In this episode of 'I Can See CLRiE Now', we explore the 'Thriving on Campus' initiative in greater detail, with a particular emphasis on the crucial knowledge mobilization component of the project. Through this discussion, we aim to provide our listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the various ways in which the knowledge gained from this project is being disseminated and applied in real-world settings, ultimately benefiting individuals and communities on and off campus.
Glossary of Terms
Our Guests:
Support & Funding
Music Credits
Resources
SPEAKERS
Tin Vo, Eric Van Giessen, Webinar Participant, Michael Woodford, Shawna Reibling, Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah
[Intro music]
Shawna Reibling 00:15
Welcome to the 'I Can See CLRiE Now' podcast. This podcast is designed to fulfill the mission of the Center for leading research in education to mobilize leading education knowledge completed by their members and students involved in the research center to the wider public and those who can benefit from the knowledge.
[Musical break]
Shawna Reibling 00:45
Thank you for tuning into this second episode about the thriving on campus study where we talk more about the project's commitment to making change and mobilizing knowledge based on the findings that were revealed in the study. Michael, you spoke about the project's commitment to making change and to doing knowledge mobilization. Can you tell me more about that work?
Michael Woodford 01:01
As part of the initial study, we worked closely with our advisory committee to design and implement an engaging and effective strategy to not just share but also to mobilize our findings. Webinars have been a key activity and we've tried to design learning opportunities that integrate 'Thriving on Campus' data and findings. Also, expert insights from across North America but particularly Canadian scholarship, and when possible insights from 2SLGBTQ+ students themselves, particularly BIPOC, disabled and trans non-binary students. We held an initial webinar to share findings from the survey and wanting to inform change efforts on campuses at that time. As part of the webinar we included presentations on key terms and concepts, and how to foster gender inclusion by creating inclusive washrooms, learning from colleagues at the University of Toronto, for example, and their experiences, but also learning about how do we create inclusion in digital spaces, including in terms of systems, and some of those issues, as well as how do we support racially and culturally diverse 2SLGBTQ students. That webinar not alone presented findings, but also start to set the stage about strategies and actions that could be taken. We partnered with colleagues from the US to host a webinar specific to fostering inclusion for 2SLGBTQ+ students in online learning and spaces. We knew from students we were working with and other research that 2SLGBTQ students were facing exclusion and hostility in online learning and virtual spaces. So, we wanted to create an accessible learning opportunity for faculty, staff, and campus leaders to learn from our work and that of our colleagues. All of these webinars are available on our project website,
Shawna Reibling 02:47
And focusing on the online learning space. Was that originally part of the study? Or did you evolve as these new digital campus spaces emerged throughout the pandemic?
Michael Woodford 02:59
It was very much an evolution. And I think it really came from our commitment to being able to build capacity to strengthen campuses, abilities, to be able to foster inclusion and to be responsive to the needs of queer and trans students on campuses. And so, it very much was out of that commitment and our ability to be nimble and to collaborate with some amazing colleagues and to learn from one another.
Shawna Reibling 03:25
And so, this was influenced by the findings of this study, which you then produce these reports from?
Michael Woodford 03:31
Yes. And so, we as well, from the outset, had committed to creating two types of reports. And again, our advisory committee was very instrumental in helping us think those through and including, how do we effectively present information to university service providers and leaders. So, in terms of reports, we produced two key sets of reports, and this was very much informed by our advisory committee and even helping us think through how do we effectively present information to university communities and key groups on campuses. So the first series of reports was we provided each university with a report specific to their students from the survey phase, to support their planning and identifying areas for change. We also presented findings from the overall provincial survey, and comparable universities in terms of universities that were comparable in size and with respect to the student population. So that really helped some universities to start a benchmarking kind of process.
Shawna Reibling 04:36
So, universities could see where they were, where other universities were, and where they were in comparison to those universities.
Michael Woodford 04:44
Absolutely. So, comparison to universities of comparable size, and also just the provincial sample as well. And so, to help identify, again, where might be some of the pressing areas for action and change? I will say when we released those Reports not too far later, the pandemic started and of course, universities had to make a major shift. So even some of the commitments that we had made to go and work with particular universities, all of that was put on hold because of that.
Shawna Reibling 05:13
And how was it received?
Michael Woodford 05:15
Universities welcomed the data. And some, in fact, started to create action committees and shared their reports publicly. Some leaders shared information through blogs and other sources. So, it was very much well received. Certainly, in terms of making change, one of the things that happened very shortly after we released the reports to campuses, the pandemic started, so as you can appreciate, for many schools, things really had to shift and priorities really came about how do we support and shift to remote learning, for example, and support students who are living on campuses and managing pandemic protocols and COVID protocols and such. So, some of the commitments that we had made to work with particular schools were put on hold. And our recent virtual conference series is really pick that up and going back to how it's received. As part of our efforts to support schools, we made sure that we shared again, the reports back to schools, because some of the individuals have changed and such and so to ensure that that was also part of the information they could use going into their work on campuses. The second series of reports were our community reports. And I'd like to hand it over to Eric, who's going to tell us more about the most reports.
Eric Van Giessen 06:34
So, the set of community reports aimed to share key findings and recommendations emergent from both the survey and interview data and they were written specifically to go beyond a specialized researcher audience and be accessible to policymakers to service providers to students and community members. So, there were five reports in total, including one specifically about BIPOC students, and another specifically about disabled students, both of which were informed heavily by working groups with lived experience in those areas. These two particular reports and the one on climate and student outcomes, which applies a gendered lens emphasize the importance of intersectionality and a holistic understanding of 2SLGBTQ+ thriving by focusing on specific groups of students and community reports aimed to raise awareness and foster action to create a more inclusive and supportive campus for diverse to LGBTQ students. One of our advisory committee members who's a representative from the Canadian Center for gender and sexual diversity, Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah shared a quote that really summarizes some of the importance of focusing on queer and trans racialized student experiences.
Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah 07:49
Racialized queer and trans students experiences are shaped by racism, whiteness, cisgendersm, and heterosexism. It is essential that these experiences are examined using an intersectional lens that reveals how these oppressive systems come together to marginalize racialized queer and trans students. intersectional approaches to policy are required to promote racialized students inclusion, academic success, and well-being.
Eric Van Giessen 08:20
So, prior to releasing the community to reports, we held a webinar called a community report snapshots webinar, which aims to provide insights into the project's findings emergent from the survey data, participant interviews and community report working groups that focused on BIPOC and disabled students unique experiences on campus. While our knowledge mobilization has been sure to target key stakeholders who've been invested from the beginning of the 'Thriving on Campus' project, whenever possible, we've opened these events to the public and foregrounded a diversity of student voices who could speak best to the project's findings. Many of these resources continued to be available on our website.
Shawna Reibling 09:02
So, in producing the community reports, the data and the participant interviews, the survey data and the findings were given to a community report workgroup to produce the report. How are the community reports created?
Michael Woodford 09:17
So, the community reports the overview of the study and our participants, the one addressing campus climate, which included a gender lens, and also the one on campus policies and resources were really created by members of the research team so some core members, including myself and data analysts and such, but when it came to the two subgroup specific reports, so that being the report focusing on racialized students experiences, and the ones focusing on disabled students experiences, we felt it was really important to have student voice and perspective from those who have lived experiences. And fortunately, our team included students and other collaborators who had that lived experience. We also called for more individuals to join. Both of those groups had representatives from undergraduate students, masters and PhD students, but also staff and/or faculty. And being supported by members of our team, we were able to present the opportunities of the survey and the interviews. And collectively, each group decided on the focus and which data would be featured in the report, as you can appreciate with such an extensive survey, and also an extensive interview data set that these reports could be presenting a lot. And so those committees, those working groups, really delved into the data and made some really key decisions on not only what data should be presented, but the framing and how the data should be included and what those recommendations would be. So certainly, my role was very much as a support person and as a resource person. And each group was facilitated by one of its members or co-facilitated by one of its members. And we provided resources in terms of both qualitative data analysts and also quantitative data analysts as resources to each of those working groups.
Shawna Reibling 11:22
So, as well as sharing your findings and the recommendations from the surveys in the interviews through the community reports, the company reports snapshot webinar and the university specific reports, you also mobilize your research through a virtual conference series. Can you tell me more about the virtual conference series?
Michael Woodford 11:43
The outreach activities in terms of the webinars and their various reports, were certainly just the start of our work and sharing and mobilizing findings. Through a SSHRC connection grant, we're able to run the thriving on campus virtual conference series, which operated this past academic year and continues today. It engaged over 250 Student Affairs and EDI leaders and practitioners from Ontario university campuses and certain parts of the series were open to other individuals. The primary goal was really to facilitate learning and action and also support collaboration across the sector in supporting 2SLGBTQ+ students. Let me turn it over to Tin who is a collaborator on the connection grant and Tin is going to tell us more about the virtual conference series.
Tin Vo 12:34
So, we organize the series to occur over two and a half days between October 2022 and April 2023. In short, day one focused on increasing awareness of the experiences of diverse 2SLGBTQ students, and how to foster their well-being and academic success. On day one, we featured findings from thriving and other research including research from the US. Part of the day focused on the needs and experiences of particular groups of 2SLGBTQ students, such as Two Spirit students, racialized students, disabled students, first years and STEM students. Day two focused on supporting students' inclusion, well-being an academic success by sharing innovative and emerging practices for supporting diverse 2SLGBTQ students, such as workshops on inclusion in athletics, supporting career development for trans and non-binary students 2SLGBTQ responsive sexual violence, support and education, as well as queer and trans health services just to name a few. Day three delved more into making change on campuses by using data and other evidence to support change. Next, we provided an example of intersectional service delivery by hearing from colleagues from Queens University about Yellow House, which is a space that provides services for queer and trans BIPOC students, as well as hearing about an example of effective institutional collaboration around supporting 2SLGBTQ students. The series was designed around the theme of learning and action. Each day provided opportunities to service providers to come together to share their learning resources and identify priorities as well. On day one and two universities had the opportunity to come together to identify priorities in supporting diverse 2SLGBTQ students and start to develop action plans. To support action planning outside of the series, schools identified leads who acted as facilitators and key contacts for their school. Our team has brought together the university leads twice outside of the series and will do so again in the fall and this group is about sharing ideas and resources, and our team has provided additional resources such as scan of name change policies and information available to students. We're looking at hosting some lunch and learns on specific topics in the fall.
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Shawna Reibling 15:19
One of the strengths of this study and the way that you designed this series is that you knew that often people go to a series of workshops, they learn, and there's a real challenge to implementing what you've learned once you get back to your home institution. And building in that support through the lunch and learns and through having identified leads to push the recommendations into action, I think was a wonderful way to build the longevity of the project into the project. And I wonder if you wanted to comment on that briefly, Michael.
Michael Woodford 15:49
That was certainly a core goal, and very intentional. And so even the fact that we brought together, through the virtual conference series participants from each university to have time to meet together to share their learnings, their reflections, but also what they think the implications are for their services was quite intentional, and also important, because even though individuals may be at the same campus, they're not necessarily connecting with one another. And they're certainly not necessarily connecting around discussions about supporting 2SLGBTQ+ students. So, that was very intentional. And then building in the action planning and the group of university leads, because they're also sharing resources and sharing information. And it was actually quite amazing in at the end of day two, as there was an informal report back from the various university groups about their priorities, how the chat just started to come to life, as people are saying, Oh, we've had some experiences with that. We have some resources, reach out and such. And so, it was really this idea of collaboration coming to life that helping universities to connect and share resources and also work together. And so, I think that's been a really important key aspect of what we've been able to do. And the virtual conference series certainly was a start. But building in that opportunity for ongoing work has been really important to us, and is leading to some changes, I believe,
Shawna Reibling 17:19
What other outputs have come out of the 'Thriving on Campus' study that folks can go to your website to learn more about.
Michael Woodford 17:26
So, in addition to our webinars and the community reports, we're finalizing a series of briefs related to different service areas on campuses, and with recommendations for change. And so that's informed from our research, but also other existing research. And in those briefs, we're also trying to include illustrations of emerging practices and best practices as well. We're also leading the development of a special issue of the Journal of LGBTQ youth. And that special issue will look at campus climate and students' experiences and such. And we're working on that now. And I can tell you that it's coming together to be a very rich resource to the field.
Shawna Reibling 18:07
It's clear that this project aligns with CLRiE's mission to mobilize knowledge about leading research in education and about education institutions. Are there any changes that you've seen so far that you can share that have been linked to this work?
Michael Woodford 18:23
So, I would say it's beyond our scope to be able to systematically assess the changes that have been made on campuses but feedback from the virtual conference series certainly highlighted the learning and the value of having a dedicated time and space to focus on making campus programs and policies more responsive to 2SLGBTQ+ students. So, for example, and feedback forms, we heard comments such as ''I really appreciated the time and space to think critically about how we support 2SLGBTQ+ students, it was helpful to hear from colleagues at other institutions about intersectionality of disability and gender and sexuality, etc, and how we may move to view students in a more holistic way." Another illustrative quotation from a feedback form, "I learned about the importance of offering services to support diverse students and how students reported that even if they didn't access the services, they felt more connected and part of the community knowing that specific services were available." Those are just two illustrations. And that's in terms of individual learning and those kinds of insights that people are reporting. When we look at the campus level and thinking about the engagement that we're doing with the various universities, the action plans have identified many key areas for change, and many of the campuses are addressing issues related to things such as name change policies and processes and trying to avoid students being referred to their former names which we often refer to as their dead names. The inclusion of pronoun options in student records so that students can specify their pronouns if they use any, increasing the number of gender inclusive washrooms on campuses. And also, looking at what kinds of training is available for staff and faculties and support 2SLGBTQ students. And when I think about that list, and thinking about some of the findings, and knowing from the survey, that students said, you know, we need to have more gender inclusive washrooms. They need to be better promoted on campuses, the fact that we've been able to look to say, Okay, what's happening on campuses right now, through our recent scan that we did, provides those resources and helps to facilitate the learning and the sharing across campuses. So honestly, I think about we're closing the loop, we identified the need, we're helping campuses to start to close that loop. And so, when I think about research in action, it makes me really proud of what we've been able to do through this project. As Tin described earlier, as part of day three of the virtual conference series, we invited some of our university partners to share how they've used the evidence and data from thriving to start to make change on their campuses. So, I'd like to share a clip from that webinar from one of our colleagues, which really helps us understand how the thriving on campus project and the findings have really started to create some important conversations and to start making change at their school.
Webinar Participant 21:22
When I think of, you know, what thriving on campus sort of did for our campus, it really was a conversation starter. And it was an opportunity for us to be sort of tapped on our shoulder to listen more to what our students wanted. And with that, I think the third sort of biggest thing that came out of that, for me, was taking the survey results that we got in December of 2019. And bringing that to our senior administration, I had the opportunity to present to them, I wrote up a mini report to share with our provost and our Vice-Provost. And what happened from there was our university started to be like, Oh, okay, here are some of our results, you know, and some of the takeaways that we got from the survey, were really, you know, we were we really awoken in a way of what our school needs to do better.
Shawna Reibling 22:09
Thank you for sharing that quote from one of the participants in day three. It really illustrates how moving research from action is really important and bringing together the folks that can implement those actions is important to give them space to reflect on how that can be done within institutional structures. Often, we don't take space to reflect on how we offer services for students and how the campus community comes together to create a climate that is inclusive, that helps everyone thrive. Thank you so much for speaking with me today about this project, both the research portion and the knowledge mobilization portion. This project is a great example of how you've linked those two to really make a difference in campus. If folks are looking for more resources on this project you can go to LGBTQ2 that's the number two s thriving on campus.ca. To find out more, there's a whole section on the website related to knowledge mobilization, and I invite you to check out those resources and hear from folks in their own words describing this study. Thank you to Michael, Eric and Tin for sharing their expertise, and the progress of this study with us today. Stay tuned for more episodes featuring CLRiE researchers, students and community partners in conversation about leading education research, follow CLRiE on Twitter, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to all who've been instrumental in the production of this episode. The CLRiE podcast was recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples for more information click on the land acknowledgement link on our show notes. This episode of 'I Can See CLRiE Now' was made with support from Laurier's Office of Research Services.