Exploring the Salutogenic University: Searching for the Triple Point for the Becoming-Caring-Teacher Through Collaborative Cartography

1 Surrey University, Institute of Education, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK, i .kinchin@surrey .ac .uk 2 Surrey University, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK, c .derham@surrey .ac .uk 3 Surrey University, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK, c .foreman@surrey .ac .uk 4 Surrey University, Guildford School of Acting, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK, a .m .mcnamara@gsa .surrey .ac .uk 5 St . Mary’s University, Faculty of Health, Sport and Applied Science, Twickenham, TW1 4SX, UK, dawn .querstret@ stmarys .ac .uk


Introduction
The current literature in Higher Education is overflowing with negative commentaries about the neoliberal forces that are driving universities away from the professional values that many academics hold dear, in favour of market-driven, political directives that place institutions as corporations rather than centres of higher learning. These critiques extend from the level of national policy, such as the Teaching Excellence Framework (in the UK) that is seen by Tomlinson et al (2018, 1) 'as an instrument for the entrenchment and amplification of neo-liberal market competition', to the more personal 'mundane moments' that 'cause cumulative harm and hurt' to individual academics (Taylor et al., 2020, 8). It may be important to highlight these issues in the literature by 'pumping out furious articles', as described by Manathunga & Bottrell (2019, 9), as these issues are likely to be behind systems that exhibit pedagogic frailty (Kinchin and Winstone, 2017). However, the continual pathologizing of the university does not appear to have exerted a positive influence on practice, and it may be that regular attacks on the vague concept of neoliberalism may, in some instances, have become reduced to the level of 'ritualistic denouncements' (Tight, 2019, 279) rather than critical commentaries. In an attempt to escape from the pathologizing discourses of Higher Education in which emphasis is on remediation of deficits, this paper aims to offer an alternative viewpoint by adopting a non-linear, rhizomatic exploration of the salutogenic university, by drawing on the work of Antonovsky (1987) that has been contextualised by Kinchin (2019).
Rhizomatics is a philosophical position created around the non-linear figuration of the rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) as a reaction against the predominantly linear thought processes, described as 'tree thinking' or 'arborescent thinking'. This linear tree thinking has driven higher education along a detrimental, neoliberal route, and has been observed to be 'detracting from the knowledge project that was once the central function of universities' (Charteris et al., 2016, 32), by providing simplistic 'causal relations that policymakers and others have assumed exist between students and test, teaching and learning.' (Strom and Martin, 2017, 5). The rhizomatic exploration of the salutogenic university (Kinchin, 2019) seeks to cultivate 'brave spaces' to engage in challenging dialogues (sensu Arao and Clemens, 2013), and to face up to the dominant culture in Higher Education: Resisting the flows of neoliberalism is different from past struggles. For now, it also encompasses resisting our own practices, it is about confronting oneself at the centre of our discomforts. (Ball and Olmedo, 2013, 93) In adopting a rhizomatic perspective we have to accept there is no linear developmental 'track' for colleagues to follow with arbitrary end-points for 'assessment', or professional standards to which they should align -in the sense typically understood as 'curriculum'. Rather, the autobiographical writings that are encouraged here reflect a 'migratory practice' that does not have a shared place of departure or a set destination. It supports development 'lived-as-migrancy, one in constant transit, of departing, returning, thinking back and writing forward' (Ng-A-Fook, 2005, 55). As such, this perspective resonates with the concept of 'currere', as a verb ('to run'), and 'reconceptualises curriculum from course objectives and outcomes to complicated conversation' (Pinar, 2019, 26). Critically, this moves our attention 'from what constitutes the course of education towards recognising education as coursing' (Sellers, 2008, 53). This is particularly important for experienced academics who are not engaged in formal programmes of development (that are often only targeted at new entrants to the profession), and to help focus the informal practices that contribute to teacher development (e.g. Mårtensson and Roxå, 2015;McCune, 2018), and the range of knowledges (academic and experiential knowledge) they employ in the development of their practice (e.g. Santos, 2014).

Methodological approach
We have adopted Deleuzian mapping as a method to research university teachers' professional practice and experience. This theoretical and methodological framing acknowledges that the research and the researchers are relationally intertwined and mutually constituted (sensu Aronsson & Lenz Taguchi, 2018). As the map under construction is a moving construction of converging and diverging lines and their connected practices, we need to acknowledge that a Deleuzian (or Deleuzo-Guattarian)-inspired cartographic exercise is not about representing a final goal structure, but rather it is about constructing a map as a field of play to experiment on (Lenz Taguchi, 2016). The purpose of this article is to offer a conception of university teachers' experiences of 'becoming-teacher' (sensu Strom and Martin, 2017;Adams, 2021) as part of their 'lived professional space' (Vilma & Marius, 2020). But more than this, we are interested in the conception of 'becoming-caring-teacher in the salutogenic university' (Kinchin, 2019). Borrowing from Cristancho and Fenwick (2015), we are interested in investigating the complexities of professional practice in which 'knowing' is inseparable from the activity and materials of practice, and where 'becoming' has no endpoint: In contrast to notions of rugged individuals who achieve definitive status as experts, 'becoming' is a continuous emergent condition. It is often a process of struggle, and is always interminably linked to its environs and relationships (p. 128). Therefore, "a process of cartography [is] preoccupied with both tracing and mapping by laying out the lines (both the [molar] articulating lines and lines of flight) … forming a complex rhizome" (Lenz Taguchi, 2016, 42). In considering the contributions by each of the participants in this work, we acknowledge the comments offered by Gannon et al. (2014, 184) in guiding our considerations: Close attention to specific sensory, affective, and embodied detail is crucial to this type of writing. The processes of collective biography produce embodied accounts of being; each subject's moments of singular sensation and memory are opened up so that they begin to resonate with the memories and embodied accounts of becoming of other members of the research group. In this approach, memories are not merely assemblages of familiar stories, narrated by and about essential and individualized selves; they become data for collective inquiry into processes of subjectification. The observations, questions, and comments that are provoked by each memory-story are crucial to the process of opening these texts to alternative readings and subsequent rewritings (p. 184). In their analysis of the professional development of surgeons, Cristancho and Fenwick (2015) focused on three elements of professional becoming, looking for the ways in which different factors interact and develop. We are attempting to go a stage further here in our analysis, exploring the idea that under certain conditions the three lines will coalesce and become temporarily indistinguishable -forming a 'triple point' (Kinchin, 2019). Triple points mark conditions at which three different phases (or states) can coexist. For example, in Chemistry water has a triple point corresponding to the single temperature and pressure at which solid, liquid, and gaseous water can coexist in a stable equilibrium. This is seen by DeLanda (2016) as an example of a Deleuzian assemblage. The analogy of the triple point in education has been used to positive effect by Chemist, Penny Gilmer (Gilmer, 2002), to consider three conflicting aspects of her professional identity: research, teaching, and service. She found the analogy energising, and stated: When you think of a triple point, consider the release of energy that occurs in an actual phase transition… I can tap into my triple point as a seemingly infinite source of energy. This energy empowers me to be the person I want to be and to act in multiple domains, to reconceptualize myself in the act of actualizing (p. 430). For Gilmer, the identification of her triple point had a constructive impact on her wellbeing. It is suggested here that it might be empowering if academics were able to identify their own personal triple points, helping them to articulate their personal values as a force to counter the hegemony of neoliberal managerial discourses that have been accused of 'crushing the lifeblood of inspiration out of academe' (Manathunga and Bottrell, 2019, 1). Coming from a different perspective, Gannon et al (2019, 49) refer to 'micro-moments where different atmospheres emerged, where energy was released, where cracks opened and something else was let in'. These are seen as moments of 'positive affect' that take place 'in the interstices of everyday routines'. We are working under the assumption here that the act of revealing and articulating this cartography represents a starting point for professional development through promoting enhanced agency. As stated by Charteris et al (2016): The cartographies of academic spaces are tense and precarious, dependent upon hierarchies of power and voice. Yet, recognising and unthreading the perturbations and impasses that we face in the present makes re-threading alternative conditions possible (p. 24). The precarious nature of these cartographies and their dependence upon the wider contexts in which they operate could mean that rather than offering 'empowerment', realisation of the triple point (or a realisation of the impossibility of its attainment in a particular environment) could be disempowering. This is explored here.

Participant biographies
Each of the four participating disciplinary academics (Cathy, Charlotte, Anna, and Dawn) had recently contributed chapters to collections that were edited by the first author (Ian). These outputs had offered detailed personal insights into the individual teaching philosophies enacted by each of the four academics and provided the starting points for discussions about the nature of care within their teaching contexts. Dawn (Querstret, 2019) had authored a chapter that looked specifically at ways to collaborate with students to support their wellbeing. This chapter had identified perceptions of the need for care as a key factor in students seeking help. Anna (McNamara, 2018) and Cathy (Derham, 2018) had written personal, self-reflective chapters that had examined their own practice in the context of pedagogic frailty. The editors' commentary on Cathy's chapter noted that for her "teaching was synonymous with caring". In addition, Cathy (Panzieri & Derham, 2020), Charlotte (Eslahi et al., 2020;Foreman et al., 2020) and Anna (Hanratty & McNamara, 2020) had all been at the forefront of a university-wide initiative to encourage student-staff research partnerships. This required a significant commitment by the authors and presented a potential risk in working alongside a student on a project whose success was not guaranteed at the outset. Collectively, these detailed written insights to the four co-authors' caring conceptions of teaching, along with the lead author's knowledge of their participation in various committees, working groups, research projects and other student-focused initiatives on the campus provide a considerable body of evidence to suppose that these colleagues are indeed caring teachers. This is justification for their selection as exemplars for this study. What was not clear at the outset was how this would manifest itself in different ways for colleagues working across different disciplines and in different roles, or whether these colleagues had taken time to reflect on this aspect of their practice. DeLanda (2006) acknowledges the difficulties posed by trying to develop a visual representation of complex assemblages (such as teaching), and so refers to the 'virtual diagrams' that can be developed using the language of the lines to provide rich descriptions of the flows and interactions exhibited. However, as a support for an exploratory interview/dialogue, this does not provide a simple, clear prompt for discussion. To support the discussions featured in this paper, a simple heuristic was devised to summarise the key characteristics of the three lines of flight (care, pedagogic health, and salutogenesis) as a visual aide memoire (Figure 1). In Deleuzian terms, Figure 1 may be seen as a tracing to be placed over the emerging map of the participants' dialogues so that "tracing and mapping together can make a diagram visible" (Zdebik, 2012, 12). The first author's role here was to tease out these personal maps: As  (Lenz Taguchi, 2016, 43). As reflective and caring practitioners, it was anticipated that the authors would offer some challenge to the limiting factors acting on their development as university teachers. As such they would, perhaps, indicate possible lines of flight that would counter the neoliberal dominance of higher education discourse, and disrupt the status quo. If not, then the circles of convergence of the molar lines are likely to strengthen their grip on the teaching agenda, making any disruption of the system less likely. None of the components of the three lines represented in Figure 1 (Care, Salutogenesis, or Pedagogic Health) are stationary. These are not static points to aim for, but contours to travel along (Mazzei, 2017). All are constantly changing and developing as part of the wider teaching assemblage. Movements may take a colleague further from, or closer to, the central point (the triple point). In addition, each of these elements may be moving in different ways or at different speeds. However, these lines are not unrelated. For example, greater meaningfulness (salutogenesis) may be gained by scholarly exploration of the regulative discourse (pedagogic health, discourse). This exploration may be undertaken by engagement with professional development courses that are provided by developers to care about the development of teaching (care, receiving). We can therefore hypothesise various chains of events that might activate different elements represented in Figure 1 that might be channelling a colleague towards a realisation of their own triple point. Conversely, a colleague who is working in an environment where they do not feel cared for (care, lack of recognition); and who cannot make sense of their role in the institution (salutogenesis, comprehensibility); or of the regulations under which they have to work (pedagogic health, locus of control), is likely to feel overwhelmed by their work. The question then is, can colleagues recognise their trajectory towards a personal triple point, and are they able to articulate a personal cartography? This is not the same as achieving recognition through the acquisition of certificated competencies, but rather is about devising an adaptive pathway for continuing professional health in an environment that is unpredictable and changing. As these paths are anticipated to be entangled and highly interconnected, we have adopted a 'messy analysis' (sensu Koro-Ljunberg, 2016) to examine the fine-grained multiplicities of professional experiences, as opposed to exposing patterns and constricting regularities to form a thematic analysis.

Articulating a collaborative cartography
Taken from extensive conversations, the quotes selected below are indicators of a collaborative cartography. The individual illustrative comments are not attributed to particular participants. In addition, as we are looking particularly at the overlaps between key lines of flight (rather than how each line develops -as was the case in Kinchin, 2019), we consider the data as a singular 'messy assemblage' (sensu Mooney Simmie et al., 2019) or 'collective assemblage of enunciation' in which the assemblage is the unit of analysis (Mazzei, 2016). Within the conversations reported here, illustrated by short excerpts, colleagues talk about micro-moments of positive effect (sensu Gannon et al, 2019) with consistent regularity. These are usually spoken of as personal (even private) events rather than being provided by any sort of institutional recognition: 'it's just a couple of words make a big difference' There is also a recognition that care is fragile, and negative attitudes can also be formed as quickly, often by minor acts of omission: 'it doesn't actually take very much for a student to then think, "wow, they obviously don't care"' This means that the caring environment needs constant monitoring and maintenance. It is also clear that an 'agenda for care' does not fit easily with the current pre-occupation for measurement or with the discourse of excellence that pervades higher education where, 'since excellence is a measure of a thing, and since everything in post-secondary education is committed to excellence, everything must be measured' (Saunders and Ramirez, 2017 ' It would seem that there is a hierarchy of care within higher education. Whilst we must care for our students (and been seen to care) this must not interfere with the institutional goals of research recognition. This resonates with what is referred to by Shields and Watermeyer (2020) as 'competing institutional logics', where differences between academics' understandings of 'the university' lead to antagonism and contradictory terms of reference. There are so many competing agendas and discourses within the university that may be a distraction from the 'here and now'. Participants talk about students 'enjoying and engaging and immersing themselves in the learning and in the experience of the learning', rather than worrying about how this will translate into grades or graduate attributes for employment. This resonates with Wang's (2015Wang's ( , 1556 view of the way in which we should invite students to 'lose the way' through the curriculum, rather than just follow a pre-given and well-trodden pathway. This would allow students to be able to explore their identity as a 'student', before having to consider the looming identity of a 'future worker' (O'Leary, 2017). That is not to say that that graduate employment is not important for teachers. Colleagues here were all concerned about their students' futures -as engineers, nurses or actors. But this is always in terms of a process of personal development rather than jumping through hoops to achieve certain grades.
It is clear that care is a reciprocal process and is perceived as such by the participants here. Students need to appreciate what it means to care for others and how it is perceived in everyday contexts. One participant explains how she gets students to make short presentations and then talks with them about the need to participate in class: '

The promise of empowerment
Participants were asked to reflect on the conversations that underpinned the comments above, and to consider whether or not the promise of empowerment (as suggested by Gilmer, 2002) was realistic within their own contexts. It seems that the concept of 'becoming' might itself be liberating:  (Figure 1) to use as a reference point was valued by the participants: I think I am a caring teacher - Figure 1 legitimises  The balance between empowerment and potential disempowerment is one that needs to be monitored as the competing voices and agendas within an institution can result in negative responses: I believe that the university wishes its community to benefit from the outcomes of my productivity, but that key stakeholders in the recognition process do not always value or recognise the nature of the process over product approach. This can at the very least be disappointing, and at the most dis-empowering or disenfranchising. However, I do believe the students and my colleagues fully understand this approach and within my field there is considerable support and recognition to be found. There is concern among academics that emphasis on a teaching identity within a research-intensive university represents a 'poisoned chalice' as it can lead to negative reactions from peers and managers that can lead to the side-lining of individuals (Skelton, 2013). This develops from a perception that those colleagues who are invested in teaching are simply pursuing private interests that are not conducive to the research focus of the department: I think caring as part of our role, has not been given the recognition or been seen to be an important or essential part of the teachers' role in HEI (probably not part of the curriculum of any PGCert programme?

Discussion
Despite the wealth of experience shared among those involved in this work, and the recognition they have gained for excellence in teaching from various quarters, none of the participants professed expertise in teaching. Participants used expressions such as 'I think I've got enough capacity to do an okay job and to get by.' As such, the language used is more aligned to the rhizomatic academic than the silo researcher (Table 1). Underpinning this seems to be an implicit self-image of the 'becoming teacher' (sensu Strom & Martin, 2017;Adams, 2021). Despite being highly experienced and regarded by their peers as academic leaders, these colleagues still feel that they are learning about teaching. This personal view also appears to translate into their view of their students as dynamic and changing, and resonates with the perspective offered by Guyotte et al. (2019, 1): 'as dynamic subjects, students are perpetually in motion, in transition, and in relation, which shifts our analysis from the fixity of being, to dynamic narratives of becoming in higher education', as well as the perspective offered by Osborne et al. (2020) of students as epistemological agents who need to be encouraged to use their 'life knowledge' alongside their academic knowledge. This is in contrast to the whole 'excellence' discourse that is seen to commodify academic practice as part of the neoliberal hegemonic agenda by focussing on static quantitative expressions of creative and dynamic educational processes as part of a simplistic governance by numbers (e.g. Sellar, 2015, Brink, 2018. Academics who maintain strong professional value and who challenge the status quo might be considered as 'subversives' -working counter to the prevailing currents in the system, engaged in 'acts of resistance' against the forces of neoliberalism (Tomlinson, et al. 2018). In rhizomatic terms (e.g. Strom & Martin, 2017;Guerin, 2013), these academics are following disruptive 'lines of flight', in a constant, dynamic state of 'becoming' -an approach they might perceive to liberate their teaching from the neoliberal bonds that restrict and appraise their efforts, and which maintain an inertia in the evolution of institutional systems. It is hoped that the reflections offered here, and the framework summarised in Figure 1, will support similar reflections among colleagues to help them negotiate their own professional entanglements and the recognition of their own triple points and the constant movements and adjustments of the teaching assemblage that will be needed to keep it in sight.

Conclusions
The cartography of caring teaching explored above is messy and complex (Mooney Simmie, et al., 2019). Attempts to simplify this messiness and to categorise the participants in this research will inevitably lose some of this complexity and lose the richness of the professional stories that are unfolding (Law, 2004). However, the process of cartography recognises the incompleteness and transitory nature of the data: The principle of cartography implies that we can compare narrative selfhood with a dynamic map of narrations (and not with a tracing of reality), a map that is always open and always changing. The narrations someone tells about herself or himself are never complete; they form an ongoing process of co-construction and co-reconstruction. As a researcher, one can thus never have a view on the complete map of one's participant, seeing that this map is co-constructed, multiple, and constantly changing (Sermijn et al., 2008, 644). These narratives are very personal, and it should be noted that dimensions of the becoming teacher explored above, such as 'being cared for', are determined as much by affective and subjective criteria as they are by objective, evidence-based criteria (Gannon et al., 2014). We therefore need to recognise the importance of understanding the rich ecology of knowledges that contribute to understanding (e.g. Santos, 2014), and the value of a perspective informed by epistemological pluralism that helps to combine and apply the appropriate frame of reference to the appropriate context (Andreotti et al., 2011). The consideration of teaching expertise within the context of Santos' Ecology of Knowledges brings to the fore the convergence between Santos' framework and professional knowledge. This has been explored particularly in the 'caring professions' (e.g. Lussi, 2020;Cassiano et al., 2021). The application of this view here to the caring-becoming-teacher allows us to value a more comprehensive and inclusive ecology of knowledges that contribute to teacher development so that participants do not feel there is a correct answer to be achieved. The development of personal narrative is therefore an active 'mapping' (sensu Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) to explore new ground, rather than a 'tracing' that can be placed against a number of preconceived criteria for assessment. As such, this offers a truly developmental tool for teachers, with no element of managerial evaluationremembering that the unit of analysis is the teaching assemblage.

Recommendations
Underpinning this work is the explicit recognition of a philosophy of becoming. While this may appear an alien concept to some observers at the outset, we have found here that an implicit philosophy of becoming already underpins colleagues' perceptions of their teaching, and may have a liberating function. The development of parallel states of becoming across the dimensions of the triple point helps to develop a degree of resilience. Where there may be conflicting perspectives of being and becoming there will be tensions that result in an environment that promotes pedagogic frailty (Kinchin and Gravett, 2021). University management, therefore, needs to consider how policies and directives can be reformed to be in tune with this philosophy. This will help to provide an environment in which colleagues may be empowered to approach their own triple points, to release the energy described above by Gilmer (2002). In summary, university management needs to have complementary strategies in place to: 1. Promote a sense of coherence that focuses on meaningfulness, manageability, and comprehensibility of the institution's policy patchwork. 2. Promote pedagogic health by considering the connections between the four components and how they may be developed (Kinchin and Winstone, 2017). 3. Promote a sense of care, starting with the notion of self-care. These are complex issues and they need to be explored in dialogue with stakeholders. This work is continuing at this institution.