Dr. Jessica Riddell
@drjessicariddell.bsky.social
Hope scholar, higher education leader, and an insider-advocate shaping PSE systems for human and ecological flourishing. Founder of the Hope Circuits Institute, she facilitates collective sense making for universities, colleges, and other organizations
Current bedside table: Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit; Holding Change by adrienne maree brown; A Third University is Possible (la paperson); Faith, Hope and Carnage (Nick Cave) The creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin; The Service Berry,Robin Wall Kimmerer. What are y’all reading these days
April 1, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Current bedside table: Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit; Holding Change by adrienne maree brown; A Third University is Possible (la paperson); Faith, Hope and Carnage (Nick Cave) The creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin; The Service Berry,Robin Wall Kimmerer. What are y’all reading these days
I’m writing an article for AAC&U magazine Liberal Education and I keep coming back to attentiveness. We must pay attention - and be intentional about where and how we focus our energy within systems designed to distract us. We REALLY need to pay attention to people as acts of radical humanization
March 29, 2025 at 1:22 AM
I’m writing an article for AAC&U magazine Liberal Education and I keep coming back to attentiveness. We must pay attention - and be intentional about where and how we focus our energy within systems designed to distract us. We REALLY need to pay attention to people as acts of radical humanization
This right here, people.
March 28, 2025 at 6:25 PM
This right here, people.
Had to send my parents my schedule so they could play “where in the world is our daughter” every day 🤣
March 19, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Had to send my parents my schedule so they could play “where in the world is our daughter” every day 🤣
I was in Boston at the CASE conference w/ 420 advancement folks where I talked about the difference between patrons & donors. While donors give money, patrons spend political + social capital. Right now, we need both as higher ed comes under fire. Champions, advocates, sponsors, defenders: Let’s go
March 18, 2025 at 2:54 AM
I was in Boston at the CASE conference w/ 420 advancement folks where I talked about the difference between patrons & donors. While donors give money, patrons spend political + social capital. Right now, we need both as higher ed comes under fire. Champions, advocates, sponsors, defenders: Let’s go
Hope circuits was released a year ago today from @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Happy book birthday!🎉
Happy book birthday!🎉
March 12, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Hope circuits was released a year ago today from @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Happy book birthday!🎉
Happy book birthday!🎉
Un-ironic unicorn is almost a perfect anagram. In my Rhetoric of Hope course this week we launched a defence of earnestness. It’s time we rehabilitated the very concepts we need to rescue us. Joy. Love. Hope. Pleasure. Empathy. These terms have been bludgeoned by pale male stale for too long.
February 15, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Un-ironic unicorn is almost a perfect anagram. In my Rhetoric of Hope course this week we launched a defence of earnestness. It’s time we rehabilitated the very concepts we need to rescue us. Joy. Love. Hope. Pleasure. Empathy. These terms have been bludgeoned by pale male stale for too long.
In my Rhetoric of Hope class today we did a hive mind exercise where we shared instances of joy and then took those data points and built a framework for what it is, what it looks like, its relationship to time, and how it ties to hope and purpose. I can’t believe this gets to be my job
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
February 6, 2025 at 5:54 PM
In my Rhetoric of Hope class today we did a hive mind exercise where we shared instances of joy and then took those data points and built a framework for what it is, what it looks like, its relationship to time, and how it ties to hope and purpose. I can’t believe this gets to be my job
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Found a cartoon illustrating David Foster Wallace’s parable “this is water.” I wonder: do students need to see the water (systems, structures, operations of a university?). I think student leaders as change agents do. But the student body at large? Should we aim for seamless? Holding this lightly
February 4, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Found a cartoon illustrating David Foster Wallace’s parable “this is water.” I wonder: do students need to see the water (systems, structures, operations of a university?). I think student leaders as change agents do. But the student body at large? Should we aim for seamless? Holding this lightly
Today is PJ-stay home-and-write day, a rare indulgence. But I’ve been bombarded with admin things all day (and I’m easily distracted when I’m just sitting down to write) so my day so far has been Sisyphus rolling that stone up that mountain (mostly to be fair a mountain of my own making). Send help!
February 4, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Today is PJ-stay home-and-write day, a rare indulgence. But I’ve been bombarded with admin things all day (and I’m easily distracted when I’m just sitting down to write) so my day so far has been Sisyphus rolling that stone up that mountain (mostly to be fair a mountain of my own making). Send help!
Are we suffering from collective nervous system dysregulation triggered by predictions of dystopian futures? How is dysregulation showing up in our everyday encounters & empathy levels? 1 symptom=deterioration of civility. Creative futures are possible if we self regulate & collectively heal, yes?
February 3, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Are we suffering from collective nervous system dysregulation triggered by predictions of dystopian futures? How is dysregulation showing up in our everyday encounters & empathy levels? 1 symptom=deterioration of civility. Creative futures are possible if we self regulate & collectively heal, yes?
My recent keynote for a women’s leadership institute was about the power of wyrd sisters from Macbeth: 3 women who live on edges& margins without resources or positional power manage to dismantle militarized violent, broken patriarchal centres through language & community. Book your wyrd sisters ⭐️⭐️⭐️
January 31, 2025 at 9:03 PM
My recent keynote for a women’s leadership institute was about the power of wyrd sisters from Macbeth: 3 women who live on edges& margins without resources or positional power manage to dismantle militarized violent, broken patriarchal centres through language & community. Book your wyrd sisters ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This audio book was fuelled by pep talks, throat coat, sheer force of will, a little Snoop Dog, and a whole lot of love. If you listen to Audio books, Hope Circuits is available on your preferred platform. 3/3
January 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM
This audio book was fuelled by pep talks, throat coat, sheer force of will, a little Snoop Dog, and a whole lot of love. If you listen to Audio books, Hope Circuits is available on your preferred platform. 3/3
This launched a journey with my amazing editors @mcgillqueensup to make this book accessible to all sorts of people. After 40 hours in the recording studio with the wonderful Pasqual at Toscana Studios, we made this book. It was hard, messy, taxing, humbling, funny, weird, and transformative. 2/3
January 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM
This launched a journey with my amazing editors @mcgillqueensup to make this book accessible to all sorts of people. After 40 hours in the recording studio with the wonderful Pasqual at Toscana Studios, we made this book. It was hard, messy, taxing, humbling, funny, weird, and transformative. 2/3
It’s AUDIO BOOK day! The idea for recording an audio book came in May, the week Hope Circuits was released into the world: my friend Cynthia Bruce, a disability scholar advocate who is herself blind, asked where and how could she engage with Hope circuits. 1/3
January 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM
It’s AUDIO BOOK day! The idea for recording an audio book came in May, the week Hope Circuits was released into the world: my friend Cynthia Bruce, a disability scholar advocate who is herself blind, asked where and how could she engage with Hope circuits. 1/3
Today is MLK day. What better reminder:
January 20, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Today is MLK day. What better reminder:
Feeling this keenly.
From @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social a timely reminder that the work remains the same. As I finish writing Hope Circuits 2.0 I am convinced that when despair feels monolithic, hope gets proximate. Daily and granular, hope happens in the mundane encounters now. Today. This week.
From @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social a timely reminder that the work remains the same. As I finish writing Hope Circuits 2.0 I am convinced that when despair feels monolithic, hope gets proximate. Daily and granular, hope happens in the mundane encounters now. Today. This week.
January 13, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Feeling this keenly.
From @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social a timely reminder that the work remains the same. As I finish writing Hope Circuits 2.0 I am convinced that when despair feels monolithic, hope gets proximate. Daily and granular, hope happens in the mundane encounters now. Today. This week.
From @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social a timely reminder that the work remains the same. As I finish writing Hope Circuits 2.0 I am convinced that when despair feels monolithic, hope gets proximate. Daily and granular, hope happens in the mundane encounters now. Today. This week.
As academics, we don’t often get to choose where we live (the job market for Shakespeareans is 🫣) so my family is far away. Our friends are crucial supports, critical lifelines & chosen family as we raise kids. Grateful to ring in 2025 w/cherished community. Happy new year grounded in love& light
January 1, 2025 at 9:40 PM
As academics, we don’t often get to choose where we live (the job market for Shakespeareans is 🫣) so my family is far away. Our friends are crucial supports, critical lifelines & chosen family as we raise kids. Grateful to ring in 2025 w/cherished community. Happy new year grounded in love& light
Wishing you all a festive season of hot coffee, dog cuddles, laughter at a kitchen table, day time pyjamas, full hearts, plain faces, open souls. We need replenishment & renewal going into 2025: we can only build creative futures with joy, pleasure, irreverence, play, love, warmth, gentleness.
December 28, 2024 at 2:50 PM
Wishing you all a festive season of hot coffee, dog cuddles, laughter at a kitchen table, day time pyjamas, full hearts, plain faces, open souls. We need replenishment & renewal going into 2025: we can only build creative futures with joy, pleasure, irreverence, play, love, warmth, gentleness.
As we wrap up 2024, I’m grateful to have the chance to continue the conversations into 2025. Here’s a peek at January to June next year. I’m now booking into August and Fall 2025 for Hope circuits keynotes, retreats, visioning, policy consults, QA projects & more! It is a privilege to do this work
December 19, 2024 at 1:51 PM
As we wrap up 2024, I’m grateful to have the chance to continue the conversations into 2025. Here’s a peek at January to June next year. I’m now booking into August and Fall 2025 for Hope circuits keynotes, retreats, visioning, policy consults, QA projects & more! It is a privilege to do this work
Working with postgraduate fellows is one of my favourite things. Truth tellers, blind spot checkers, mentors - these humans are the best way for us to check our privilege, decentre authority, and co-create in powerful ways for meaningful systems change. Grateful for folks like Sufia 🫶🏼
December 12, 2024 at 12:18 AM
Working with postgraduate fellows is one of my favourite things. Truth tellers, blind spot checkers, mentors - these humans are the best way for us to check our privilege, decentre authority, and co-create in powerful ways for meaningful systems change. Grateful for folks like Sufia 🫶🏼
I’m pretty sure I have the best job in the world: I get to play with awesome humans in rewiring PSE systems for human and ecological flourishing. Higher ed is having a rough go but there are hope warriors amongst us - and I got to spend this week with many of them. 🫶🏼
December 10, 2024 at 9:40 PM
I’m pretty sure I have the best job in the world: I get to play with awesome humans in rewiring PSE systems for human and ecological flourishing. Higher ed is having a rough go but there are hope warriors amongst us - and I got to spend this week with many of them. 🫶🏼
Two days of @stlhesapes.bsky.social board meetings in Toronto in the bag! STLHE is the national voice for teaching and learning in canada in higher ed and wow, do we have work to do! At a time of sector wide upheaval, we need to advocate for the PSE sector and build trust and energy and vision.
December 10, 2024 at 8:33 PM
Two days of @stlhesapes.bsky.social board meetings in Toronto in the bag! STLHE is the national voice for teaching and learning in canada in higher ed and wow, do we have work to do! At a time of sector wide upheaval, we need to advocate for the PSE sector and build trust and energy and vision.
On my way to a @stlhesapes.bsky.social board meeting for the next two days in Toronto and I’m enjoying the festive chaos of airports. Happy to report that the lattes taste better with smiley faces. Bonus: running into dear friends (Cheryl is on her way to @universitiescanada) makes it even better!
December 8, 2024 at 11:14 PM
On my way to a @stlhesapes.bsky.social board meeting for the next two days in Toronto and I’m enjoying the festive chaos of airports. Happy to report that the lattes taste better with smiley faces. Bonus: running into dear friends (Cheryl is on her way to @universitiescanada) makes it even better!