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Description: While the COVID-19 global pandemic has resulted in numerous lockdowns, understanding how teachers experience the shift to remote learning and the person focussed skills and capacities they employ during this time is vital. We draw from an online qualitative study to examine questionnaire data from 137 Australian teachers. Using the four dimensions of teacher resilience as a lens for analysis, we highlight the multidimensional approach teachers employ to navigate the challenge of teaching remotely. © 2023 Kappa Delta Pi.

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