Relational Presence is experienced in higher education as a relatively unbounded learning community that moves beyond subject-object inquiry and duality to awakened awareness and radical amazement at the universe. We can re-imagine the university as a center of playful interactions of relational positioning in a mimetic dance of inquiry. It is possible to construct contemplative and collaborative learning communities where we discover that which is sacred in the seemingly mundane environment of higher education.

1. Relational Presence in Higher
Education: Practicing Peacemaking
and Relationship Building
Dr. Samuel Mahaffy
ACMHE Conference Presentation
Intention, Method, and Evaluation
October 10-12, 2014

2. What is Relational
Presence?
Relational Presence is the inhabited
space where relationships are valued
above agendas allowing the sacred
potential of relational being to
emerge.
Relational Presence is experienced in
a higher education context as a
relatively unbounded learning
community that moves beyond
subject – object duality and beyond
decentering the subject to wakened
awareness of the universe-ity of
unitive being.
In this context unknowing is valued, a
quietly inviting learning atmosphere
is created and all voices are heard.
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3. Twelve Aspects of Relational Presence
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4. Decision making as it is often
practiced in institutions of
higher education is killing our
spirits.
Personal agendas and contests to win
tenure often leave faculty, schools and
administration deeply divided and
ineffective. Relational Presence finds a
way to move beyond confrontation,
division and duality. This methodology
grows out of the author’s Ph.D.
research at Tilburg University in the
Netherlands through the Taos Institute
on Relational Presence: The Spatiality
of Decision Making through a
Relational Constructionist Lens.
The approach allows the multi-voice
perspective to emerge in the context
of learning communities. It allows
whole people to show up for faculty
and department meetings. Relational
Presence makes room not just for
intellects, opinions and ideas, but also
for the soul to show up.
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5. Instead of departments
can we imagine
universities as centers of
MIMETIC MOVEMENT…
The notion of mimetic movement
carries the sense of relationship as
integral to the inquiry and learning
process.
Stepping outside of the predominant
construct of inquiry as cause and
effect, subject and object, we
reimagine learning as “playful
interactions of relational positioning”
(Urwin, 1984).
Instead of taking up subjective
positions on objects of inquiry we are
intrigued by co-occurences, playful
interactions of relational positioning
and the DANCE OF INQUIRY.
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6. Can we imagine meetings
where the relationships
are the agenda and action
inquiry emerges as an
aspect of emerging
meaning?
While we may bring in great
intellectual capacity, the highest order
of logic and understanding comes from
the heart.
More than active listening, we practice
relational listening. We are listening
together for the emergence of new
meaning.
In this place we may be “restoring the
relational flow” that leads to
“transformative dialogue” bringing
forward “potentials for multi-being.”
(Gergen, 2009).
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7. The practice of peripheral
vision dims the boundaries of
disciplines and enhances
awareness of others while
deepening inquiry.
While we dance with one partner on
the dance floor of inquiry, we hold in
our peripheral vision awareness that
there are other dancers, other dance
partners and other dances.
Inquiry becomes a communal and
spiritual practice in which we are
aware that we are never alone.
There is space created for alternative
discourses to the predominant
discourse and seemingly contradictory
discourses can co-exist in the multi-voice
context of relational engagement
(Anderson, 1997; Gergen, 1994;
McNamee and Gergen, 1999).
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8. We value unknowing as
much as knowing
This is where relational presence in
higher education moves us into
contemplative practice.
Inquiry is a journey of discovery
together into the unknown.
This is not simply a passive stance but
an actively searching out the “image of
the future” which opens up
“alternative choices and
possibilities…actively promoting
certain choices and in effect puts them
to work in determining the future.”
(Polak, 1973).
This is the place of experiencing the
world with “radical amazement”
(Cannato, 2006).
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9. Relational Presence in Higher
Education is found at the Intersection
of Placemaking and Peacemaking
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10. In higher education we can co-construct
contemplative and collaborative learning communities
Inquiry as Competition of
Ideas
Inquiry as Eating from a
Common Dish
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11. Finding the Sacred in the ‘Ordinary’
Life of Higher Education
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12. References
Anderson, H. (1997). Conversation, language and possibilities: A postmodern approach to therapy.
New York: Basic Books.
Cannato, J. (2006) Radical amazement: Contemplative lessons from black holes, supernovas and other
wonders of the universe. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books.
Cloud of Unknowing. (1981). San Francisco: Harper.
Gergen, K.J. (1994). Realities and Relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Gergen, K.J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mahaffy, S. (2012). Relational presence: The spatiality of breakthrough decision making through a
relational-constructionist lens. Dissertation. Taos Institute/Tilburg University.
McNamee, S. & Gergen, K. (1999). Relational responsibility: Resources for sustainable dialogue.
Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage Publications.

13. www.samuelmahaffy.com
www.linkedin.com/in/SamuelMahaffy
E-mail: samuelmahaffy@gmail.com
https://twitter.com/samuelmahaffy