Improving the campus experience at the University of Toronto through student-led design
Written by Katherine Zheng – Digital Content Writer, Emily Ling – Manager, Capital Projects & Planning, UTL & Glen Morales – Chief Administrative Officer, UTL
Written by: Sabrina Wu, Senior Research Assistant
There are many student groups and communities – each contributing to the University in various ways. In partnership with the Sexual and Gender Diversity Office (SGDO), the Trans and Nonbinary (TNB) Student Experiences Project set out to seek a deeper understanding of TNB student experiences in two phases.
Written by: Sabrina Wu, Senior Research Assistant
In the Faculty of Dentistry Student Experience project, we partnered with the Faculty of Dentistry to gain a deeper and nuanced understanding of the current Dentistry student experience and how it can be strengthened. While this project was specific to the Dentistry student experience, I found that the student needs around learning resonated with our team as well in our own learning experience. I have learned a lot through this project about the courage it takes to continue down the path of learning, as well as how to communicate what I have learned.
Written by Sanskriti Maheshwari, Senior Research Assistant, Transforming the Instructional Landscape
The Tech2U program launched in the fall of 2021 with the goal of humanizing classroom technical support to foster innovative teaching and learning in an increasingly technological classroom landscape. The initiative was launched as part of Transforming the Instructional Landscape (TIL). Tech2U is a partnership between Learning Space Management and the Innovation Hub.
Written by Marcus Lomboy (Senior Research Assistant), Tiffany Lee , Christopher Simpson, Isabel Bowman & Maliha Sarwar (Design Research Assistant)
Mental health is a complex issue. And designing a service that effectively meets the needs of a diverse student body is an equally wicked problem. In an effort to better understand the experiences of students accessing campus mental health supports, the Innovation Hub partnered with Health & Wellness (H&W) at the University of Toronto (U of T). The partnership began over the summer of 2021 over a series of group co-creation sessions. Continuing into the 2021-2022 fall and winter terms, we continued the co-design process by reaching out to students who accessed same-day appointments.
By Yusur Al-Salman, Redefining Traditional Project Lead
Between the rising costs of childcare and the COVID-19 pandemic, entering parenthood as students seems more challenging than ever. And yet, there is growing effort to accommodate the practical needs of student-parents and to address them meaningfully, and one example is in making university libraries family-friendly.
Written by Robin Martin, Serena Tran & Yuwei Jiang, Design Research Assistants for the Celebrating International Students Project
Illustrations by Nikhil Pawar & Marielle Dilla – Digital Storytellers
The international student experience at the University of Toronto (U of T) is anything but homogenous. The Celebrating International Students project began during the 2019-2020 Design Thinking Experience Program (DTEP), and quickly took off after recognizing just how complex, and at times similar, the challenges of being an international student truly is. Over the last year and a half our research teams have delved into our archive of more than 600 interviews to get a broadened sense of the international student experience from before and during pandemic. We were also grateful to have interviewed several U of T staff in October to round out the data even further.
In this blog post, we will be sharing the main insights we have uncovered after interviewing and carefully analyzing our existing data, as well as our team members’ personal reflections from this project. We also share Building Bravery Design Principles to empower one another in celebrating international students at U of T, and a link to our report.
This blog post is part of Researchers Reflect, a new series where we embark on the journey of a design researcher at the Innovation Hub. Each post will spotlight a different design researcher’s experience, stories, and learning moments throughout the course of their research.
Written by Sanskriti Maheshwari, Senior Research Assistant for Transforming the Instructional Landscape
When the University moved its operations online during Summer 2020, I took a chance and applied for a work-study position with the Innovation Hub. When my application was accepted, I was extremely excited. Like many students, I was trying to stay connected to life at the university, and my position with the Stories from a Distance Team gave me just that opportunity.