Currently reading Shan & Illingworth (2025) on “Fostering Empathy Through Play: The Impact of Far From Home on University Staff’s Understanding of International Students”

International students are not only far from home, but they are often also in a new culture — both regarding how teaching and learning and relationships at university work, but also just coping with everyday life outside of university, they might struggle with language, visas or bank accounts (ask me how I know…), or constantly being stereotyped.

The board game “far from home” was designed to foster empathy for international students in university staff, and in their study, Shan & Illingworth (2025) describe how staff reacted to the game in 10 sessions with 82 participants. In the game, participants create an avatar with country of origin, motivation to study in the new country, but also secret fears and challenges. They then navigate situations that students might typical encounter — exploring a new city, being accused of cheating — and experientially engage with international students’ situations. They become aware of struggles that international students might face even before arriving in their new country, realise that international students are multidimensional beings and not just a shallow stereotype, and get a much better understanding of the complexity of the situation. They also notice (some of) their own and their colleagues’ biases and prejudices, and experience “contrast commitment” — a strong commitment to equitable practices in contrast to what they observe themselves and others doing.

Reading about this game, I am of course wondering how to this can be used in staff development. In the study, participants in the game sessions were volunteers that most likely were already interested in exploring international students’ perspectives. But then the people who would need to develop and practice empathy the most might not be the ones who would participate in such an activity… And everybody is so incredibly busy all the time, how can we make time for this type of exploration of other perspectives, for reflection?

Shan, S. S., & Illingworth, S. (2025). Fostering Empathy Through Play: The Impact of Far From Home on University Staff’s Understanding of International Students. Behavioral Sciences, 15(6), 820.

Do you miss morning dip pictures? I do! I’ve had the weirdest flu or something and have not been able to dip (or even walk down to the water!) for two weeks now. And it sucks! Last attempt featured here, and then I went home and went to bed…

I like this spot!

This is a very photogenic pier!

What a weird cloud front…