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Facilitated by: Prof Namrata Rao, Prof Alex Owen and Dr Emily Danvers and who are the convenors of the Learning, Teaching & Assessment Network. For more details about the network and its activities, please click here.

Overview

This session brings together scholars for a focused and practice-oriented exploration of how higher education responds to moments of crisis — political, environmental, institutional, and pedagogical — and how such conditions reshape teaching practices, assessment, academic identity, and the student experience.

Featuring mini keynote presentations and a panel discussion, the programme reflects a breadth of perspectives drawn from diverse higher education contexts, including contributions from Australia, Hong Kong, Lebanon, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South America, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Together, these contributions highlight how crises are negotiated across varied political systems, institutional structures, and cultural settings.

Drawing on both research and lived academic experience, the network event will generate shared insights into sustaining meaningful learning during disruption. The intention is to foster research-led dialogue, offering participants critical frameworks and practical approaches to develop responsive, thoughtful, and effective strategies for navigating future crises in higher education, while strengthening scholarly networks in times of uncertainty.

Schedule

Speaker bios

Professor Stephen Marshall (PFHEA) is Director at the Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Academic Development. Stephen leads Victoria University Digital Vision and Strategy for Learning and Teaching initiatives and researches in the areas of organisational change in higher education, quality, benchmarking, plagiarism and academic integrity, intellectual property, and the development of educational policy and strategy supporting and encouraging the effective use of technology. He is a long-serving editor for the journal Higher Education Research and Development and faculty member of the biennial ACODE Learning Technologies Leadership Institute.

Anatoly Oleksiyenko is Professor of International Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). His research focuses on the challenges of globalisation in higher education and transformations of universities in the 21st century. His publications address the dilemmas of agency of internationalization in higher education, complexity of governance, and ethics of leadership in neoliberal universities. He is a leading scholar on the challenges of organizational change in post-soviet higher education. His publications received awards from the Comparative and International Education Society in the USA (2016 – best article award from Higher Education SIG; 2019 – best book award from the SIG International Students and Study Abroad; and 2024 – best research paper award from the SIG Europe and Central Asia). Professor Oleksiyenko holds a PhD in Higher Education from OISE-University of Toronto.

Lee Mackenzie is a lecturer in Education and Early Childhood at Liverpool Hope University. Previously, he has worked in a range of contexts globally as a teacher and teacher educator. He has also worked in Colombia as a researcher/lecturer with a focus on English language education. He holds a PhD in Education and Social Justice from Lancaster University and has published articles on higher education, language policy and planning, teacher discrimination, language and human development, and teacher reflection. 

Deisy Alexandra Becerra Martel is a doctoral student at Liverpool Hope University, United Kingdom. She is currently researching the inclusion of forcibly displaced learners in Colombia. She grew up in a conflict zone on the Venezuelan/Colombian border and has twice been forcibly displaced. She holds a degree in Education from Simon Rodriguez University, Caracas, and an MA in Educational Psychology with a major in Inclusive Education from Alcalá de Henares University, Spain. 

Dr Bassem Kandil is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Saint Joseph University of Beirut (USJ). He is also the head of the MA Department (English and Arabic sections). Starting from the premise that teaching and research complement each other, Dr. Kandil strives to innovatively integrate research findings into the courses he teaches.

Patricia Rached is a Professor, HDR (post-doctorate) and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Saint Joseph University of Beirut. Her research focuses on university pedagogy, the support of learners and teachers, humanistic approaches, and educational neuroscience. 

Kibbie Naidoo is Director of the Centre for Academic Staff Development at the University of Johannesburg. She convenes the national Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) Fellowship Programme and the Southern African Universities Learning and Teaching (SAULT) Forum and serves on the Executive Management Committee for the implementation of the National Framework for Enhancing Academics as Teachers. Kibbie’s research interests include academic agency, professionalising academic development, rurality, and social justice in higher education. Prior to joining UJ she taught in Sociology, Industrial Sociology and Higher education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

The late Hemali Joshi was the Director of the Centre for Academic Technologies (CAT) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Before joining CAT, Hemali worked at the Academic Development Centre (ADC) in integrated student success and taught Anthropology to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Hemali was the recipient of a Faculty of Humanities teaching award, the Vice-Chancellor’s award for ‘Most Promising Young Teacher’ and, a Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) Fellowship. Her research interests included education, technology, performance, and engaging with questions of social justice. Hemali was passionate about student success and believed education was about what anthropologist Michael Wesch terms “soul-making”.

Kiruthika Ragupathi is a Senior Associate Director at the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore. Her research work focuses on academic development, assessment, social practice theory, graded/gradeless learning, online learning, interdisciplinary education, and student living-learning experiences.   

Adrian Lee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, and the former Deputy Director at the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include technology-enhanced learning, especially blended learning, interdisciplinary education, academic development, and student living-learning experiences.

Dr Kasturi Behari-Leak is Professor in Higher Education Studies, Dean of the Centre for Higher Education Development and Director of the Academic Staff and Professional Development Unit at the University of Cape Town. She has led university-wide, national and international projects on leadership, professional development and decolonial pedagogies and publishes in these fields. As past President of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa, she convenes its University Staff Doctoral Programme. She is also past President of the International Consortium of Educational Development. She is a member of international research consortia, editorial boards and advisory groups.

Alison Cook-Sather, Ph.D., is the Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education at Bryn Mawr College and Director of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges in the US. She has developed internationally recognized student-faculty pedagogical partnership programs and authored or co-authored over 200 articles and chapters and 12 books, including Co-creating Equitable Teaching and Learning: Structuring Student Voice into Higher Education and Promoting Equity and Justice through Pedagogical Partnership. Alison has consulted on 6 continents on pedagogical partnership and co-creation, supported over 100 institutions in exploring pedagogical partnership and co-creation, and received several awards, including the Alumni Excellence in Education Award from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Learn more at https://www.alisoncooksather.com/

Professor Susan Rowland is an accomplished academic leader and biochemist, currently serving as Vice Provost. She holds a BSc (Hons) and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Sydney, along with a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from The University of Queensland, and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA). With a career spanning research, teaching excellence, and senior university leadership, Professor Rowland brings deep expertise in higher education strategy, academic quality, and student experience. She is an Education Focused academic, and is widely recognized for her commitment to advancing innovative teaching practices and fostering inclusive, high-impact learning environments across the university sector.