Enhancing Service Delivery for Black-Identified Students at Accessibility Services Through a Mixed-Methods Approach (Anti-Black Racism Project) 

The project centers Black-identified students by involving them directly in co-creating policy recommendations through focus groups. This ensures that lived experiences and community-specific needs shape institutional change. It reflects the goal’s emphasis on being guided by equity-deserving communities, especially those historically excluded. The goal is to improve access to Accessibility Services for their community.  

The project seeks to create a more inclusive environment for Black-identified students within Accessibility Services, which recognizes the intersections that shape their experiences. This includes the incorporation of artwork with the intention of fostering connection, engagement and collaboration.  

This work is informed by the University’s initiatives to enhance access for historically marginalized and equity-denied groups.  

Steps in the project to date:  

• Subcommittee formed: March 2023  
• Connected with Black-identified artist: April 2023  
• Review of other/similar institutional efforts to improve access to equity-denied groups: May 2023  
• Recruited Works Study students to initiate literature review: August 2023 
• Subcommittee research course – “Assessing Social Impact”: April 2024  
• Project expansion with tri-campus partners: May 2024  
• Initiated the development of focus group and community feedback questions, guided by relevant literature: June 2024  
• Recruited Master of Social Work intern to complete literature review: September 2024  
• Scope review/assessing data from 2024 student survey: January 2025  
• Meet & greet (project introduction to students and artist collaboration): January 2025  
• Focus group recruitment (facilitator and participants): January 2025  
• Consent gorm and pre-focus group survey: February 2025  
• Ethics discussion: February 2025  
• Held six focus groups with more than 30 participants: February 2025  
• Focus groups continued: March-May 2025  
• Review of the recordings: March-May 2025  
• Presented at NASPA conference: March-May 2025  
• UTSC held in-person meet-and-greet sessions with community artists: March-May 2025  

Ongoing goals of the project include to transcribe and code focus group data, present preliminary findings to focus group participants, implement student feedback into the second draft, plan and develop research paper collaboratively with tri-campus partners, publish recommendations and implement changes.  

The subcommittee presented initial findings at NASPA Conference (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education), which is an internationally attended conference, in March 2025. The presentation was very well received.