Supporting Content
Universities and colleges across the country are grappling with economic crises that are provoking uncertainty, grief, and loss among staff and faculty. At the same time, students look to staff and faculty for support when coping with unmet expectations, (fears of) academic failure, and the grief associated with other losses and transitions. In this webinar, we will be joined by Dr. Lisa McLean and Dr. Adrienne Sauder from the Grief and Loss Research Lab (Loss Lab) at King’s University College to discuss how non-death losses may provoke grief, and suggestions for how we may collectively support one another when facing difficult life transitions. French closed captioning will be provided.
Referred in the Webinar
Breen, L. J., Kawashima, D., Joy, K., Cadell, S., Roth, D., Chow, A., & Macdonald, M. E. (2022). Grief literacy: A call to action for compassionate communities. Death Studies, 46(4), 891–901. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1739780
Harris, D. L. (Ed.). (2020). Non-death loss and grief: Context and clinical implications. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Non-Death-Loss-and-Grief-Context-and-Clinical-Implications/Harris/p/book/9781138320826?srsltid=AfmBOooH84IQ_k663mUmYb2KhBpfLhKhzkxF_oezyePzfMtsDmXUK4gL
Speaker Bio
Dr. Lisa McLean (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Thanatology and is the Director of the Grief and Loss Research Lab (Loss Lab). Lisa’s research focuses on the social justice dimensions of death, dying, grief, and loss, specifically in relation to grief activism and migrant and refugee experiences. Specific research areas include grief activism, disappearance, displacement and migration, traumatic loss, and ambiguous loss. Her work has been published in journals including Citizenship Studies and Illness, Crisis, and Loss among others, as well as in book chapters in several edited collections. Lisa also served as co-editor of the volume Critical Feminist Peace Studies: Bridging Critique, Vision and Praxis (2025, Edinburgh University Press) and the forthcoming second edition of the Handbook of Social Justice in Loss and Grief (Routledge).
Dr. Adrienne Sauder is a lecturer in the Department of Thanatology, a Research Associate at the Loss Lab and a qualitative researcher whose interdisciplinary work bridges education, psychology, and thanatology. She specializes in phenomenological and arts-based inquiry methods to explore complex experiences of loss, identity, and academic struggle. Her current research involves a scoping review on university students’ experiences of academic failure, with the goal of examining elements of loss and identity, in order to facilitate more supportive educational practices. Adrienne’s research interests include academic failure, adult orphanhood, kin keeping, post-loss sibling relationships, and the impact of non-death loss on individuals navigating academic and life transitions.
