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This chapter provides an overview of Freire's primary approach to how governments control people, why governments dictate what is being taught and why they seek out control over educators. This chapter investigates the similarities Freire found between the most oppressive governments and dictatorships that rules by violence, to how our educational institutions are controlled. The stakes might be entirely different in these scenarios, but he knew the ultimate objective in all these situations was to remove power from the people, give it to a powerful few and ensure the people would never be able to regain control once more. These ideas and suggestions are key moving forward because it provides a baseline to understand how Freire thought about manipulative behaviours, and why tactics used in extremely violent situations can essentially be watered down and used to control people in universities in much the same way.

While uncertainty has always been a feature of the healthcare environment, its pace and scope are rapidly increasing, fueled by myriad factors such as technological advancements, the threat and frequency of disruptive events, global economic developments, and increasing complexity. Contemporary healthcare organizations thus persistently face what is known as “deep uncertainty,” which obscures their ability to predict outcomes of strategic action and decision-making, presenting them with novel challenges and threatening their survival. Persistent, deep uncertainty challenges us to revisit and reconsider how we think about uncertainty and the strategic actions needed by organizations to thrive under these circumstances. Simply put, how can healthcare organizations thrive in the face of deeply uncertain environments? We argue that healthcare organizations need to employ both adaptive and creative strategic approaches in order to effectively meet patients' needs and capture value in the long-term future. The chapter concludes by offering two ways organizations can build the dynamic capabilities needed to employ such approaches.

This chapter pulls the book together with two primary functions which are (a) to highlight what the book has provided that others have not by applying Freire's ideas around education and governance to a higher education setting and (b) to reiterate what we, as the academy, can do moving forward. The university is no longer an entity separate from society and business; it is part of society and business and will for the foreseeable future be held to metric and financial accountabilities. These scenarios have shaped leadership in a clear and predictable way, and in the conclusion, readers will be reminded of what options they have available to them to change the academy because we cannot change it; we have to work within it in new ways if we are to regain some power.

The final chapter examines Freire's numerous views on why people do not free themselves from the ruling majority, or at least, why they cannot free themselves. This chapter subsequently examines the problem with people taking stands and fighting for their rights, even when they are morally and ethically in the correct position. Freire knew no victory came without consequences and risks, and for many, the threat of these consequences is what prevents them from taking a stand. However, this chapter also examines how universities built their power over several decades, while at the same time making sure the opportunities to face consequences for these actions were also being diminished by placing the wider academy in difficult positions, they would be unlikely to ever get out of, without the academy knowing they were being maneuvered into an untenable position.

Intrinsic values to the field of special education include advocacy, inclusivity, individuality, and empiricism. From early days of providing custodial care in segregated settings, special education has evolved into a program that seeks to educate students with a wide range of learning needs in inclusive settings and identify a robust research base that informs its policies and practices. Important concepts such as inclusion and continuum of services have not only been valuable in conceptualizing and in providing intervention for students with disabilities but have also been valuable in advancing the field. Research in special education and students with disabilities has been instrumental in moving the field forward. In the future, special education will continue to be valuable in supporting students whose learning and survival needs deviate from the norm in meaningful ways by delivering responsive evidence-based instruction.

The focus of this chapter lies with women middle-level leaders. It reports on themes from women in leadership programmes designed and delivered by Barbara Watterston, through the lens of a programme especially developed for the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia (AISSA). This chapter begins by profiling a description of the programme. The main aim was providing women leaders with an opportunity to take stock of their careers, consider ongoing challenges impeding their work as school leaders, and identify options for the future. After the programme finished, volunteers were invited to write a narrative encapsulating their career journey. Three women leaders volunteered, and their insightful reflections regarding their career trajectories constitute a significant portion of this chapter. The final part of this chapter identifies three common themes that emerged from their stories, resonating with ideas which are frequently illuminated in similar programmes and research. These include the importance of ongoing professional learning to be a successful leader, gender-based barriers that caused the women to doubt their abilities and readiness for leadership, and the deep appreciation the women expressed from learning with and from like-minded other women leaders.

In the mid-2000s, the operator of New York City’s mass transit network committed more than a half-billion dollars to military contractor Lockheed Martin for a security technology capable, in part, of inferring threats based on analysis of data streams, of developing response strategies, and taking automated action toward alerts and calamities in light of evolving circumstances. The project was a failure. This chapter explores the conceptualization and development of this technology – rooted in cybernetics – and compares its conceptual underpinnings with some situated problems of awareness, communication, coordination, and action in emergencies as they unfold in one of the busiest transport systems in the world, the New York subway. The author shows how the technology, with all the theatrical trappings of a “legitimate” security solution, was apparently conceived without a grounded understanding of actual use-cases, and the degree to which the complex interactions which give rise to subway emergency can be anticipated in – and therefore managed through – a technological system. As a case-study, the chapter illustrates the pitfalls of deploying technology against problems which are not well-defined in the first place, to the neglect of investments against much more fundamental problems – such as inadequate communication systems, and unstable relationships with emergency response agencies – which might offer guaranteed benefits, and indeed lay a firm groundwork for future deployment of more ambitious technology.

Barriers to adequate healthcare in rural areas remain a grand challenge for local healthcare systems. In addition to patients' travel burdens, lack of health insurance, and lower health literacy, rural healthcare systems also experience significant resource shortages, as well as issues with recruitment and retention of healthcare providers, particularly specialists. These factors combined result in complex change management-focused challenges for rural healthcare systems. Change management initiatives are often resource intensive, and in rural health organizations already strapped for resources, it may be particularly risky to embark on change initiatives. One way to address these change management concerns is by leveraging socio-technical simulation models to estimate techno-economic feasibility (e.g., is it technologically feasible, and is it economical?) as well as socio-utility feasibility (e.g., how will the changes be utilized?). We present a framework for how healthcare systems can integrate modeling and simulation techniques from systems engineering into a change management process. Modeling and simulation are particularly useful for investigating the amount of uncertainty about potential outcomes, guiding decision-making that considers different scenarios, and validating theories to determine if they accurately reflect real-life processes. The results of these simulations can be integrated into critical change management recommendations related to developing readiness for change and addressing resistance to change. As part of our integration, we present a case study showcasing how simulation modeling has been used to determine feasibility and potential resistance to change considerations for implementing a mobile radiation oncology unit. Recommendations and implications are discussed.

This chapter is focused on what we can learn from oppressive governance, in this case specifically relating to university governance in terms of vice chancellors and presidents, to the deputy vice chancellor and deputy president and down the ever-growing university hierarchy to deans and heads of schools and their deputies, from a Freirean perspective. Freire wrote at length about how leaders ‘controlled’ education and why they did so, but he also wrote at length about how governments control populations – himself being both a political prisoner and a person in exile to escape persecution. This chapter subsequently examines Freire's ideas around what techniques people employ to control populations and applies them to a higher education setting because the similarities are numerous and the tactics familiar.