This handbook explores feeling like an ‘imposter’ in higher education and what this can tell us about contemporary educational inequalities. Asking why imposter syndrome matters now, we investigate experiences of imposter syndrome across social locations, institutional positions, and intersecting inequalities. Our collection queries advice to fit-in with the university, and authors reflect on (not)belonging in, with and against educational institutions. The collection advances understandings of imposter syndrome as socially situated, in relation to entrenched inequalities and their recirculation in higher education. Chapters combine creative methods and linger on the figure of the ‘imposter’ - wary of both individualising and celebrating imposters as lucky, misfits, fraudsters, or failures, and critically interrogating the supposed universality of imposter syndrome.

Are You for Real? is a groundbreaking work that places imposter syndrome, the Bible, and society at the same table. In this project Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder addresses the shadow of facade and fake feeling that pervade not only women, but men and non-binary persons in various ways. Matters of racism, sexism, classism, and gender come to the forefront as the author engages imposter syndrome through the lens of biblical texts. While much work on imposter syndrome situates itself in corporate environments, Buckhanon Crowder expands such professional boundaries to include religious contexts and the public square in general. Study questions at the end of each chapter provide space for both individual and institutional reflection on manifestations of imposter syndrome.

Optimizing leadership and governance in higher education creates an environment that promotes academic excellence, innovation, and inclusivity. As institutions face challenges from technological advancements, demographic shifts, and global competition, effective governance structures and leadership development becomes critical when navigating these challenges. By prioritizing transparency, collaboration, and adaptability, educational leaders develop a culture of shared responsibility and continuous improvement, empowering faculty, staff, and students to engage in their own educational experience. Exploration into the commitment to optimizing leadership and governance in higher education can lead to sustainable growth, improved student outcomes, and a more responsive educational landscape. Optimizing Leadership and Governance in Higher Education explores best practices and insights into higher education governance and leadership optimization. By sharing research, practical strategies, and personal experiences, the book offers solutions for education administrators to navigate complex challenges in the evolving educational landscape. This book covers topics such as educational technology, ethics and law, and social science, and is a useful resource for education professionals, administrators, policy makers, computer scientists, sociologists, academicians, and researchers.

Emerging from personal experience and empirical research, Doing Doctoral Research at a Distance is a key companion text for doctoral students from a range of research fields and geographical contexts who are undertaking off-campus, hybrid, and remote pathways. Offering guidance about the entire off-campus doctoral journey, the book introduces contexts of distance study; key information to get off to a flying start; organising time, space and plans to get work done; juggling employment, family and other commitments alongside distance study; doctoral identity and wellbeing; working with doctoral supervisors at a distance; accessing research culture at a distance; and managing the bumps along the road of the distance doctorate. Written for doctoral researchers, this book offers strategies to help those working at a distance to flourish. This book is ideally suited for those contemplating distance study, distance doctoral students who are starting their off-campus journey, and supervisors and others who are working with distance doctoral researchers. ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game – the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors – and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, earlycareer researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

Reimagining South African Higher Education: Towards a Student-Centred Learning and Teaching Future provides progressive approaches and innovations that challenge readers to rethink student learning, engagement, support, and teaching. The book offers examples of evidence-informed and scholarly approaches to centring students through enhanced learning and teaching practices that are relevant to the South African context and those Global South contexts similar to South Africa.

This book will provide an in-depth look at the development, functionality and appeal of pre-arrival platforms to aid transition into higher education, including a range of provisions. Ensuring a smooth transition into higher education study is increasingly seen as key to both retention and success, both in the initial weeks of study and beyond. Pre-arrival platforms offer students a range of opportunities, which might include the chance to familiarise themselves with the practices and policies of their new institution before teaching begins. This book will explore these platforms from three different angles: their development, use and appeal to diverse audiences in higher education, and case studies illustrating their incorporation into practice. It will provide a comprehensive overview of not only the different ways in which such platforms add value to the transition process but also the way they embrace diversity and widening participation in higher education from the very beginning of an individual’s higher education career. With chapters written by individuals from a variety of roles in higher education, this text will also provide the reader an insight into issues arising from the use of these platforms. It will be essential reading for educational, academic and staff developers working with departments and their institutions to develop their support structure for new students as well as for those directly involved in widening access/participation programmes.

This book offers a treatment of social justice and higher education within small island developing states like the Caribbean. This is a timely exploration of some of the global-local, structure-actor, policy-practice debates that connect directly to the promise and the challenges of pursuing social justice agendas within and beyond Caribbean institutions of higher education. In this book, the key points of examination are the (i) changing patterns within the global higher education landscape, emerging mandates for university systems, (ii) the perspectives and challenges for diverse student and staff populations, and (iii) the ways in which these collectively impact social justice agendas within institutions of higher education. The contextualization and politicization of these issues within the broader discourse of small island developing states deepens the understanding of the prospects and challenges of addressing social injustices within the contemporary landscape, but with some re-engagement of existing conceptions and theorizations (related to inclusivity, diversity, equity, ontology, coloniality, postcolonial and critical race theory) to inform how actors within these institutions can strategically respond. It will be vital reading for scholars and educational researchers with interests in higher education, social justice, and small island developing states (SIDS).

With a focus on skills development, this book provides guidance on how to navigate transitions between career stages in higher education and how to maintain wellbeing in the process. In a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, a career path in higher education can demand rapid transition. This book provides comprehensive coverage of the kinds of transitions one may face in higher education and how to navigate them successfully while focusing on wellbeing and self-care. Centred around first-person accounts, the chapters illustrate the key issues around transitions and their impacts and provide suggestions for how to adapt through self-care. The authors offer insights from their own personal experiences, enabling the reader to develop an action plan of their own or to share with and guide students and early career mentees. The tools and strategies outlined in the book make up a library of resources that can be called upon at any stage of the journey. Written with all career stages in mind, this book will be an essential resource for new and experienced researchers alike.

There has been much recent commentary regarding a ‘crisis’ in academic mental health and wellbeing. This Research Handbook showcases cutting-edge studies and insightful narratives on the wellbeing of doctoral students, early career researchers, and faculty members, illuminating the current state of academic mental health research. Importantly, authors also offer potential solutions to the increasingly poor mental health reported by those working and studying in the higher education sector.

Self-care involves taking action to support, protect or maintain wellbeing. Relationships have a significant influence on these acts of self-care and one’s sense of wellbeing. Relationships are fundamental to individual meaning-making and crucial to the world of academia. In this edited collection, authors navigate how they view relationships as a crucial part of their wellbeing and acts of self-care, exploring the "I", "We", and "Us" at the centre of self-care and wellbeing embodiment. Each chapter unpacks this idea in varying ways that demonstrate that relationships are a fundamental element of both work and personal life and how they intersect with wellbeing. The authors present critical discussion through visual narratives, lived experiences, and strategies that highlight how relationships, seeking social support, scaffolding opportunities to learn with and from each other, and changes in practise become acts of self-care individually and collectively. There has arguably never been a more important time to raise awareness of self-care and wellbeing as central to the nature of work in higher education. Healthy Relationships in Higher Education: Promoting Wellbeing Across Academia highlights new ways of working in higher education that disrupt current tensions that neglect wellbeing and will be of interest to anyone working in this environment.