Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
PA-5: Assessing Diversity and Equity

In October, 2013, the Student Engagement Manager Kristen Flath contacted the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (ISMSS) at the University of Alberta as a preliminary investigation into best practices of supports for the LGBTQ community at Alberta Post-Secondary institutions. Based on their own experience, ISMSS suggested implementing a Safe Spaces sticker program and conducting a campus climate survey as two important, high-impact practices to get started as initial measures to support sexual and gender minorities on campus at NAIT. ISMSS had found that in their experience, these initiatives were successful in raising awareness and assessing needs on campus.
Safe Spaces was introduced to NAIT in the Fall of 2013 when Alexis Hilliard, from the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (ISMSS) with the University of Alberta, facilitated the first Safe Spaces Workshop. Alexis provided a second workshop in February 2014 before NAIT’s Coordinator, Student Programs took the lead (then Angela Briggs). Since then, the Safe Spaces workshop has been offered twice NAIT-Wide as part of the Professional Development Series in June, twice specifically to HR staff at the request of that department, and once NAIT-wide as part of the course catalog (this was the one that you attended).

Discussion Groups
When the Coordinator of Student Programs (Angela Briggs) took over the program in February, 2014, she conducted the attached focus group discussions with staff and students to better understand the climate and assess needs.
In both the student and staff discussions, the suggestion of more visible support was brought up. Although branding had previously been started after the initial meetings with ISMSS and stickers were distributed at the first Safe Spaces workshops, the number of participants was still limited. The focus groups affirmed the need for the Safe Spaces sticker campaign and other branding efforts to enhance the visible presence of support . Pins/Buttons are also being created as a follow-up to the call for “mobile visibility” in the student discussion.
Part of increasing visibility is facilitated by having more people on campus displaying visual representation of support for LGBTQ people. We will be offering the introductory Safe Spaces workshop more frequently (every other month) NAIT-wide, and Safe Spaces will also be held as part of the PD series and will do more targeted workshops for specific departments. The Safe Spaces program will be featured at the New Staff Celebration as well as at Student Orientation to help ensure that all newcomers to NAIT are aware of the program.

In the staff sessions, the point was made that the climate varied widely between campuses. In the fall, we plan on offering Safe Spaces workshops at Souch and Patricia.
In the student discussion group, there was also concern at the lack of awareness of students about LGBTQ community, and we plan on offering a modified Safe Spaces workshop for students. We are discussing the possibility of engaging allies from within influential student populations such as athletes, peer mentors, campus ambassadors, etc.
NAIT’s first-ever Pride Week was held in 2015 in response to the discussion sessions, especially in response to suggestions that there should be increased visible support of the community, with the example of rainbow flags during Pride Week. NAIT will also be participating for the first time in Edmonton Pride Week by marching in the Pride Parade on June 6, 2015 as suggested in the student discussion.
“As a result of the student sessions, for the first time at NAIT, a student-led Gay-Straight-Alliance Club was formed. This club is registered with NAITSA. The GSA has hosted student “safe space” sessions on Tuesdays at 5:15 in WA314. This is a forum for students to come together and hang out, engage in coordinated activities, support each other, etc.”

THE CAMPUS CLIMATE SURVEY
The Campus Climate survey was conducted in March, 2015. The survey was aimed to get a better understanding of students’ perceptions of the climate for sexual minorities at NAIT. The survey was promoted online on the Safe Spaces website, on the student portal, and at events on all three campuses during Pride Week. There were few respondents, but the results were similar to those of the U of Alberta campus climate survey (such as the frequency of hearing homophobic/transphobic language). Given the fact that the U of A has a much longer history of programs supporting sexual minorities, I feel like the results help to show that we are doing well so far with the Safe Spaces program and activities supporting the LGBTQ community on campus. Having said that, there are some ways that we can use the survey results to improve our programming:
Because of the results of the Institutional Research Student Engagement Survey, we know that most students feel the most comfortable talking to their instructors about academic and personal problems. Unfortunately, only 6 instructors have signed up as a Safe Spaces participant (sticker holder). More Safe Spaces workshops will be offered, and recruitment of instructors as participants will be a focus. The Campus Climate survey showed that most (78%) of LGBTQ students feel comfortable expressing their gender/sexual orientation to staff, but unfortunately, that data does not reflect whether this is with instructional staff or support staff.

Because most of the respondent who did not identify as a member of the LGBTQ community did identify as an ally (86%), we can see that there is support of students for sexual minorities. Despite this, only 55% of LGBTQ students feel comfortable expressing their gender/sexual orientation with other students. Since there seems to be broader support from the general student population, the question becomes how to tap into that sentiment to make sure that they have the knowledge and skills to act as allies and to mobilize them into visible participation/support. The GSA student group has been running for a full academic year, but participation has dwindled, and few (if any) straight/cis-gender allies have participated in the GSA activities.
Modified Safe Spaces workshops will be offered to students to help them develop as allies. More discussion is required to think of other ways that we can get more of the student population to show their support.
Because of the low response rate, further research is required to get a fuller understanding of the climate on Patricia and Souch campuses.
100% of students who identified as LGBTQ said that they are aware of supports on campus and feel comfortable accessing them, but 33% would have some concerns about being open about their gender or sexual orientation. Of all of the respondents, 24% are unsure or disagree that NAIT has an open and accepting climate for sexual minority students. This is concerning because at the institutional level, NAIT has promised its students that it will “provide a safe environment where diversity is supported” (NAIT Overview). To address this moving forward, we will have further discussion groups will be held in the Fall of 2015 to get a better understanding of the context of some of the answers on main campus to understand what are the factors that still cause concern. A steering committee is currently being formed (first meeting in April 2015) from different departments to coordinate activities to support the needs of sexual minorities. It will include voices of faculty, student services staff, NAITSA, HR, and the GSA, but the membership is still being reviewed.

Other Recommendations
Although these don’t come directly from either the discussion groups or the survey, these are some other areas that we plan to work on:

We will be offering a level 2 workshop to help people feel more confident in their role as ally. (We will conduct a survey of past participants to see what they would like to learn/practice).
We will be create a pre-workshop assessment to evaluate participants’ background knowledge before the introductory workshop so that we can tailor the content.
We will work with the Ombudsperson to look at policies and procedures related to issues faced by sexual minorities and will work to ensure that LGTBQ rights are explicitly protected in relevant policies and that clear remedies are established for those whose rights have been infringed.
We will work in collaboration to pool resources and combine efforts with other entities on campus who work to support diversity and inclusion.

In November 2012 the University/College Applicant Study (UCAS) report was published by the Academia Group Inc. It surveyed prospective NAIT students between April - July 2012 to gain insight into their post-secondary education decision making process and received a 25% response rate. Data gathered covered four areas including applicant profile, key decision factors, marketing efforts, brand attributes. Applicant profile was further broken into: demographics (including gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, and status in Canada), academic characteristics (including institution preference, recent schooling level, highest level of education, high school grade average, and parental education levels) , and academic attitudes/engagement.

Survey results were then compared to those from five competing Alberta institutions, thereby making it possible to determine factors that influence post-secondary decision making. Awareness of these factors can help give NAIT a competitive advantage when recruiting new students.