professor of practice

In a recent Substack I wrote about job titles and how they interface with hierarchy. Well, as it happens a new title has come my way: professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). It’s an unpaid appointment - similar to an adjunct or honorary title. It has come to be because of a joyful research collaboration with Soshan Soobramoney, an academic (and more importantly, beloved friend) at UJ. We’ve embarked on a new body of work that will be housed at UJ that aligns deeply with my overall orientation towards belonging, healing and embodiment. You can read the preprint of the first paper here.

The whole idea of a professor epitomises hierarchy: built into it is a sense of rank, a stereotype of one who knows more than others. So of course it has been sitting uncomfortably with me, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to be with it, how to embody it, what posture it calls for.

If we imagine the way professorship is embedded in institutional structures as what we see above ground, what lies beneath, in the fertile soil?

The word practice is intended by UJ to denote my work as a practitioner. It is a recognition of the portfolio of work that extends beyond academic publications to include reports and policy documents and blogs and conference presentations and public media engagement and so on.

I love the parallel that this has with my sense that my soul work is “in the midst of it all”. I wrote about this householder path earlier this year.

But even more than this, the word practice resonates with my deep commitment to cultivation of wholeness, to the sweet weaving of love and discipline, the sincere mirroring of inner and outer. I love this recent substack from Sebene Selassie with a wonderful guided meditation: attention, intention, connection.

So professor of practice could be taken to mean “she who is deeply interconnected to practice, she who is a friend on the path of practice, she who openly declares and speaks courageously for practice".

It feels essential to acknowledge that there is power associated with the title, and to acknowledge that it is located within a university, and universities are institutions designed on a colonial and patriarchal template. I know that part of my calling is to be present in the midst of it all - that means showing up in the world as it is AND continuing to breathe into a new world. There’s a fine line implicit in this - where I place my attention gets strengthened by virtue of the energy that flows with attention.

There’s also the privilege to the reframing: it’s a privilege to be able to speak, to be given a platform from which to openly declare.

I feel a deep alignment with the actuarial programme at UJ: radical in its emphasis on treating students with respect, on cultivating listening and attention, on valuing collaboration over hyper-individualism, in its invitation of questions, its cultivation of curiosity. Soshan epitomizes the notion of “embody & invite” - he himself moves through the world with an open heart and a willingness to be changed by what he hears.

The research has also been a place of alignment. The question we are sitting with is: “what would a generative actuarial education system look like?”. Implicit in this question are all of the things that stand in the way of something being truly juicy and alive: the illusions of separateness, the extraction, the hierarchies. The actuarial profession in many ways in embroiled with the profound harm of late-stage capitalism, the inequality of the financial system and a colonial history. How does all of this show in the bodies of its people? How do we heal? How do we rebuild in a way that is redemptive?

Of course these questions are not isolated to the actuarial world, to how education is institutionalized and to the academy. These are questions we must all engage: what am I strengthening through my attention? what am I practicing? is there alignment between the aspects of my life?

If you are in Cape Town, I would love for you to join me in co-breathing, co-liberation. Drop me a note if your curiosity is ignited.