Universities as Liminal Spaces for Transformative Student Engagement

Abstract

<p>This roundtable conversation aims to initiate an incisive deconstruction of the prevailing neoliberal conceptualisation of universities as mere 'knowledge factories' towards a more imaginative vision. Through critical discourse on how universities currently represent student learning and engagement, we hope to have a lively conversation on shifting towards new paradigms of experimentations, improvisation, and potentialities that accommodate more promising futures (Bridgstock 2020). Pushing beyond the transactional view of universities as mere conduits for knowledge transfer, we begin with the proposition that universities are unique, liminal spaces offering transformative experiences for students becoming unavailable elsewhere. Yet, deeply entrenched and historicised neoliberal policies, logic, and practices of higher education institutional ecosystems (Desierto & Maio, 2020; Stein, 2018) often marginalise these experiences, making them accessible or even desirable only to a fraction of the student population. Consequently, these experiences are positioned in the peripheries of the university experiences as extra/co-curricular activities, events, and projects. Student engagement in transformative experiences is often in tension with the pressures of core academic requirements and the growing uncertainty of future employment prospects. The tension is heightened by the emergence of disruptive digital technologies and the perceived devaluation of university education in mitigating the increasing precarity of future work (Williamson & Komljenovic, 2023).<br></p><p><br>In light of this framing, our session poses some critical questions for discussion: How can we prioritise transformative experiences, creativity, character development, well-being, and democratic values within the core university curriculum? What is the teleology of these transformative experiences? How can digital technologies and generative AI as more-than-human actors contribute to this rethinking and reconfiguration? How can we leverage these technologies for international collaborative learning in an equitable way to develop cosmopolitan capacities required for transnational and globalisation mobilities?<br>In alignment with the conference's objectives, this roundtable instigates conversations for a transformative praxis and contributes to envisioning a renewed and alternative future for higher education. Overturning disempowering descriptors of “neoliberal univerisities” that assume unidirectional causal relationships, we embrace Barnett’s (2023) proposition to reconceptualise university’s entanglement through a more agentive lens. We invite fellow scholars to engage in this critical collective storytelling and futuring exercise to recompose and redefine more hopeful futures (Houlden & Veletsianos, 2022) of university imaginaries that champion educational and societal emancipation, liberation, and good. </p><p>References<br>Barnett, R. (2023). Only connect: designing university futures. Quality in higher education, 29(1), 116-131. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2022.2100627 <br>Desierto, A., & Maio, C. d. (2020). The impact of neoliberalism on academics and students in higher education : A call to adopt alternative philosophies. Journal of academic language and learning, 14(2), 148-159. <br>Houlden, S., & Veletsianos, G. (2022). Impossible Dreaming: On Speculative Education Fiction and Hopeful Learning Futures. Postdigital science and education, 5(3), 605-622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00348-7 <br>Stein, S. (2018). Higher Education and the Im/possibility of Transformative Justice. Critical ethnic studies, 4(1), 130-153. https://doi.org/10.5749/jcritethnstud.4.1.0130 <br>Williamson, B., & Komljenovic, J. (2023). Investing in imagined digital futures: the techno-financial 'futuring' of edtech investors in higher education. Critical studies in education, 64(3), 234-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2022.2081587 </p><p></p>