Leading with Feminist Care Ethics in Higher Education

“Leading with Feminist Care Ethics is a compelling reading experience, as the presence of the author in dialogue with both the theoretical material and the case studies she conducts pulls the reader into deeper consideration of both the ethics and the practicalities of care as a component of leadership roles in higher education. The book, its conversations, and its methodology work together to explore the complex relationship between care and the university—the university as a community that requires care in order to thrive; the university as an institution that can teach care as a component of its work; and the university as an institution that sometimes abuses care among its most committed members.” —Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA “Higher education, and leadership in higher education, is in transition. Including a feminist care ethics approach within this transition is needed if we are to consider a better, more caring, future. Schultz’s work offers us a way to begin to understand the lived experiences of care ethics for leaders in higher education." —Heather Zwicker, Executive Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Queensland, Australia This book explores how academic leaders throughout higher education experience and practice care and the ethics of care. Drawing on a narrative inquiry study of experiences and practices of feminist care ethics in higher education leadership, Schultz counters academic norms, including expectations of competition and criticism across all activities, by uncovering the common experiences of academic leaders who intentionally adopt practices guided by an ethics of care and relationality. Within the context of institutions of higher education responding to present-day social movements, the book highlights how practices of care-centered leadership can enable change that begins on campus and reaches outwards to positively impact the community. Christie Schultz is Dean of the Centre for Continuing Education and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina, Canada. She is a scholar of leadership in higher education, care ethics in leadership, and qualitative research methodologies—especially narrative inquiry.