Events

Presented by Professor Yana Sychikova and Professor Igor Lyman in collaboration with Future Campus, this lecture will share critical insights into wellbeing, resilience, and higher education leadership drawn from sustaining a Ukrainian university during occupation, displacement, and ongoing conflict.

Based on research across 40 displaced universities and their lived experience of leading without physical campuses, they argue that wellbeing is not an adjunct to educational continuity, but the central organising principle that enables teaching, research, and community life to endure under extreme conditions.

The session is introduced by reflections from Professor Marek Tesar, whose work on educational borderlands frames the university as a relational, ethical, and lived space.

A panel of Faculty of Education wellbeing experts and scholars will respond to the Ukrainian experience, exploring its implications for wellbeing, trauma-informed practice, and resilience within Australian universities.

Light refreshments will be served in the adjoining foyer to the theatre with presentations commencing at 6pm.

Panellists:

Professor Nikki Rickard, Director Research, Centre for Wellbeing Science, Faculty of Education

Associate Professor Tom Brunzell, Leader in trauma-informed education and wellbeing sciences, Faculty of Education

Associate Professor Catherine McClellan, Enterprise Fellow, Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre, Faculty of Education

Facilitators:

Dr Rachel Colla, Senior Lecturer, Teaching & Learning Innovation Lead, Centre for Wellbeing Science, Faculty of Education

Tim Winkler, Director and Publisher of Future Campus

Content Warning:
This lecture will discuss themes such as war, issues for students during war, experiences of trauma and may include other confronting themes. This lecture may not be suitable for children or all people. Attendee, viewer and parental/carer discretion is advised.

Registration is essential.

ACCESSIBILITY

If you have any support requirements in order to participate fully, please let us know via educationevents@unimelb.edu.au to ensure that we can arrange any reasonable adjustments.

Note: 
Please only register for aseatedticketif you are sure to be attending in person.There is anotherticket type available toreceive a copy of the recordingfor those who are unable to attend in person.

The Pneuma-city Project, led by researchers from the Universities of Lagos, Toronto, Kent, and York, began with a simple but striking comment overheard on a busy street in Lagos, Nigeria: “In Lagos, a tire never dies.” This talk explores what that comment implies in one of the fastest‑growing cities in the world.

Focusing on imported second‑hand and end-of-life tires (ELTs), Professor Simon Coleman follows their surprising journeys through Lagos where they take on new roles in everyday city life, serving as platforms for generators and market stalls, or being transformed into works of art, while also often being discarded on the streets, in gutters, or canals. In telling their story, he draws on powerful photographs of Lagos by prize‑winning Nigerian photographer, and project member, Andrew Esiebo,

Join Professor Coleman as he explores how these tires move through the city and shift in meaning and value from rubbish to resource. By following the afterlives of tires and shedding light on the people who work with them, this talk reveals how something ordinary and overlooked helps keep a megacity moving.

Professor Coleman’s visit is supported by the Macgeorge Bequest, the School of Social and Political Sciences and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne.