Recently, I had the privilege of being invited as the Keynote Speaker at the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart’s JESI Day in Miami, Florida. JESI stands for Janet Erskine Stuart Teaching and Learning Institute and it is inspired by Sr. Janet Erskine Stuart who was a religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) and an educational philosopher in her own right. Sr. Janet said, “We must remember that it is better to begin a great work than to finish a small one.”

Recently, there have been some eyebrow raising allegations of plagiarism followed by the sudden and tragic death of Dr. Jason Arday. I’ve been paying especially close attention to this unfolding because Dr. Arday worked in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge – my old faculty where I studied my PhD. I know people who’ve been quoted in newspaper articles and I have my own experience there.

Is it possible to escape the irony?

Throughout my PhD, I studied the dynamics of power, how it operates, who operates it, and how it affects people, relationships, and societies. Heading into fieldwork, any good researcher must grapple with how they will behave and present themselves. As a researcher immersed in the community I was to study, I had to have real clarity of my own morals and ethics, as a human being and a researcher to help guide me through the inevitable challenges and ambiguities I would encounter.

These young women are loud, with confident smiles and full, deep laughs, and waiting to raise the flags. There are no school administrators or teachers in sight, no attendance taking or adults supervising the students; the students lead themselves.