Laura is a professor emerita at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. She has worked in education throughout her professional life as a teacher, teacher educator, publisher, strategist, researcher, and scholar. At UCT Laura was the first director of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) and led UCT’s Centre for Educational Technology, OpenUCT Initiative and Multimedia Education Group.
Laura plays a key strategic and scholarly role in the area of open education institutionally, nationally and internationally. She has has a long-standing commitment to open education and has been especially influential fostering openness in all its many forms (OER, open access, open scholarship, open science, …), as a means of social justice. Her voice has been both critical and constructive representing an essential global south perspective.
Laura has long understood that it is the underlying principles of open that are important. Her work has shown how open principles translate into higher education practice making possible new forms of north/south networked relationships and new forms of networked learning. Threaded through all her work is a concern about digital and social inequities. These concerns have permeated her research interests which focus on the changing nature of higher education in a post-digital society and new forms of teaching and learning provision.
Laura serves on the editorial boards of many national and international journals; has been an interested contributor and participant at relevant events on every continent; and is an active reviewer of pertinent articles, books, and proposals.
In the recently published book “Higher Education for Good – Teaching and Learning Futures” Laura and co-editor Catherine Cronin invited contributors to share “glimmers of alternative futures” of higher education for good. The resulting 27 chapters grapple with the future in ways that keep possibilities open rather than closed.
The excellent chapters in this book were further amplified at the Open Education Conference (OER24) on 28 March 2024 at Munster Technological University, Cork, Ireland. There Laura and co-presenter Dr Catherine Cronin gave a keynote titled “The future isn’t what it used to be: Open education at a crossroads” Their keynote describes the polycrisis of our current global context and the concurrent fluidity and instability of open education. It situates open education at a crossroads and issues a call for the open education community to take action to move forward from that crossroads.
“Higher Education for Good” and “The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be” exemplify Laura’s leadership in open education combining community sourced insight, in depth analysis, and a map for moving forward. Laura offers critique, hope, and purpose for open education as an important component of higher education going forward.
Award Nominator
I have taken inspiration from Laura and her work for many years. Her commitment to social justice and open education have been unwavering. I have learned from her and take pride in having walked alongside her in our mutual efforts to advance open education around the world. I admire her efforts to enable the systemic and structural changes associated with open education at institutional and national levels. I especially admire her advocacy for global south considerations and her ability to engage with and lead the open education community in ways that encourage participation and ensure inclusion.
Laura Czerniewicz’s continuous and strong leadership in the open education movement highly deserves the leadership award.
Award Reviewer
Her advocacy for the global south is significant.
Award Reviewer
She deserves to be recognised as a strong leader, human, empathic, caring, driven and good at respectfully supporting others in their path, being it shared or individual.
Award Reviewer
Explore more about this awardee…
Podcasts from Open Education Global
Join us for our newest podcast episode, with voices connecting open educators from distant locations, both by the sea, Laura Czerniewicz from the southern tip of South Africa and Catherine Cronin from the west edge of Ireland. Listening to these two influential forces in open education, you should feel like you are in one room together.
Recorded in September 2025, we invited Laura and Catherine to reflect on their multiple recognitions in the 2024 Open Education Awards for Excellence. Catherine was awarded in the area of leadership and both our guests were part of the entire team recognized for the global collaboration that produced Higher Education for Good. We hear about ongoing efforts that came from their subsequent keynote presentations as calls to action to critically address Open Education “at the crossroads.” In many threads you will understand how both Laura and Catherine embody, in a most human fashion, both leadership and collaboration.
There’s much to be inspired by in hearing Laura and Catherine’s share stories of their influences, experiences, and mostly, the optimism that comes from witnessing how their vision for Higher Education for Good came to be openly created and shared.
at Descript.com
In This Episode
FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.
Reflections on Leadership, Collaboration, and Open Education with Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin
In this episode of OEGlobal Voices, host Alan Levine catches up with Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin. The conversation reflects on their journeys in open education, touching upon leadership, humanity, and courage. They discuss their collaboration on the book ‘Higher Education for Good,’ recognized with multiple awards, and share personal stories from their pasts, including their childhoods and educational backgrounds. The discussion also explores the evolving landscape of open education, the impacts of big tech, and the importance of maintaining a human-centered approach. The episode closes with a reflection on community, personal well-being, and the joys of life outside work.
- 00:00 Intro Music and Highlighed Quotes
- 01:14 Podcast Introduction
- 02:05 Reflections on Leadership and Awards
- 04:52 Personal Histories and Early Influences
- 10:47 Challenges and Changes in Open Education
- 20:49 Higher Education for Good: Collaboration and Impact
- 26:34 Current Projects and Personal Reflections
- 41:01 Closing Remarks and Future Plans
(end of AI generated show notes)
Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 93
We know that in the midst of the chaos and collapse, there are people doing good things and soldiering on. That’s still true today. When we had this conversation about this possibility, that is exactly what we hoped for, that we would capture that dogged insistence on doing good in the face of what might feel intransigent obstacles.
And it happened. It’s amazing and astonishing and bigger than we ever thought, but it’s a real celebration of the fact that, in the midst of everything and something we have to all remind ourselves now, when we watch what’s going on in the world, that there are good actions and people, no matter what.
Laura Czerniewicz on Higher Education for Good
- Catherine Cronin (web site)
- Open Educational Practices for Good (2024 presentation at Lehman College)
- Laura Czerniewicz (web site)
- 2024 OEAwards Individual Award for Leadership (OEGlobal)
- Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (University of Cape Town)
- Higher Education for Good- Teaching and Learning Futures (Open Book Publishers)
- 2024 OEAward inCollaboration to All People Behind Higher Education for Good (OEGlobal)
- Open Book Publishers (publisher)
- The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be: Education at the Crossroads (OER24 keynote )
- Open Education at a Crossroads (Open Education Conference 2024)
- Addressing Challenges to Open Education in an Era of Authoritarianism and Big Tech (OTESSA 2025 keynote)
- Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniwicz on HE for Good (Helen Beetham podcast)
- Review of Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin (Eds.). (2023). Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures (Helen Beetham in Postdigital Science and Education)
- Dear Photograph
- Soweto uprising (1976 South Africa)
- Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams (University of Cape Town)
- Zohran Mamdani (Wikipedia)
- OEGlobal Voices 082: Amanda Coolidge, Marcela Morales, and Maren Deepwell on “The Small Things”
- OER19 Conference in Galway, Ireland, Recentering Open: Critical and Global perspectives
- Maria Ressa (Wikipedia)
- Avoiding Whatsapp as a political act (first of four part series, Laura Czerniewicz blog)
And this sounds simple, but you don’t see it everywhere. It’s increasingly obfuscated and not mainstream. For me, it’s very sad. I think that we need more courageous leadership that respects humanity, that holds hope, that can paint a vision so people can see the difference from where we are now to what might be, what could be, more humane and socially just futures.
And then help and encourage people to step towards that. So I dunno how I got there, but that’s my raw thoughts about leadership today.
Catherine Cronin on leadership
Listen to more of our episodes recorded with Open Education Awards for Excellence winners.
Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called Hopeby Xennial that is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution license.Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).
