Pavel Cenkl PhD

Biography

Pavel Cenkl brings more than twenty years of experience in international higher education leadership, with a focus on interdisciplinary, place-based, and ecologically grounded learning. His work emphasizes leadership, research and partnership development to support innovative pedagogy, student and community engagement and provide broad access to experiences that inspire people to make meaningful change in the world.

Prior to his appointment as Western’s Provost and VP of Academic Affairs, Pavel served as Dean of Academic Affairs at Prescott College in Arizona Pavel, Head of Schumacher College in the UK, Dean of Sterling College in Vermont, the Founder and Director of the Regenerative Learning Network, and is a founding Fellow at the International Centre for Sustainability in London.

Pavel’s recent work focuses on the intersection of transformative learning, community, and ecology, aiming to build a more regenerative, resilient, and accessible educational future. Pavel presents and publishes internationally about curriculum design and pedagogy, global learning networks, regenerative democracy, and education. He has developed programs in ecology, humanities, outdoor skills and recreation, regenerative food and farming, and more. His current research envisions post-institutional futures of education grounded in relational ecologies, distributed learning systems, and regenerative networks of practice.

Pavel is also a keen endurance trail runner, mountain biker, cross-country, skimo and backcountry skier, and rock and ice climber. Over the past 15 years, his passion for endurance running, ecological thinking, and teaching has led to Pavel sharing his adventures as witness to climate change and an exploration of the resilience of the human and more-than-human in the Arctic, sub-Arctic, and beyond.