An Unlikely Ally: Harnessing the Power of Play at Work

Ready for a boost? All too often, play is pushed to the margins of adult and professional life due to narratives recruiting us to believe that play is childish, trivial, and a waste of time. However, when we exclude play, we also deny ourselves a multitude of benefits. This workshop will expand the common understanding of play beyond a child’s activity to an innate need across the lifespan and reframe it as a helpful ally in adult life. Come explore the power of play in the context of higher education and as an overall aid to wellness, job satisfaction, creativity, productivity, and connection with colleagues and students. 

Whether you lead a department, support faculty, or work as a traditional research and teaching professor, play can help you rediscover meaning and joy in your job and challenge norms and habits that limit your freedom. Play can not only improve your individual work outcomes, but it can also transform your organizational culture. Join a growing community of higher education professionals who harness the power of play to reignite their passion and creativity for their work.

Topics covered in this workshop include:

• The science of play: How does it work? Why does it work? Why does it matter?
• The benefits of personal play: How becoming more playful can enhance your professional life.
• Developing your own play practice: What is it? How do you do it?
• Supporting play in teaching: Ideas and best practices for bringing faculty into a more playful approach to teaching.
• Increasing student play: Sharing the benefits of play with students, both in and outside of the classroom.
• Changing the culture of higher education: Approaching higher education with playfulness to encourage fundamental change to outdated systems.