I think often about how disempowered we tend to feel when we look at the big picture, or how exhausted and defeated we might feel when we think about national or even global problems. But the possibilities can be found in the micro, everyday lives, that we live. And by that I mean locally – and that local could be your neighbourhood, it could be your building, it could be the institution that you are part of. In my case that could be a university…

Lorgia García-Peña, co-founder of Freedom University

Today is the summer solstice, the day when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. It’s also the longest brightest day of the year and the shortest, briefest night. For many it is a time of reflection, a reminder to turn inwards, and consider what is needed to grow and to flourish. I have spent that last few months really thinking about the post-secondary landscape and my own place within it. When I was feeling most disengaged I read Jessica Riddell’s book Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing, and it inspired me to keep trying, to keep going, for she reminds us hope is a verb, “it’s something that you anchor and practice, to just hope without putting it into the world in your everyday encounters is to hope in vain.”