Main description:

By showcasing asset-based approaches inspired by individual reflection, research, and experience, this volume offers a fresh and timely perspective on grief and trauma within higher education and illustrates how these approaches can serve as opportunities for hope and allyship.

Featuring a broad range of contributions from scholars and professionals involved in educational research and academia, Humanizing Grief in Higher Education explores the varied ways in which students, scholars, and educators experience and navigate grief and trauma. Set into four distinct parts, chapters deploy personal narratives situated within interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research frameworks to illustrate how issues such as race, gender, socio-economic class, and politics intersect with experiences of personal and professional grief in the academy. A variety of intersectional fields of study - from positive psychology, counselling, feminist and queer theories, to trauma theory and disability studies - inform an interdisciplinary framework for processing traumatic experiences and finding ways to hope. These narrative explorations are positioned as key to developing a sense of hope amongst the grieving and those supporting them.

This text will benefit researchers, doctoral students, and academics in the fields of Higher Education, teacher education, trauma studies, and mental health education. Those interested in positive and educational psychology, as well as grief counselling in adults, will also enjoy this volume. Finally, this collection serves as a companion for those who find themselves grappling with losses, broadly defined.

Contents:

Chapter 1: Introduction: Intersecting Hope with Actionable Frameworks in the Academy: Allyhood in Grief

Nicole Sieben and Stephanie Anne Shelton

PART I: ALLYSHIP THROUGH WRITING AND LITERATURE

Chapter 2: Changing Cultural Constructions of Grief through the Shared Story:

Lessons from Disability Studies

Margaret Rose Torrell

Chapter 3: Agency in Writing: Managing Narratives of Trauma in Student Writing

Danielle Lee

Chapter 4: "Conceit Upon her Father": An Unintentional Confrontation with Grief and Hope in the English Classroom

Adam Wolfsdorf

Chapter 5: "The Grief that Fills One's Heart": Pairing Loss Narratives and Graphic Young Adult Literature

Shelbie Witte and Jennifer S. Dail

Chapter 6: Opening to the Hauntings of Grief and Mourning: Writing our Way towards Hope

Linda Henderson and Alison L. Black

PART II: COMMUNITIES OF HOPE AND HEALING

Chapter 7: Opportunities Lost and Found: A Gay Educator's Grief and Process of Hope

S. Adam Crawley

Chapter 8: Finding Hope Through Hope Agents and Narratives in Times of Mourning

Elsie Lindy Olan and Donita Grissom

Chapter 9: Collaborative Empathy as a Pathway to Hope: Grief and Teacher Education

Kia Jane Richmond and Cara Anderson

Chapter 10: "Why I Hate the Wind": Magical Realism and Re-Presenting Trauma Christopher Worthman

Chapter 11: It Is Contagious, Honey

Katherine C. Brown

PART III: GRIEVING FOR/WITH STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

Chapter 12: Hiding Behind Closed Classroom Doors and Opening up Space for Sharing Grief

Mandie B. Dunn

Chapter 13: Designing "Patterns" after Hurricane Sandy Uproots Structures

Josefa Pace

Chapter 14: Grieving when Students Make the News: Two Teachers' Reflections

Stacia L. Long

Chapter 15: When a Teacher Lost a Student: A Narrative Pathway through Grief

Nick Thompson

Chapter 16: Grief as the Pathway to Hope in the Teaching Profession

Leora Wolf-Prusan

Chapter 17: How Experiences with Student Grief Inform Our Practice: Teaching Teachers to Navigate Healing Processes

Katie Rybakova, Katahdin Cook Whitt, and Christina Christie

PART IV: FINDING HOPE THROUGH ACTIVISM

Chapter 18: My Father's Keeper: Pathway to Grief-Inspired Activism

Ericka Roland

Chapter 19: When the Music Changes, so does the Dance: Critical Racial Events as Told Through a Narrative Inquiry Beat

Kara M. Taylor

Chapter 20: Homeless Adolescents, Grief, and Advocacy for Others: Hope for the Future

Kate Shands Haq

Chapter 21: Visualizing Hope: Digital Storytelling with Refugee-background Children

Toby Emert

Chapter 22: Conclusion: Hope as an Ally to Grieving and Healing

Nicole Sieben and Stephanie Anne Shelton