I was walking out of the UNSW Business School building in Sydney, Australia, when I bumped into a student from my large Master of Commerce course. She looked exhausted, as so many of us do at that point in the term. She paused and said quietly: "Thank you for remembering my name in class last week. I think I was starting to disappear a bit this term".

Her comment stopped me in my tracks. How could it be that at a leading international university, a bright and capable student felt she was disappearing? And could it really be that the simple act of remembering her name was enough to bring her back into view?

That moment reminded me that what might seem like a small kindness can have a profound impact. I'm sure many readers can recall a similar instance in their own academic lives: a thesis supervisor who noticed when you withdrew, a teacher who made space for your ideas, or a colleague who acknowledged work you thought had gone unseen. These moments of kindness are not trivial; they are quietly transformative.

Despite this, kindness in higher education is often misunderstood as being soft, nice or simply polite. However, kindness is not about lowering standards or avoiding challenge. It is about recognising the humanity of students, colleagues, and ourselves, and choosing to act with respect, empathy, and care. Done well, kindness creates the conditions for learning, collaboration and well-being.

Importantly, kindness does not flourish in isolation. Kindness begets kindness, and in higher education, each part helps the others to grow. When we nurture one, the benefits ripple outward, enriching the whole system and creating the conditions for everyone to thrive.

With this in mind, I propose that we think about kindness in higher education as a relational ecosystem consisting of kindness to students, colleagues and self. Shifting our perspective from random acts of goodwill to a systemic approach allows us to see how kindness can transform not only individual experiences but also the culture of our institutions.

Figure 1: The higher education kindness ecosystem

Why an ecosystem?

When we think of kindness as isolated good deeds, we miss something crucial. Without connection, these acts often feel exhausting and their impact fleeting.

An ecosystem approach is different. In natural ecosystems, each element creates conditions that allow others to flourish. Similarly, when you show kindness to yourself by setting boundaries, you have more emotional resources for students. When students feel supported, they're more willing to extend grace to others. When colleagues support one another, the workplace becomes less competitive, freeing up energy for more meaningful student engagement and creating space for the self-care that sustains us all.

In this post, I'll explore what kindness looks like across these three interconnected relationships and share practical ways you might weave kindness into your own teaching and learning.

Kindness to students

University can be daunting, especially for students who are far from home, studying in a second language, or navigating the competing demands of work and family. In these contexts, kindness does not mean lowering academic standards. Instead, it means creating conditions where students feel respected, supported, and able to thrive.

Sometimes this takes the form of small gestures: a timely response to a worried email, an encouraging comment on an assignment, or building in moments of peer-to-peer interaction so that students feel less alone in a lecture theatre of hundreds. Other times, it is about structural choices: designing assessments that are transparent and inclusive, ensuring resources are accessible, or embedding opportunities for feedback and reflection.

These actions do more than make students feel good in the moment. When students perceive their teachers as kind, they are more likely to engage, persist through challenges, and develop a sense of belonging. Kindness, then, is not an optional add-on; it is integral to creating environments where deep learning can occur.

Kindness to colleagues

Higher education is often characterised by intense competition, high workloads, and a culture of individual performance. In such environments, collegial kindness is a form of resistance against structures that can be isolating and even harmful.

Kindness to colleagues can be as simple as acknowledging the unseen labour that goes into teaching, research, and service. It might mean checking in after a difficult meeting, sharing resources generously, or offering encouragement when someone is feeling stretched. These small acts remind us that we are part of a community, not just a collection of individuals competing for scarce resources.

In my own experience, being part of the UNSW Kindness Network, a group of academics and professional staff committed to embedding kindness across the university, has been transformative. We meet to share practices, support one another, and ask big questions about how kindness might reshape our institutions. It has shown me that rather than being about the transaction of favours, collegiality can be about sustaining each other through care, trust, and solidarity.

When kindness is woven into the fabric of our professional relationships, collaboration becomes more generative, creativity is unlocked, and the workplace feels less like a struggle for survival and more like a space of possibility.

Kindness to self

The final, and perhaps most neglected, part of the kindness ecosystem is kindness to self. Universities often reward relentless overwork, endless striving, and the pursuit of perfection. In such a culture, self-kindness can feel indulgent or even irresponsible. But without it, we risk exhaustion and burnout, and with that, our capacity to be kind to students and colleagues quickly diminishes.

Practising kindness to self can take many forms. It might mean setting boundaries on availability, resisting the pressure to say yes to everything, or recognising when good enough really is enough. It might also involve allowing ourselves rest without guilt or speaking openly with students and colleagues about the challenges we face. Far from diminishing our professionalism, such honesty models resilience, humanity, and balance.

Kindness to self is not about lowering ambition or avoiding responsibility. It is about recognising that sustaining the energy to care for others requires first caring for ourselves. In a sector where stress and burnout are increasingly prevalent, this may be one of the most radical forms of kindness we can practice.

What you can try this week

Kindness to students:

• Use three students' names in your next class
• Respond to worried emails within 24 hours (even just to acknowledge receipt)
• Review one assignment to make it clearer or less anxiety-provoking

Kindness to colleagues:

• Acknowledge one thing a colleague does that usually goes unnoticed
• Share a useful resource with someone who'd benefit
• Suggest a colleague's name when opportunities arise

Kindness to self:

• Schedule 30 minutes of something that energises you
• Give yourself 24 hours before saying yes to the next request
• Notice when you’re being self-critical and ask "what would I tell a friend?”

The key is to start small and notice how each act strengthens your capacity for kindness in the other areas.

Towards a culture of kindness

The relational ecosystem of kindness draws its strength from understanding how small, consistent acts create conditions for larger transformation. Unlike random acts of goodwill that depend on individual motivation, ecosystem kindness is regenerative. When we nurture one part, the others become more capable of nurturing in return.

This suggests that creating kinder institutions isn't just about convincing more people to be nice. It's about building environments where kindness becomes easier, more natural, and more sustainable for everyone involved.

So let me leave you with this:  What part of the kindness ecosystem will you nurture in your own practice this semester, knowing that each act strengthens the whole?

Banner image: Adapted from https://pixabay.com/vectors/business-agreement-hands-meeting-2935350/