5 Lessons Learned From Diverse Student Panels

As representatives from an Academic Senate committee at Central Michigan University called the Multicultural, Diversity and Education Council, we are broadly charged with advancing inclusion and justice in the classroom and curriculum.

To better understand the issues faced by students with marginalized identities in our classrooms, we began hosting panels with students with various marginalized identities who encounter unique barriers within academia in spring 2018. Our goal was to learn how to foster more equitable learning environments and stronger support services for them. We held panels with students of color, students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and/or anxiety, military veterans, first-generation college students, international students, former foster care students, rural students, autistic students, and students who are caregivers, just to name a few. We completed our 15th panel last fall.

While many universities host student panels, our model focused on moderated panels where students shared their experiences with an eye toward how faculty and administrators could better support them. Specifically, we asked students about classroom practices and support services that facilitated or hindered their success. Our committee took diligent notes at each panel, spent time collectively reflecting on what we heard and distilled common themes. We found that, among the various populations represented on our panels, there were several issues experienced by all student panelists and common strategies that would better foster their success. We shared these lessons across campus and have begun several initiatives to address them systematically. These lessons learned resonated deeply with our faculty, and we witnessed changes to our syllabi, pedagogy, course structure and classroom management that greatly benefited students in our classes who hold marginalized identities. We share them here with other faculty in hopes that they might provide similar benefits to faculty and students alike.

1. Students make determinations about how supportive they perceive the instructor to be before the first class.

As faculty members, we often think that no one reads our carefully crafted syllabus at all, let alone prior to the first class. While many students do not, students with marginalized identities often do. Students spoke about how they calculated how receptive faculty would be to requests for help before the first day of class. In particular, students focused on the content and tone of classroom policies related to late work and absences included in syllabi and learning management systems. When faculty sounded “like hard-asses,” as one student with anxiety stated, they predetermined that they would never ask that instructor for help, no matter how bad things got.

Faculty who attended the panels found themselves recasting their syllabus language to sound more approachable, but they often lacked specific guidance on how to do this. To this end, our committee, in cooperation with campus partners, created sample statements that address different student identities and that faculty can easily insert into their syllabuses. These statements communicate to students that they are in a supportive environment and, we hope, help them feel more comfortable about approaching their instructors for help.

2. Flexible course policies are critically important.

Students also discussed how flexible course policies were vital to their success. Rigid course policies that offered little flexibility on deadlines, attendance and makeup work made life difficult for students on every panel we convened. Inflexible policies—either stated in the syllabus or discussed during class—were the single greatest source of trepidation and anxiety for students. Students discussed how rigid policies seemed to be created for students with no health concerns, care responsibilities or extenuating circumstances, which “just isn’t us,” as one student jokingly stated on the panel for students with anxiety and/or ADHD. Students frequently singled out for criticism policies requiring medical documentation or a doctor’s note to receive flexibility. Many students we spoke with lacked health insurance and lamented the classist nature of instructor policies requiring medical documentation.

The rigidity of course policies affected students’ self-concept—that is, how they felt they were viewed by others, which in this case was their instructors. A student on our panel for students with anxiety and/or ADHD asked, “How long before my instructor stops seeing me as a student and starts seeing me as a problem?” A student who was a caregiver noted the difficulty in getting instructors to accept documentation for her child’s health-care issues. She also noted that she struggles with being labeled as a “bad student” because of the seemingly endless demands for documentation.

Students suggested that faculty members offer “stated grace” for late work (e.g., get-out-of-late-assignment-for-free cards, language about talking with faculty if they are falling behind) and ensure that the tone makes the faculty member sound approachable and understanding. Recurring sentiments were the need for faculty to be flexible, to proactively acknowledge that students may have specific concerns or needs related to their identities, and to break the ice during the first day of class by encouraging students to discuss their concerns with them.

3. Group work often doesn’t make the dream work.

Group work is rarely a highlight of the student experience, but for students with marginalized identities, group work was often a site of minoritization. Faculty who rely on students choosing their own groups caused significant stress for students with marginalized identities because they were often avoided, overlooked, microaggressed, discounted or alienated. Students voiced that they were often picked last (reliving the “picked last for dodge ball” trope from middle school), typecast into limiting roles (e.g., women of color as note takers, international students assigned nonspeaking parts in presentations) or ignored in group decisions. Students emphatically asked faculty to assign groups based on student input, build in check-ins with groups throughout the semester and provide guidance on inclusion and best practices for group work.

4. Office hours are intimidating and confusing.

Much has been written about how faculty office hours are misunderstood or avoided altogether. We learned that many students find it intimidating to approach faculty outside class, and they were not sure of the purpose of office hours. Those who had engaged their faculty members during office hours found the experience tremendously helpful but said that they wished their teachers had clearly explained to their classes how to make the best use of the time together and the range of reasons a student might utilize office hours.

For some students, exchanging emails with a faculty member their parents’ age about meeting outside of listed office hours was overwhelming. The few faculty members who utilized software tools like Calendly that allowed students to automatically book appointments with them made students feel more comfortable and increasingly likely to meet. Students also appreciated having the choice between virtual and in-person meetings to accommodate different personal situations (e.g., students who are caretakers, students who work, students with communication barriers). Frequent reminders throughout the semester about office hours and how to attend them were appreciated. Others have suggested that calling office hours “student hours” may help students to understand that faculty members reserve this time to spend with students.

5. Students need—and appreciate—information about campus resources and support services.

Anyone who works on a college campus has likely heard a student lament that they didn’t know about a resource until it was too late. Faculty members often assume that students become aware of the vast array of campus services and resources available to them through orientation, academic advising, residence life staff or other outreach efforts. However, students on our panels noted many times that they were often not aware of valuable campus services and appreciated when faculty provided this information in their classes. In fact, we were frequently surprised as conveners when students learned about valuable resources while attending the panel. In response to this need, our committee worked with key campus partners and the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support to embed links related to critical campus services for students who may be struggling directly into the learning management system.

Even if institution-side efforts are difficult to orchestrate, faculty can easily embed critical student support services into the course shells, such as links to websites for the counseling center, student emergency funds or food pantries. Student panelists also called our attention to resources that would be helpful that are not currently offered. For example, students who are caregivers pointed out that there was no place on campus where they could easily study with their children in tow. In response, our library created a family study center where parents can access library resources in a quiet space where children can also play with toys, look at books or use whiteboards and other tools.

This series of panels was originally inspired by one of our students, an African American woman, who remarked that there were few opportunities for individual students to discuss their individual experiences; in fact, students rarely have the opportunity to provide feedback to the institution in long form. Of course, there are campus climate surveys and student evaluation forms, but there are, we have realized, few spaces designed for us, as faculty and staff members, to talk with and learn from our students. And as educators, we rarely sit with their stories. Our committee has learned that despite myriad support services, students still feel unsupported, and there are many things that we can do as faculty at no cost to make it more possible for students to bring their whole selves into our classrooms. We are indebted to the students who continue to share their struggles so that we may better support them.