School Climate: Lets make it chill

Team 7
Priyanka Vengataraman
Mary Elizabeth Lees
Gaby Hernandez-Saire

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Table of Context:

1.Challenges and Opportunities

2.Generating Insight from Empathy

Research

3.Analyzing and Synthesizing Empathy

Research

4.Brainstorming and Generating Ideas

5.Building, Testing, Learning

6.Drawing conclusions and making

recommendations

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Challenges and Opportunities
College is supposed to be a time where students start to find themselves,

make lifelong friends, and have new experiences. At this point in time, students

need to feel like their voices matter and that they have a sense of belonging,

whether it be with a small group of friends or in a larger community. It can be one

of the most rewarding times of their lives, but there can also be a lot of stress.

Unfortunately, there has been a drastic change in the University of Marylands

school climate, and much has originated with the controversy surrounding the

2016 election cycle. Our user groups were two that have been greatly affected by

the new administration: white students who voted for the Republican nominee

Donald Trump and minority students who are being directly affected by the new

government.

By interviewing them, we discovered the extent of the persecution,

judgment and negativity that many have been dealing with before, during, and

especially after the election process. Many of them feel that they are being

unfairly judged and persecuted when voicing their opinions, and they feel isolated

from their peer groups for having different viewpoints. In addition to feeling as

though they cannot safely voice their opinions, many students are experiencing

severe lifestyle changes. In particular, many multiracial students or students from

other ethnic backgrounds, such as the students in the Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, those with student visas, and those whose

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immediate family members may be living in the U.S undocumented are ones who

are, in many cases, afraid of being harassed or even deported. On the other

hand, many white Trump supporters have faced hassling from fellow students

who believe that all Trump supporters are bigots. And on both sides of the

debate, there are many students who feel that they have no one to turn to for

help, which can cumulate in anxiety, depression, and a lack of educational

motivation in the students. These major changes and what seems to be the lack

of advocacy for these two groups has negatively affected many peoples overall

college experience, as well as their mental health because they dont feel as if

their voices are heard or even wanted. Below are some notes we took while

interviewing:

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Generating Insight from Empathy Research
When originally beginning our research, we just wanted to get an

understanding of how the multicultural and minority students were feeling after

Donald Trump was elected to the highest office. The most recent presidential

election was wrought with turmoil and disagreement, and it created an

atmosphere that was negative and uncomfortable for many students. Many were

personally affected by the new administration. When Maryam Mohammadi, an

Iranian University of Maryland student, was detained as she was coming back to

the United States from Iran, it sparked a campus protest that opposed the Trump

presidency. Mohammadi was not the only one affected by the travel ban court

order. In fact, some 350 people were affected in the UMD campus community

(Prudente, 2017). In our research, we found that What would happen to me?

What do I do if they dont let me into the country? are questions that plague the

minds of many immigrant students who are currently afraid to leave the United

States for study abroad programs in fear of detainment and being unable to

return (Collins, 2017). Hauwa Muazu, an immigrant from Nigeria, is staying here

as an International student, and she said that once these steps are taken to

isolate and detain immigrants, its very hard to go back to day-to-day life. Even

though Nigeria is not currently affected by the ban, she feels that the uncertainty

of what will happen in the future has made her lose interest in the quality of

education she is receiving because now she only wants to get a degree as soon

as possible. This sentiment is echoed during the interview process by many of

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the immigrant students who are currently living in the United States on student

visas. They feel that the time, effort, and money that they have already invested

at the University of Maryland might amount to nothing if they are forced to leave

the country.

During our research, while we were unsurprised to hear about the effect of

the travel ban and Trumps bigoted rhetoric, we did not expect to find out about

the negativity that the Trump supporters have been facing. In fact, on a campus

that is so largely liberal, it can be hard for the more conservative students to feel

like they have a voice. We then decided that it would be important to hear about

the trouble that both sides have been facing since Trumps victory. Taylor Rose, a

student at the University of Maryland who we spoke to about voting for Trump,

said that voicing his opinion is now much more difficult because it tends to result

in heated arguments. He says that one of these discussions ended with a girl he

knew actually yelling at him. As a result, he feels as though he is constantly

walking on eggshells whenever he gets involved in a discussion about politics.

Christina OConnell, another Trump supporter, said that she kept her support for

Trump private because she was afraid of losing her friends (Schwartz). Gabby

Vila, a Trump supporter, is very interested in public policy, and she loves to talk

about politics. However, she will not discuss politics with people who did not vote

for Trump. Taylor Rose said that it was much harder for him to muster up the

enthusiasm to attend his classes in the days following the election because, to

him, it felt as if every class he went to was discussing Trump, the conservative

voters, and the new government in a negative light. In general, conservatives

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have been left feeling very frustrated at the hostility and persecution that they

have been facing from fellow students and even teachers, many just wishing for

respect for differing opinions. This negative atmosphere that has formed in the

wake of Trumps appointment can be isolating to numerous students, and

although Trump supporters won in November, it has still been an uphill battle for

many.

These interviews with students on both sides of the issue allow insight into

one of the aspects of the stress that college students face so often. These

feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and lack of motivation along with the already

stressful life of being a college student has changed the campus climate for the

worse. For the minority students, living in a nation that elected a president whose

policies and foundation were based on discrimination and whose own words

paint him to be a moral and physical hazard has made it difficult for them to look

at the future in a positive light. Although the new and revised travel bans signed

by President Trump are being banned or put on hold by federal judges, the

distrust in the government by the majority of immigrants has only increased. For

the (often white) Trump supporters, the judgment and feeling that they are unable

to calmly discuss their different opinions with others has left many feeling

frustrated and alone.

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Analyzing and Synthesizing Empathy Research
Before we modified our point of view statement, our original point of view

statement focused on much broader question, how to improve the quality of

mental health services and improve the ease of access. The interviews

conducted in the beginning were able to give us a clear idea on their own

personal experience with the mental and health center. Many of our interviewees

admitted that even though they are much more understanding and open-minded

regarding mental health, they are not always ready to get treated or get help.

Our user empathy plan started to depicts a pattern as we began to

analyze our first round of interviews. Many students said even though they are

more educated on aspects of mental health, they just dont have the time to go

through the full process of registering with the mental and health care centers on

campus.

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Brainstorming and Generating Ideas
For our How Might We questions, we began with five questions that were

categorized into three sections: 1. HMW increase awareness of the problem and

help students feel as if their voice matters. We wanted to focus on this question

because the data we collected from our research and interviews suggested that

many students, especially minority students felt that their opinions and values did

not matter in the United States as a whole. 2. HMW increase awareness and

access of mental health resources on campus. This question not only helps

students affected by the problem that we are researching on, but helps students

find support on college campus overall. 3. HMW encourage positive school

climate. This question followed us throughout our research and became a unique

perspective for us to base our solutions on. Even though this was a very broader

topic compared to the first two How Might We questions, the solution to this

applied to both of the previous questions. We believe that increasing awareness

of the problem, helping students find their voice on campus and increasing

awareness of the mental health resources will help encourage positive school

climate overall.

Since we had a different approach to our HMW questions, we tried to

brainstorm ideas that fit the same criteria. Our brainstorming ideas ranged from

feasible ideas that were similar to some events that were already occurring on

campus, such as doing a comedy show with a famous comedian who is very

involved in politics, creative a positive environment by conducting a puppies for

change event, to very extravagant ideas such as bringing politicians or previous

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presidents from both political parties for a large scale seminars. We were also

interested in involving professors on campus by providing office hours for specific

topics and having the professors provide extra credit for students to go to

counseling from the counseling or health center if they are struggling in class.

Another solution that we came up with, that possibly fits into all three categories

of the HMW questions, was to have a supervised debate among students with a

mediator supervising. From interviewing students, we learned that providing free

food and drinks or free items as an incentive would be a great way to bring more

students in and will create and ensure a positive environment for both parties to

express their thoughts about the problems they are facing on campus.

The prototype of creating a supervised debate, gave us two new

brainstorming ideas: Recording Booth and Creating an App. Feedback gained

from interviewees and students showed that not everyone affected by the recent

election would be willing to speak out in a platform where they will be debating

others.

Idea #1: Debate

Idea #2: Recording Booth

Idea #3: App

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Building, Testing, Learning
In order to conclude the validity of our ideas from the brainstorming

session, we had to test and implement those ideas into several different

prototypes. Our first prototype was a type of comic book strip where we outlined

the basic steps to our intervention through drawings and one-to-two sentence

explanations. By doing that we realized that maybe we should change some

steps around and have some back-up options in case our original plans didnt

work out. The key takeaway from this first prototype was to not get ahead of

ourselves, but rather wait for the administrator's and other professors approval to

actually be able to proceed with the intervention. As you can see in the pictures

below, we had to change some steps around to accommodate and assure that

the actual intervention would be feasible and approved.

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 For our second prototype we decided to actually do a debate amongst

each other and try our best to act like the people who would be coming to the

real debate. The following is some of our discussion before and after the debate:

During the test we debated and discussed the topic provided for us, then
switched perspectives and commented good things about the opposing
team. Each person was given a minute to talk about their point of view or
opinion, and another minute to say something positive about the opposing
side. We heard different mindsets and explanations as to why the teams
felt the way they did. However, even though we had the freedom to
express ourselves in a proper way, the debate and discussion felt as if we
were walking on eggshells trying to not be rude by saying anything that
was politically incorrect or making the opposing team feel bad.

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We realized that it was very difficult, not only because we werent well prepared

to debate but also because even though we have been working as a group for

several weeks now, it still didnt feel like we could speak freely enough to not

accidentally offend someone. This in itself is a problem because if we were

unable to feel comfortable enough with each other, then how could we expect

complete strangers to feel comfortable to? The experience gave us a lot of

insight on what we could improve and what needed to change in order for our

intervention to work the way we want it to.

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Drawing Conclusions and Making
Recommendations
After all of our prototyping and changing things around, we decided to set

ground rules for the individuals that would be participating in the debate, in order

to have it flow smoothly and make everyone feel as comfortable as they can.

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As seen in the notes above, we came to the conclusion that people will not feel

as comfortable speaking out as we originally intended them to feel. As a result,

after talking it through, we decided that on top of the rules already made, we

would also implement a getting to know each other part into the debate where

we have ice breakers and get to know everyone so that they feel more

comfortable opening up. We also decided that in order for the participants to

voice their opinions better, they should have the opportunity while theyre at

home to write down everything they want to talk about and when they come in for

the debate we would try our best to bring up all of the comments.

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