Yesterday I read an amazing autoethnography by Alexandra Ridgway which is called “Love, loss and a doctorate: an autoethnography of grieving while writing a PhD.” Would recommend! Here’s the DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.2019202

As my father passed away during my undergraduate degree (and my mum 7 years later, less than a year before I started my PhD) this particular topic resonnated with me. In my mind it linked in with pedagogies of care (Motta & Bennett, 2018 [don’t know why I wrote that, there is no way I’m also doing a reference list!]). And the stuff I have read about emotional labour, neoliberalism and a whole lot of stuff sort of all link to the student experience of grief and how that impacts not only their study journey, but the educator as well.

I do like to think of how proud my parents would be of me if they were still around and I do use that to motivate myself at times. Plus it was just a really brave topic to write about.

So I emailed the author and told her how wonderful I thought it was! She replied within a day and gave me links to two more of her articles on student grief.

I have not read them yet but here they are – open access.

Ridgway, A. (2023). The Call: A Semi-Fictional Account of Student Grief During the COVID Pandemic. UNESCO Observatory Multidisciplinary E-Journal in the Arts, Vol 9, Issue 1.8. Available online at: https://www.unescoejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023_VOL9_8_Ridgeway.pdf

Ridgway A., Hay, A., Matthews, A., Breen, L.J., & Cupit, I. (2023). Revitalising Universities for Grieving Students in (Post-) COVID Times. UNESCO Observatory Multidisciplinary E-Journal in the Arts, Vol 9, Issue 1.9. Available online at: https://www.unescoejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023_VOL9_9_Ridgeway-et-al.pdf

I could probably write an entire thesis on all the ways that grief and loss has impacted who I am as a person, my motivation, my outlook on life and of course my study from undergraduate through to this one-third finished PhD. I wont, at least not until I’ve finished said PhD – but I will write this blog post to encourage others to read on the topic of student grief, to consider it in their practice and to consider doing work in this area. Grief is such a large part of attrition and equity in higher education.