A campfire. Radiating heat onto my face, with the chill of the darkness and woods at my back. Orange and yellow flames dance to heights above my head, contrasting with the deep blue night sky and uncountable stars. Dark outlines of tall pine trees reflecting a faint glow from the fire pierce the sky. Blues and greens shimmer close to the wood stacked in the fire ring. The thundering and crackling of the fire fills my ears.
Then I hear people. In small groups, they sit close to the fire, listen to stories told by elders, sing songs accompanied by guitar, snuggle contentedly in blankets. Children chase each other around cabins and tents beyond the ring, squealing and laughing. Beyond the campfire ring, a group of people stir stews bubbling in giant pots with steam rising into the night air. The smell of herbs and gravies blends with the piney smoke from the campfire.
Warmth. Belonging. Nurturance. Wonder. Play. Companionship and accompaniment. Growth. Intergenerational survivance.
What’s your vision of the future?
In “Scenes of Love, Solidarity, Slowness, and Presences for Futures”, speaker Dr. Amanda Tachine invited attendees during the 2024 POD Network conference keynote to consider “What’s your vision of the future?” About 800 attendees were seated in rows of straight back chairs, elbow to elbow, hip to hip, our hands and laps occupied with coffee and phones and laptops, the busy-mind buzz of morning sessions and seeing friends and finding our way through the maze of the conference center back to the ballroom.
Through a guided meditation, Dr. Tachine invited our bodies and minds to presence, calm, and quiet with sensory awareness. The sound and feel of our own regular breath, our chest and body rising and falling. Her voice. The air handler of the building. The air and our clothes on our skin. The floor under our feet and the chair seat and back touching our back bodies. The smell of lunch being prepared and the taste of our morning coffees still in our mouths.
What’s my vision of the future?
I don’t recall the series of prompts that invited our imaginations to speak of our future-visions. Yet this campfire scene is my vision of the future that came to me during that keynote. In this future-vision, I move among groups of people as they share stories of memory-keeping, surviving, and thriving. Through songs and recipes, children’s games and elders’ wisdom, they make space for each other’s nourishment, wonder, play, growth, companionship, and comfort.
My vision of the future mirrors aspects of my most precious previous experiences. Communities that nurture the right to be, feel, and act with loving kindness. Boundary-crossing havens and refuges for people who feel marginalized, invisible, and hypervisible. Circles that uncover assumptions and uplift the unconventional, the non-dominant, the unspoken, the subtle. Storytelling spaces for counter-narratives. Transgressive spaces for vulnerability, authenticity, belonging, courage, agency, joy, growth, and wisdom.
Havener and storykeeper
I am a havener and storykeeper. I know how to hold spaces for stories to be heard, collectively honored, and shared with participatory consent in ways that nurture future communities. In circles I’ve co-created and co-facilitated, dozens of people have shared their stories about their paths to becoming that challenged norms and dominant narratives and that show potential paths for others. Many of these stories are shared in collections and co-authored publications (see examples below). I’m growing my skills in deep listening, nervous system regulation, trauma-awareness, attunement, facilitation, archetype work, narrative inquiry, motivation and change, and self-expression through participating in groups like the Compassionate Cohort and training in coaching, reiki, improvisation, and glass and printmaking art.
As the most meaningful and fulfilling experiences from this chapter of my life, these spaces of havening and story-keeping serve as both a legacy and a map to the kind of work I want to continue to do in this next chapter.
At the end of her keynote, Dr. Tachine encouraged attendees to ask about each other’s visions of the future throughout the rest of the conference. Over conference meals, I heard about difficulty participating in the guided meditation as well as coming up blank. I also heard others’ visions of completing stalled projects and sitting in the sun on a beach. I learned about fears I could listen to gently, efforts I could offer support, and visions that inspired me.
What’s your vision of the future? What is most precious to you now?
Stories by graduate students
- Teaching as if Learning Matters: Pedagogies of Becoming by Next-Generation Faculty. Jennifer Meta Robinson, Valerie Dean O’Loughlin, Katherine Kearns, and Laura Plummer, editors (2022, Indiana University Press).
- Transgressive Learning Communities: Transformative Spaces for Underprivileged, Underserved, and Historically Underrepresented Graduate Students at Their Institutions. Leslie Drane, Jordan Lynton, Yari Cruz-Rios, Elizabeth Malouchos, and Katherine Kearns (2019. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 7(2)).
Stories by academic professionals
- Higher Education Careers Beyond the Professoriate. Karen Cardozo, Katherine Kearns, and Shannan Palma, editors (2024, Purdue University Press).
- Meanings of community: Educational developers experience care, satisfying contributions, and belonging in a collaboration across institutions. Tom Colclough, Will Howitz, Danny Mann, Katie Kearns, & Darren Hoffmann (2023, To Improve the Academy 42(2). https://doi.org/10.3998/tia.2637).
- Appreciating and Caring for Our Communities of Practice in Educational Development. Christopher V.H-H. Chen, Katherine Kearns, Lynn Eaton, Darren S. Hoffmann, Denise Leonard, and Martin Samuels (2022, To Improve the Academy, 41(1): 121-150. https://doi.org/10.3998/tia.460).
- “Once a Scientist…”: Disciplinary Approaches and Intellectual Dexterity in Educational Development. Katherine Kearns, Molly Hatcher, Mara Bollard, Michele DiPietro, Devon Donohue-Bergeler, Leslie E Drane, Elizabeth Luoma, Andrew E Phuong, Laura Thain, and Mary Wright. (2018, To Improve the Academy 37(1): 128-141).
Katie Kearns 