Published on 1 August 2025
Recent scholarship highlights the growing recognition, particularly post-COVID, of the role that care, connection, and trust play in higher education. In their 2024 review of research into kindness in higher education, Fox and Aspland observe a shift across the sector, with educators increasingly acknowledging the importance of genuine connection in teaching and learning. Similarly, Grant and Pittaway (2025) advocate for a pedagogy of kindness grounded in compassion, care, mutual respect, and a belief in the strengths and values students bring to their learning. These contributions remind us that kindness is both a valid pedagogical approach and a powerful foundation for meaningful learning.
Thus, kindness is not an add-on to the university’s work, but is embedded in how we teach, lead, collaborate, and contribute to society. It is an institutional capability, embodying shared values and operational principles, which shape how we as a community define success.
As such, we see clear alignment between kindness and UNSW’s new strategy, Progress for All, which sets a bold direction for our university. The nine Strategic Pillars, consisting of five Impact Pathways and four Impact Focus Areas, define how we work and where we focus our collective energy.
The Cambridge dictionary defines kindness as encompassing generosity, helpfulness, and caring for others. It goes beyond being nice or naïve; it’s a values-based, critical practice that supports culture, learning, and societal impact. Our understanding of kindness is deeply aligned with UNSW’s motto: Scientia Corde Manu et Mente: Knowledge by Heart, Hand and Mind. We see kindness in the heart that values and actively cares for others, the hand that reaches out and supports or guides, and the mind that thinks critically and ethically about impact.
Below, we map how the Kindness Network’s goals and initiatives align with each of UNSW’s Strategic Pillars.
Impact Pathways: How we work to make a difference
1. Accessible education
Kindness supports inclusive and empowering education. The Pedagogy of Kindness encourages environments where students feel safe to participate, challenge ideas and grow, and where staff can collaborate to foster interdisciplinary and tailored learning. We believe that kind classrooms can change the world.
2. Innovative research
Kindness enables research by fostering trust, inclusion and psychological safety. This does not mean shielding from difficulty, but fostering environments where people feel secure enough to take innovate, disagree and grow. These relational foundations encourage risk-taking and interdisciplinary collaboration needed for research that has impact.
3. Engaged networks
The Kindness Network brings together staff across faculties, roles and disciplines, creating space for shared reflection and collaboration. Kindness becomes a platform for building meaningful internal and external relationships, enabling the kind of trust-based engagement the UNSW strategy calls for.
4. Values-based culture
Kindness contributes to a culture in which people feel supported and respected, yet also challenged to act with integrity. It's about creating space for difficult conversations grounded in empathy and accountability, for enabling learning where minds are changed. Such a culture allows all individuals within UNSW the opportunity to thrive.
5. Effective systems and environments
Structural kindness shows up in how we design systems, communicate decisions and implement policy. We ask: Do people feel respected in this process? Did we seek and hear their voices? Does this system build trust or erode it? Is this the easy answer or the right answer; is it merely compliant or best practice? These are strategic questions, and we believe they matter.
Impact Focus Areas: Where we aim to create change
6. Sustainability
Kindness and sustainability are both rooted in care for people, communities and the planet. With Indigenous Knowledges highlighted, the land, sea, air and animals are not mere afterthoughts. In our teaching and advocacy, we encourage the UNSW community to think relationally: about how their actions affect others and how we build more just and sustainable futures.
7. Prosperity
Kindness contributes to social and economic prosperity by improving the conditions under which people both internal and external to UNSW can thrive. It supports wellbeing and reduces disconnection, underpinning innovation, collaboration and growth.
8. Healthy lives
By embedding structural kindness into the core of university life, we can reduce stress, mitigate burnout and create environments that support mental wellbeing, not as an “add-on”, but as a fundamental way of working. Our network advocates for a university culture where wellbeing is embedded in everyday practice.
9. Social resilience and cohesion
In times of disruption and uncertainty, kindness strengthens social fabric. It enables us to stay connected, listen generously and navigate differences with care, compassion and curiosity. Kindness and assuming positive intent are levers of soft diplomacy that universities, perhaps more than any other institutions, can pull to foster cohesion domestically and globally.
Kindness in action
Every day at UNSW, kindness comes to life through small, intentional acts. It’s the tutor who checks in with a student after class, or the colleague who advocates for more manageable workloads. It’s the researcher who mentors rather than competes, making space for others to thrive. It’s the educator who embeds choice and trust into assessments, making space for multiple definitions of student success. These everyday moments reflect UNSW’s values of inclusion, respect, and collaboration, and highlight the central role kindness plays in how we work and learn together.
Final thoughts
In a university committed to building knowledge by Heart, Hand and Mind, kindness is not peripheral - it is essential. It reminds us that how we engage with one another is inseparable from what we strive to achieve. By weaving kindness into the fabric of education, research, systems and culture, we activate the UNSW strategy in ways that are holistic, sustainable and human-centred.
As the Kindness Network continues to grow, we invite others across the university to reflect on how structural kindness can shape their teaching, leadership, research and professional practice. Together, we can build an institution where kindness is not only valued by the students and colleagues but is a strategic step towards Progress for All.
Join the UNSW kindness network
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