With Students, For Students

Working in research as a student can train young people for many kinds of careers, as well as helping them establish professional networks through their supervisor and collaborators. Training the highly qualified research personnel of tomorrow is a key outcome of University of Windsor research. Research also creates on-campus employment opportunities for students at all levels of their studies.

University of Windsor researchers are not only employing students, they’re working to enhance the educational experience through research. Whether studying student mental health, developing new ways of delivering curriculum, or dismantling barriers students face on campus, University of Windsor researchers are working with and for students. In 2021-2022, twenty-two new research projects examining topics in education and learning were initiated across campus. Topics ranged from developing supports for student mental health to uncovering the best pathways to share career opportunities with undergraduates. Several projects leveraged research results in creative ways to update curriculum and develop new courses and many projects that focus on student wellbeing explored equity issues and ways that campuses can be more inclusive.

Racism can result in real and challenging barriers to success for students at Canadian universities. Dr. Natalie Delia Deckard is working to dismantle the barriers that racialized students face when pursuing higher education. She received a SSHRC Connection grant in 2021-2022 to examine how BIPOC students (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) can access the resources to help them flourish on university campuses. The project has two objectives: first, to create a community where BIPOC students and faculty can share their experiences and learn from each other, and second, to share what they learn with others so that they can make universities more equitable and inclusive. The project will include workshops and meetings where students and faculty can talk about the challenges they face and share tools for success in their studies and careers. Through unfiltered sharing of experiences, the project investigates how mentorship from the margins can affect positive change. Dr. Deckard’s work is already showing how universities can retain racialized students through graduate studies and beyond by developing new culturally competent structures within universities that empower students and faculty through decolonization of our scholarly community.

Dr. Natalie Delia Deckard is a leading advocate for racial justice.

In 2021, the University of Windsor launched a series of Anti-Black Racism Initiatives grants. Their purpose is to provide opportunities to support Black scholarship, to support the development of Black-focused courses, programs and pedagogies that address racism and anti-Black racism in particular, to enhance student engagement and the student experience by supporting student-led research and leadership opportunities for Black students, and to provide professional development focused on both addressing anti-Black racism and empowering Black staff and faculty to foster learning and a deeper understanding of systems of anti-Black racism.

Several Anti-Black Racism Initiative grants supported student-led research initiatives, such as We Were Here, a local history project spearheaded by Willow M. Key, a Masters student in the Department of History. Through oral histories, and primary and secondary sources such as newspaper archives, We Were Here worked to recover the lost history of Windsor’s downtown Black community along the McDougall Street Corridor, which was disrupted and disbursed by postwar urban renewal. “There is still much that needs to be done in terms of researching this community,” says Key, whose work was co-supervised by Dr. Heidi Jacobs, Digital Scholarship Librarian and Irene Moore Davis, president of the Essex County Black Historical Society. The project led to a walking tour and app, developed in partnership with the University of Windsor Centre for Cities (led by Dr. Anneke Smit in the Faculty of Law), and a soon-to-be-launched website both of which will lead to public engagement with the stories collected. “This project is personal to me,” adds Key, who is a descendant of the Black community that she was researching. On a local level, she would like to see this research implemented in more public history projects and as an element of local history in schools. On a regional or even national level, she would like to see the research contribute to the wider discussion of Black uprooting and the effects of postwar urban renewal on Black and minority communities across Canada. These programs impacted cities across the country, and there are other communities like the McDougall Street Corridor whose histories are still lost.

An archival photo of a community picnic from Willow M. Key’s project, We Were Here.