Dr. Jessica Riddell Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence
Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing
Out Now With McGill-Queen's University Press
How do we model abundance and generosity in a time of scarcity?
This is the central question animating Hope Circuits, a bold and compassionate call to reimagine how we teach, lead, govern, and learn within higher education and other mission-driven organizations. Dr. Jessica Riddell draws on her experience in governance, academic leadership, and scholarship – and in conversation with hundreds of higher education experts – to offer a vision of hope not as a soft sentiment, but as a strategic, actionable framework for systems change.
At its core, the Hope Circuits project – a three book series with McGill Queen’s University Press – is a primer for systems transformation. It unpacks the deep cultural and structural challenges facing higher education today-from deferred maintenance in governance systems to precarity,
rigidity, and exclusion-and offers practical tools to "rewire" the organizational mindsets that hold institutions back from flourishing. Dr. Riddell invites people to engage in intellectual and emotional work to cultivate hope circuits-habits of mind and patterns of behaviour that can rewire individuals, organizations, and, ultimately, society.
The challenge is clear: our systems are strained not just by financial austerity, but by a deeper erosion of purpose, meaning, and shared vocabulary. In a time when universities are navigating polycrises, Hope Circuits invites us to ask: Do these systems still serve us? And did they ever serve all of us? And if the answer is no, then we have the hard hope work ahead to re-wire them to center human and ecological flourishing.
The Books
Structured around core areas like how we teach, lead, mentor, research, and govern, the book is both a systems guidebook and a deeply human reflection. It encourages institutions to embed love, empathy, and trust-words rarely spoken in boardrooms but essential for democratic vitality and social renewal-into the heart of their operations.
And it doesn't stop at theory. Hope Circuits has catalyzed a movement: readers are forming book clubs, hosting "Hope Summits," and using the book as a foundation for institutional planning, strategic visioning, and cultural renewal. The appetite for transformation is clear: Hope Circuits provides the tools and language to begin re-wiring within distinct institutional ecosystems.
Key Features of the Book:
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10 tools for rewiring systems rooted in neuroscience, pedagogy, and leadership theory
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Over 250 interviews with higher education leaders and changemakers
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Focus on equity, belonging, and shared purpose in institutional culture
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Practical insights for educators, administrators, policy-makers, and students
In the Author's Words:
"We don't have a shared vocabulary. We don't have a shared understanding of what the social mission of a publicly funded university is. This book is a conversation starter-and a systems primer for change." Jessica Riddell, in University Affairs
Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and other Organizations for Human Flourishing is part of a three-book series and public scholarship project, which also includes:
Hope Circuits Illuminated: Conversations with Luminaries in the Midst of Collapse (MQUP, forthcoming)
A constellation of essays by 50 “luminaries” from across higher education who offer reflections, guidance, and practical tools for managing this moment of collapse and emergence in higher education and in our broader social context. The book invites readers to explore models of moral imagination, relational pedagogy, and institutional transformation. These 50 luminaries – from university presidents to students, staff to provosts, and people working in academic adjacent spaces – offer a wider field of view to look at higher education with sharp focus and clear public purpose. This book weaves together voices alongside case studies, institutional design principles, and stories of emergence from sectors, campuses, and classrooms already enacting hope-centered change.
Hope Circuits (Re)Wired: Blueprints for Human and Ecological Flourishing (forthcoming)
This second book in the Hope Circuits series builds on the foundational framework of Hope Circuits – with its ten conceptual tools – to extend the project from building mindsets to catalyzing collective action. Drawing on conversations with over 4,000 people across 63 institutions, the book identifies five "institutional ecosystem modes": toxic continuity, collapse, repair, integrity, and flourishing. These modes offer a diagnostic lens to assess campus climates and guide strategic interventions. Rather than offering one-size-fits-all solutions, the book provides flexible, actionable "possibility models" and design principles that can be tailored to the unique dynamics of each institutional ecosystem. The book includes guidance on how to gather, host, facilitate, vision, plan, repair, and flourish – key blueprints for those seeking to foster collective and transformative change. Part philosophical treatise, part collective help book, Hope Circuits (Re)Wired is much anticipated sequel that invites communities to reflect on education as a sector uniquely equipped for hope (the why) and provides practical tools and frameworks (the how) for engaging with and transforming institutions—particularly colleges and universities—toward ecological and human flourishing.
Additional Hope Circuits projects include:
Academica Forum: A Six-Part Public Lecture Series
This six-part Academica Forum series draws from the heart of the Hope Circuits project—conversations with over 300 people across higher education and adjacent ecosystems. These OpEds illuminate what it means to build systems capable of flourishing, even amid austerity, burnout, and structural fatigue. The series argues that we are in a metamorphic moment. The decisions we make now—in our classrooms, our boardrooms, and our communities—will shape whether we emerge as more just, inclusive, and purpose-driven institutions, equipped to meet the grand challenges of our time. This series offers a set of provocations and possibilities—not prescriptive answers. It invites you to locate yourself in the ecosystem of higher education, to imagine what could be different, and to join others in doing the hard, slow, hopeful work of transformation. Each piece explores a different facet of rewiring our institutions for human flourishing—through governance, leadership, teaching, policy, and community partnerships.
Illuminating Hope in Higher Education [A new project! Links coming early September]
A collaborative project with Julie Peters (Academica.ca), Jessica Riddell (author of Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing), and Christie Schultz (author of Leading with Feminist Care Ethics in Higher Education: Experiences, Practices, and Possibilities)
In a time of profound transformation in higher education, we are inviting a constellation of thinkers, educators, and change-makers—our Luminaries—to help us illuminate hope. These are individuals who resist the status quo, who imagine and enact more just, caring, and hopeful futures in higher education. Through their experiences, practices, and possibilities, they help us see glimmers of what could be.
This project is grounded in wonder. We ask not only what is, but what might be. We invite our Luminaries to reflect deeply on why they care about higher education, what transformation
Why It Matters Now:
In a world overwhelmed by precarity, busyness, and fragmentation, Hope Circuits reclaims higher education as a public good and a civic institution-a burning platform of democracy that requires not armor, but imagination. At a time of global disruption, this distinctly Canadian project offers a prototype for how universities around the world can lead with integrity, generosity, and courageous hope.
This isn't just a book. It's an invitation. And for many, it's the beginning of a transformation already underway.
Hope Circuits is increasingly recognized as a landmark contribution to higher education renewal at a time of seismic shifts to the sector—not only for its philosophical breadth, but for its readiness-for-action ethos. It is sparking new conversations, inviting hopeful praxis, and lighting pathways through a disorienting moment toward more resilient, just, and flourishing educational futures.
Join the Hope Circuit Movement
Whether you are an educator, administrator, researcher, student, or community partner, HCI offers multiple entry points for engagement: keynote events, book clubs, read and rumbles, workshops, collaborative research, or simply bringing these frameworks into your institution’s planning, teaching, and governance.
Email jessicariddell@ubishops.ca or fill out our contact form to get in touch!