Once an academic…
Many UK universities are currently facing acute financial pressures. Course closures, restructuring, and role reductions are becoming increasingly familiar features of institutional life as the sector adapts, sometimes uneasily, to changing market realities. Like many colleagues across the country, I have found myself directly affected. A role to which I had been appointed only a few years ago was, in the language now commonly used, ‘deleted’, at a stage in my professional life when such a development had not seemed imminent.
This experience has prompted a series of searching questions. What does it mean to be an academic? Does that identity depend upon formal attachment to a university? How might one shape the next phase of a professional life when circumstances accelerate decisions that might otherwise have unfolded more gradually?
In responding to these questions, I have come to recognise that the core elements of academic work, inquiry, interpretation, the generation and sharing of knowledge, and the accompaniment of others in learning, are not confined to institutional settings, they can take different forms and find new expressions. The founding of Noesis has grown from this realisation. It represents an attempt to carry forward a scholarly vocation in ways that are continuous with past experience and open to future development.
In practical terms, this means building a portfolio that includes coaching, consultancy, supervision, teaching, celebrancy, and further professional formation. Each of these activities draws, in different ways, upon longstanding commitments to reflective conversations, careful listening, and the shaping of meaningful language which deepens understanding. It also means learning to work without some of the familiar structures and signals of academic life. The underlying commitments, however, remain fundamentally the same: intellectual seriousness, thoughtful dialogue, and a concern for how knowledge informs perspectives, people and organisations; the navigation of change and the marking of important moments in human lives.
For those who find themselves negotiating similar transitions, whether through institutional change or through deliberate choice, such a period can be unsettling but also generative. It invites reconsideration of what matters and what may need to be re-imagined. If you are reflecting on comparable questions about your own professional direction, I would be very glad to be in conversation and to offer support through coaching or other services offered.