Here in Episode 100 we cross an OEGlobal Voices podcast milestone of triple digits and very fitting it is for a conversation with Amanda Coolidge who has traversed an impressive expanse of landscapes in Open Education. Amanda was recognized in 2025 with an OEGlobal Board Award of Excellence for Compassionate Leadership.

In the journey of this conversation, we learn about Amanda’s journey starting with helping develop the first open education repository for teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa, then into the open education scene at universities in British Columbia, ultimately to supporting the ground breaking open textbook projects at BCcampus and eventually serving as Executive Director of the organization. Amanda shares her influences as well as her insights and perspectives in being a leader driven by an ethics of care for her colleagues.

We also hear about her new role as Vice President of Strategic Engagement and Growth at Pressbooks some hints at new projects she is leading there, the strong collaborative spirit that exists in the organization, and a concept of “No Meetings Tuesdays”. Tune in as well to hear how she does all this work while living and traveling across Canada in an RV from a base on Vancouver Island. We could not have had a more perfect guest for episode 100.

In the OEGlobal Voices podcast studio with our guest Amanda Coolidge (left) and host Alan Levine (right).

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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.

Episode 100: Compassionate Leadership and Open Education with Amanda Coolidge

In episode 100 of OEGlobal Voices, host Alan Levine marks the milestone with Amanda Coolidge, VP of Strategic Engagement and Growth at Pressbooks and a recent Open Education Award for Excellence recipient recognized as a Compassionate Leader. Speaking from Victoria, British Columbia on WSÁNEĆ First Nations land, Coolidge describes living full-time in a 42-foot RV with her family, working remotely while traveling. She traces her path into open education from a 2006 project in Nairobi with the African Virtual University, BBC, and Open University UK to build an open repository for Sub-Saharan African teacher education, reflecting on access challenges and global differences in open practice. Coolidge discusses influential mentors, her career through BCIT, Royal Roads, BCcampus, and consulting, and her leadership approach emphasizing listening, boundaries, and recognition. She shares her work at Pressbooks, including a micro-credential authoring platform pilot with Maricopa Community College, and reflects on concerns about budget cuts alongside optimism for broader intersections across open movements.

  • 00:00 Intro Music and Highlight Quote
  • 00:50 Episode 100 Introduction
  • 02:19 Meet Amanda Coolidge
  • 03:11 Life in an RV
  • 05:44 Growing Up Globally
  • 07:55 Finding Open Education
  • 09:38 Access Beyond Repositories
  • 11:01 Hilltop Physics Story
  • 12:42 Key Influences and Mentors
  • 14:52 Career Stops to Pressbooks
  • 16:12 What Compassionate Means
  • 18:01 Modeling Boundaries at Work
  • 20:33 Building at Pressbooks
  • 23:15 Inside Pressbooks Culture
  • 26:01 State of Open Education
  • 29:06 Why Recognition Matters
  • 32:24 Everyday Gratitude Practices
  • 34:37 Hobbies Books and Basketball
  • 36:01 Closing Thanks and Outro

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 100

I would say it is absolutely true that the majority of Open Education work happens off the side of people’s desk. I think that the only way that the work can be on somebody’s desk or can be continued to be funded or to continue to be that budget line on someone’s budget is the act of recognition.

When you nominate someone at your institution or in your organization or someone even outside of your organization who you’re seeing does great work, it adds to both their recognition and for them realizing that the work that they’ve been doing is important to the world.

But it also signals to their organization or to their institution that the work that they’re doing is important for the world. It really goes a long way in terms of being able to continue to support and advocate for Open Education.

Amanda Coolidge on the importance of recognition

The open licensed music for this episode is a track called Back on the road by TRG Banks placed into the public domain under a CC0 1.0 Universal License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

A photo of location near Amanda’s home base on Vancouver Island included as background in the featured image for this episode is File:Mystic Beach, Vancouver Island, Canada 01.jpg Wikimedia Commons photo by Michal Klajban shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.