I recently came across the gardening term “rooting.” It describes the process by which a cutting develops roots before it begins to grow. Although the term comes from horticulture, it struck me as a helpful way to think about academic culture. We often talk about helping academics flourish, but I have begun to wonder whether we pay enough attention to what comes first. Before people can flourish, perhaps they first need to become rooted. By rooting, I do not mean becoming fixed or immovable. Rather, I mean developing the sense of connection, confidence, and belonging that enables people to contribute, grow, and thrive within an academic community.
Academia is often characterized by movement. Students become researchers, researchers move between institutions, and academics navigate changing roles throughout their careers. At each transition, there is an expectation that people will quickly become productive. We introduce new colleagues through orientation programs, explain institutional policies, and provide access to the systems they need. These are important, but they are not the same as becoming rooted. Rooting takes longer. It involves understanding a department’s culture, building trusted relationships, finding opportunities to contribute, and feeling that your presence genuinely matters. These experiences cannot be rushed because they emerge through everyday interactions rather than formal processes.
When I reflect on the academic environments where I have felt most able to do my best work, it was not because everything was perfect. Rather, it was because I felt rooted. I knew there were colleagues I could turn to with questions, ideas, or uncertainties. I felt able to contribute without having all the answers. I trusted that mistakes would be treated as opportunities for learning rather than as evidence that I did not belong. Those experiences did more than increase my confidence. They created the conditions in which curiosity, creativity, and collaboration could flourish. Looking back, I realize that flourishing was not the starting point. It was the outcome of feeling rooted.
This also helps me think differently about academic culture. We often measure visible outcomes: publications, grants, promotions, and performance indicators. Yet these achievements depend on less visible conditions. Trust, psychological safety, collegiality, and belonging are not always easy to measure, but they shape how people experience academic life every day. When these conditions are absent, people can still achieve remarkable things, but often at considerable personal cost. When they are present, people are more likely to share ideas, seek support, take intellectual risks, and contribute generously to the communities around them. Rooting, then, is not a luxury. It is part of the foundation upon which sustainable academic success is built.
Thinking about rooting also reminds me that culture is relational. We do not become rooted in organizations simply because we have a contract or an office. We become rooted through the relationships we build, the conversations we have, and the ways others respond to us. A welcoming conversation with a new colleague, an invitation to contribute to a project, thoughtful supervision, or someone taking the time to explain a department’s unwritten norms can all help someone begin to feel that they belong. These moments may seem small, but they are rarely insignificant. They are micro-transformations that gradually shape positive academic cultures by communicating, “You are valued here.”
Perhaps this is why I believe so strongly that flourishing is a collective endeavor rather than an individual responsibility. We often encourage academics to become more resilient, more productive, or more confident, but these qualities do not develop in isolation. They are nurtured in environments that make people feel supported, connected, and able to grow. If we want healthier academic cultures, we need to think not only about what we expect people to achieve but also about the conditions that help them take root. Flourishing is not something we can demand. It is something we cultivate together.
As I continue to explore what positive academic cultures might look like, I keep returning to this simple idea. Before we ask people to flourish, we should ask whether they have had the opportunity to become rooted. Have they found connection? Have they developed trust? Do they feel they belong? These questions may not appear on institutional dashboards, yet they are fundamental to the academic communities we hope to create. Perhaps flourishing begins not with doing more, but with helping one another become rooted.