Book Review: Towards the Compassionate University: From Golden Thread to Global Impact

Abstract

Towards the Compassionate University: From Golden Thread to Global Impact Editor: Katherine Waddington Oxford: Routledge If you are not employed in, or have little engagement with, universities, you might wonder if this book is relevant to you. I’d agree with the authors – compassion is everybody’s business and the exploration of compassion as ‘love in action’ in this book has something to offer to learners, practitioners, educators, students and policymakers alike. The book is structured in three parts: context setting in Part 1: ‘The need and foundations for compassion’; Part 2: ‘Compassion in action’; and Part 3: ‘Towards the compassionate university’. I found the book theoretically dense, with a use of unfamiliar concepts that may seem a little inaccessible to some readers. There are several places where I believe more explanation would have been helpful and there is little consistency in the way the chapters are presented. However, where there are scenarios and ‘real’ examples, the theoretical content comes to life. I imagine the book will lend itself to ‘dipping in and out’; there is clear signposting within the chapters that will make this possible and, although the result is some repetition, this will not be a problem for the occasional visitor to the book.