New measures to reward scholars in the Netherlands could widen gender inequality if they are not designed and implemented correctly, warn these four academics: Sylvia Brugman , Meghann Ormond , Janneke Pieters & Mangala Srinivas Academic success is still defined mainly by publishing lots of articles in high-impact journals and landing prestigious grants. These measures privilege one type of academic profile […]
Please find below the report of our colleagues from the WCSG Diversity & Inclusivity Incubator that started last summer. Comprised of a group of eleven researchers from four chair groups (ENP, FNP, LAW, PAP), we conducted an exploratory pilot study on the issues and opportunities regarding discrimination and racism in our cluster. We conducted a […]
What we critically ascertain in this essay is how the modern university is increasingly drifting away from the key ambitions of its own mission statement, and largely by its own doing. Although the typical university in its mission statement claims to aspire outstanding quality, academic freedom, and to contribute to society, in its daily organization, […]
On October 20th, the Transformative Learning Hub Went Wild. For the first time in over a year – actually, for the very first time since we launched the Hub! – we were able to meet in person. And so we did. In the beautiful setting of Landgoed Quadenoord in Renkum, around a fire pit. With […]
Several simultaneous developments force us to reconsider our place as humans in nature, on this globe and in this world. The anthropocentric outlook, in which we see humans as central to knowing and transforming the world, seems more and more a recipe for disaster. The globally influential philosopher Rosi Braidotti has for many years theorized […]
Wow, it’s been a looooong year. And many of us are feeling pretty damn weary by now. So, how about we take a pause together? For the May edition of the Transformative Learning (TL) Hub, we’ll draw on the invitation from the folks at Year Compass to ‘Learn from your mistakes, celebrate your victories, and […]
Today, Tuesday April 6 2021, is ‘Alarm Day’; a day on which the teaching and research staff, students, administrators and alumni of all 14 Dutch research universities will be congregating to call on the new government to structurally invest 1.1 billion euros in academic research and education. Since 2000 student numbers have doubled, while government […]
On Thursday the 19th of November CSPS colleagues and friends met to discuss Gloria Wekker’s White Innocence. This was the second meeting in a series of reading groups organized by Dr. Sierra Deutsch with the CSPS Political Ecology research cluster. The mix of Dutch and international participants felt a lot of resonance with Wekker’s reading […]
In the November 2020 gathering of the Transformative Learning Hub, we focused on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change. Two Hub members, Robin van der Sluijs and Dave Pendle, kindly volunteered to lead this session and share their knowledge, experience and practice. Together we explored different ways of engaging with climate change and […]
The 2020 CSPS Annual Day was held online on 8 October 2020. The interactive session was organised around the metaphor of trees growing together in a forest. Imagine for a moment each CSPS member as an individual ‘tree’ within the broader CSPS and WUR ‘forest’, a superorganism of sorts in which we together grow, adapt […]
One of teaching’s key objectives is to nurture students’ growth into active and informed citizens and changemakers, equipped with knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to creatively and critically respond to the complex challenges of our times. Yet many of our teaching practices in the realm of higher education are outdated, too often focusing […]
The Transformative Learning Hub (TL Hub) seeks to blur the boundaries conventionally drawn between research and teaching. Organised as a horizontal community of learners, it expressly brings together researchers, educators, students, changemakers and activists across different disciplines and fields at Wageningen University and beyond who are committed to engaging with transformative learning theory and practices […]
To kick off the CSPS Year of Anti-Oppression the Political Ecology reading group met on October 15th to discuss Frank Wilderson’s Afropessimism. Nine people attended the reading group from within and beyond CSPS, which signals a growing interest and commitment to exploring this topic together. Dr. Sierra Deutsch facilitated our meeting with the following ground […]
Can online meetings be generative and energizing! Yes, they can! On June 10th, we had the fourth meeting of our U.lab 2x journey, in which teachers and students at Wageningen University explore how to integrate head, heart and hands in Higher Education. Since The Netherlands went into ‘intelligent lockdown’ mid-March, we have been organizing our […]
What would a healthy, generative Higher Education system look like? That’s the question we explore in the 4th session of our U.lab 2x project “Building Vertical Literacy in Higher Education” on May 6th, 2020. Using a method called ‘Social Presencing Theatre’ (SPT), we embodied various stakeholder roles to sense what the system feels like […]
Wipe the dust, exhaleUncover hidden treasuresSense the space and shine! This haiku summarizes some of the outcomes of today’s online session of the U.lab 2x project ‘Building Vertical Literacy in Higher Education’ at Wageningen University. The aim of the session was to establish a shared understanding of the current reality of the higher education system […]
‘It feels like spring!’ On a rainy day in Wageningen, that’s the sensation that remained after an intensive morning of working together with over 20 teachers, educators and students from Wageningen University and outside. During this introduction session of the U.lab 2x project ‘Building Vertical Literacy in Higher Education’ we worked with tools offered by […]
We invite all PhDs from the four chair groups to present, or be present, at the CSPS Work in Progress Day. The casual full-day program includes presentations, peer feedback, lunch, workshops, wellbeing counselling, and dinner. Our intentions are to strengthen the CSPS PhD community and to enter in dialogue about common challenges that PhDs encounter. Presentations can be about any stage of the process and can be in any expressive form. Skype is available for those who are abroad on fieldwork.
To register: https://forms.gle/x8BHG3ZLnE3RcyP59
Deadline: 30 December 2019
What drives you in your work? What are you curious about? And what do you consider the beauty and value of it?
In our daily work as researchers and lecturers we are often confronted with the need to account for our activities and prove our ‘excellence’. Increasingly, measures and criteria have been put into place that do necessarily reflect our daily realities, let alone the reasons why we got involved in science in the first place.
We therefore decided to organize the 2019 CSPS Day around the theme of ‘Values in Science’. The aim of the day was: to meet and connect through an open and meaningful dialogue about what scientific quality entails for us and how we can translate that dialogue into a practical strategy for CSPS.
PhD Event | Draw Your PhD| September 12th| 5pm – 8pm | Café Rad van Wageningen Draw your PhD and is a fun and creative way to look at your work from a different perspective. Art can be a useful tool in writing and research both as a method and as a way of relaxing. Drawing […]
Wednesday 17 April, 15:30 – 17:00, Gaia 1, Gaia building, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, Building 101, 6708 PB Wageningen, This talk presents a theoretical analysis of the neoliberal production of anxiety in academic faculty members in universities in Northern Europe. The presentation focuses on neoliberalization as it is instantiated through audit and ranking systems designed to produce academia […]
There is growing discussion in many places concerning how to reform our universities in the face of common pressures we increasingly face to restructure along neoliberal lines. This post provides a clearinghouse for commentary both on this situation and on efforts to respond to it. In this way, it contributes to the central aim of CSPS […]
Document prepared by members of the Sociology of Development and Change group, Wageningen University Introduction The purpose of this document is to outline a general vision of what we expect from ourselves and our academic colleagues in terms of scholarly performance in the context of an overall healthy ‘work-life balance’. This document has been developed […]
Centre for Space, Place and Society 