A Final Report By Yihang Xu

“… even just in the few conversations we’ve had, you’ll notice that there’s almost a departmental identity crisis…”

—— Grace, a staff member of the CLSS

Introduction

“Learning how to learn” may seem unusual, as the ability to learn is often considered an implicit skill for university students, particularly at a globally renowned institution like the University of Toronto (UofT). Yet, a dedicated group of professionals at UofT focuses specifically on teaching students how to learn, including a series of workshops titled “Learning How to Learn” (Student Life 2025). One learning strategist even expressed the hope that such workshops could become mandatory in the university curriculum. This raises a fundamental question: why do students who have spent over a decade in the K-12 education system mastering knowledge and skills to gain university admission need additional guidance in learning how to learn? 

Motivated by this question, I conducted four months of ethnographic research with learning strategists at UofT’s Center for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS). Through my observations and interviews, I gained insights into their critical role in supporting students at one of the most academically demanding universities in the world. Despite their passion, efficiency, and high service demand, I encountered the departmental “identity crisis” mentioned at the beginning of this paper. This tension reflects deeper issues within the higher education landscape.

This paper examines the identity crisis learning strategists face and explores how it intersects with broader systemic trends of neoliberalism in higher education, resulting in the fragmentation of student services. These trends shape students’ experiences, the professional identities of learning strategists, and the institutional structures they navigate. By situating CLSS within these larger contexts, this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges and implications of academic life and support in today’s universities.

Background

UofT is recognized globally as a leading institution. It is infamous for its rigorous academic environment and the mental health burdens it poses on students (Villar 2023). The demanding academic life creates a substantial demand for support services, which the Center for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS) strives to meet. My informants confirm that the department operates under considerable pressure. Many staff members are almost overwhelmed by the countless appointments, workshops, and programs. Understandably, some declined my interview requests due to their packed schedules throughout the semester.

CLSS is a prominent academic support unit at the University of Toronto (UofT), serving a diverse student body of approximately 70,000 undergraduate and graduate students across various departments and colleges at the St. George Campus. The CLSS team has 22 staff members, including one administrative coordinator, director, research and assessment specialist, and 19 learning strategists (Student Life 2025). Notably, the director and research and assessment specialist also have prior experience as learning strategists, which is a significant asset for their current roles. According to one of my informants, CLSS’s team has grown significantly during the pandemic, expanding from a team of 6 to over 20 members, making it arguably one of North America’s largest university academic support units.

This raises a critical question: what exactly does “learning strategy” entail within the institutional framework of CLSS? My informants describe learning strategists as professionals who assist students by sharing strategies and practices to enhance their academic performance. Their work includes one-on-one consultations, workshops, and programs, as well as creating resources such as Quercus courses (the main platform for course delivery at UofT), instructional videos, and handouts. These efforts focus on metacognitive learning practices, strategies for self-regulation, effective habits and routines, and fostering self-awareness, self-efficacy, and academic resourcefulness.

As a UofT student, I have primarily encountered references to CLSS through course syllabuses, which often recommend their services to students facing academic challenges. CLSS is frequently mentioned alongside other academic support services, such as College Writing Centers (WC) and English Language Learning (ELL), which address specific issues like academic writing and English proficiency. However, not all instructors actively highlight the availability of CLSS, and many students do not inquire further, even when its name appears on syllabuses. Despite its potential benefits, the overwhelming demands of academic life at UofT often make it difficult for students to explore and engage with CLSS.

Methodology

I have employed three primary research methods in this study: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and textual analysis. Participant observation was conducted entirely virtually by attending administrative team meetings, team huddles, and online workshops. The work arrangements of my informants dictated the virtual approach. According to their accounts, their work transitioned to predominantly remote during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada in 2020, and this arrangement has persisted, with most work now conducted remotely. Team members generally go to the office only once or twice a week, and all team meetings are held online via Microsoft Teams, which also serves as their main platform for internal professional communication alongside email.

The online nature of these meetings shaped my observations. I engaged with audio communication, facial expressions (when cameras were on), and chat interactions, including text, stickers, and memes. For student-facing workshops, I refrained from audio or video recording. I did not collect any details about student participants, as they were not informed in advance that they would be observed or included in the research. This limitation, aligned with ethical and institutional guidelines, did not significantly impact my research, as my primary focus is on the learning strategists rather than the students. Observing these workshops nonetheless provided valuable insights into an important aspect of their work, which is further discussed in this paper.

I conducted individual interview sessions with 7 of the 22 members of CLSS, including one administrative coordinator, six learning strategists, and two group interview sessions. A semi-structured approach was adopted, allowing flexibility in exploring my research interests. Draft questions, such as “Can you describe your position’s typical day, week, or year as a learning strategist,” were designed to elicit comprehensive responses. These open-ended questions enabled informants to provide descriptive accounts while also allowing me to ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into their experiences and clarify emerging topics.

The individual interview sessions typically lasted about one hour, with prepared questions guiding the first half and the latter half often devoted to follow-up inquiries inspired by the participant’s responses. Interviews were arranged through referrals from primary informants and email recruitment, utilizing publicly available addresses on the CLSS official website. Before each session, participants were sent a consent form approved by the University of Toronto, which outlined the project details and requested their consent for audio recording and anonymization. All participants consented to audio recording, and recordings were encrypted for privacy.

In addition to interviewing learning strategists, I interviewed one student with previous experience with CLSS. I recruited this informant from my connections and learned about her experiences in a casual conversation. I invited her to share them with me as part of my research. This study doesn’t include any other student informant, aligning with CLSS’s expectation that we avoid recruiting students for interviews and participant observation. To ensure confidentiality, I anonymized all informants except for necessary mentions, such as the director of CLSS, John Hannah. All recordings and transcripts will be destroyed after the completion of this research.

While not a primary method, textual analysis supplemented my findings by providing context. I reviewed documentation, newspaper articles and websites on the profession of learning strategists and the historical development of CLSS within the Student Life Department at the University of Toronto. Additionally, I systematically coded interview transcripts and my notes to identify recurring themes, prominent words, and significant sentences relevant to my argument.

Integrating participant observation, semi-structured interviews and textual analysis forms a cohesive ethnographic approach that captures the complexity of the learning strategists’ professional lives within CLSS. Participant observation allows me to immerse myself in their daily work practices and gain a nuanced understanding of their daily work as a learning strategist and how remote work arrangements and digital communication shape their interactions and professional dynamics. Semi-structured interviews complement this by offering a platform for informants to articulate their experiences, reflections, and interpretations of their roles, providing detailed, firsthand descriptions that reveal the broader cultural and institutional contexts of their work. Textual analysis, although supplementary, situates these observations and narratives within a larger framework of historical and professional developments, bridging individual experiences with historical and systemic structures. Together, these methods enable me to approach the subject from multiple angles, better capturing the lived experiences of informants and the broader cultural and institutional forces that shape them. Applying these methodologies enhances the research’s depth and credibility and underscores the interconnectedness of everyday practices, institutional roles, and historical contexts within the work of learning strategists.

The Evolution of CLSS: The Development of Professional Identity, Fragmentation of Student Services and Neoliberal Trends in Higher Education

Understanding the historical evolution of the Center for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS) is essential for contextualizing the development of learning strategists’ professional identities within UofT’s student services landscape and examining how social and institutional structures shape them. Drawing on Giddens’ self-identity theory (1991), Guo argues that professional identity is a “reflexive project,” continuously shaped and reshaped through interactions with social and institutional structures (2018, 24). The transformation of CLSS’s institutional roles, including its name and roles, has significantly contributed to the evolving professional identity of learning strategists by reshaping their roles, expectations, and responsibilities. 

According to my informants, the responsibilities now carried out by CLSS were once integral to faculty roles. Professors traditionally supported students by addressing academic challenges and fostering essential learning skills. Over time, these responsibilities were transferred to departments like student services and student affairs, marking a shift toward outsourcing student support obligations to fragmented departments. This transition reflects the gradual redistribution of pastoral power, a type of Foucaultian conception of power resembling the role of a pastor or shepherd, emphasizing care for individuals and the collective “flock.” It values uniqueness and distinct paths toward personal “salvation.” It often involves exploring the mind and soul and is not strictly enforcing norms (Foucault 1982, 214). While faculty members originally exercised pastoral power by supporting students academically and personally alongside their teaching and research responsibilities, the prioritization of research and teaching led to the fragmentation of these roles, giving rise to specialized departments such as the Advisory Bureau, the precursor to CLSS.

The Advisory Bureau, established in the mid-1960s, was designed to provide non-medical counselling services to supplement psychiatric interventions (Trites 2002). In 1978, it was renamed the “Counselling and Learning Skills Service” (CALSS), which adopted a holistic approach to student support by integrating academic skill-building with psychological counselling. CALSS offered study skills programs and addressed mental health concerns such as stress and relationship issues through lectures and one-on-one consultations (Graham 1987, 4). However 2009, CALSS underwent a significant transformation, rebranding itself as “Academic Success” and transferring its counseling services to the university’s Health and Wellness Center. This reflected a broader institutional trend toward specialization, with holistic support fragmented into distributed services addressing the specific concerns. 

The department’s most recent transformation occurred in May 2024, when it was renamed CLSS. According to the current director, John Hannah, the new name “…captures with much greater clarity the unique thing we offer students in service of their learning,” addressing the ambiguity of its previous title, “Academic Success” (Ryeland-Etienne 2024). While this change emphasizes clarity, it continues the trend toward narrowing and specializing functions, aligning with a broader institutional focus on efficiency and technical solutions.

Reflecting on its history, CLSS’s evolution mirrors a larger shift in higher education toward the fragmentation of student services. Initially, professors “outsourced” their student support responsibilities to CALSS, which later divided its functions among specialized departments. Today, UofT’s Student Life department oversees 14 units, including CLSS and the Health and Wellness Center. Drawing on Tania Li’s concept of “rendering technical,” this fragmentation reframes the complex, interconnected challenges of student life as discrete, technical problems solvable through narrowly focused interventions (Li 2007, 7–10). While this specialization allows departments to address specific issues with targeted expertise, it risks reducing holistic support and disconnecting various departments with different roles and expertise. CLSS, for example, focuses solely on learning strategies, separating itself from issues like mental health or academic writing, which other departments handle.

This narrow specialization shapes the professional identity of learning strategists. Institutionally, they are positioned as academic supporters who help students overcome specific challenges to enhance academic performance. All my informants expressed that this work is meaningful and rewarding. Karina, one of my informants, described the role as encompassing multiple dimensions of students’ lives: “We’re working…with the social aspect of students’ lives…their cognitive abilities related to academics, their capacity for metacognition, their affective experience, and their behavioural components…helping students manage stress, meet deadlines, and progress in their academic journey is deeply rewarding.”

Learning strategists provide support through standard workshops and engaging individually with students to understand their unique learning styles and needs. They help students develop personalized strategies to achieve their academic goals while aligning them with UofT’s institutional expectations. As my informants commonly expressed, they want to help students develop life-long learning strategies and capacities beyond merely achieving their academic goals in their university degrees. This dynamic of individualized care exemplifies Foucault’s concept of pastoral power and highlights how learning strategists navigate this pastoral role.

Ultimately, CLSS’s transformation and its focus on specialized support reflect the broader neoliberal trends shaping higher education. Neoliberalism positions individuals as self-managing subjects responsible for continuously refining their skills, maximizing human capital, and managing modern anxieties (Li 2023, 219). For learning strategists, these trends redefine their professional identities, emphasizing their roles as specialized problem-solvers while challenging their ability to provide holistic care for students.

The Professional Identity Crisis: Pastoral Roles, Boundaries, and Institutional Constraints

How can learning strategists experience an identity crisis despite their passion, expertise, and dedication to helping students with academic challenges? One of their greatest vulnerabilities is the pastoral role of providing holistic care and guidance, which is a key aspect of their professional identity. Their ability to fully embody this role is often constrained by professional boundaries and institutional frameworks that narrowly define their responsibilities.

Kelly, a learning strategist, articulated this challenge when describing the most difficult aspects of her work: “I often encounter issues in students’ lives that are deeply tied to mental health or family situations, and while I want to help, I have to remind myself that I’m not a therapist.” Despite her commitment to providing holistic support, Kelly recognizes the limitations of her role. When personal challenges intersect with a student’s academic concerns, she must refer them to other departments for support, such as the Health and Wellness Center. She cannot do it for them, and students are responsible for navigating those resources. This referral process, while necessary, underscores the fragmented nature of student support services and can feel frustrating for both students and staff.

The intersection of academic life with other aspects of students’ lives, such as mental health and cultural background, further complicates this dynamic. Xingyue, an undergraduate student with adult ADHD at UofT, reflecting on her experiences with CLSS during one-on-one appointments before her diagnosis: “The learning skills they provide are fine… but that support is ineffective for me… I felt ashamed of being unable to complete the [learning] goals they set with me, but I didn’t yet know what exactly problems I had prevented me from doing so… I still feel so marginalized and isolated.” Many of the challenges she faced were related to her undiagnosed ADHD. As an international student, she struggled with limited support navigating other parts of her university life, posing obstacles to her academic life. For Xingyue, the structural limitations of CLSS services give her a sense of exclusion, highlighting the gaps in support systems that often fail to address those interconnected challenges. Also, as a student with existing mental health and academic challenges, the additional burden and labour of navigating this fragmented system became even more emotionally and physically demanding, exacerbating her vulnerability and challenges in her academic life. 

Kelly and Xingyue’s frustrations illustrate the broader impact of fragmentation within student services. Fragmentation burdens students and learning strategists by creating a complex network of specialized services lacking clear guidance and centralized collaboration. According to one informant, learning strategists frequently rely on informal networks, professional connections, and personal initiative to coordinate with other departments. They aim to improve student support by raising awareness of their services in other departments and faculty. Yet, they often face barriers to effectively collaborating across this fragmented institutional structure.

As discussed earlier, learning strategists are “reflexive projects” in their professional identity development. Their aspirational identity as pastoral supporters providing holistic help conflicts with the institutional limitations of their role, which prioritize specific academic challenges over broader student needs. This tension creates an identity crisis, as they must balance their desire to provide comprehensive support with the limitations of their professional boundaries within the institutional structure. 

Such institutional structures define their work’s scope and shape their pastoral power’s exercise. While learning strategists strive to exercise pastoral power through personalized support, the fragmented nature of student services at UofT constrains their capacity to address non-academic issues that contribute to students’ academic challenges.

As previously discussed, the broader neoliberal trends in higher education exacerbate these challenges. These trends reflect the broader neoliberal ideal of self-managing individuals that shapes both students and learning strategists (Li 2023, 219). Students must navigate this distributed system independently while aligning with institutional expectations at UofT when their interconnected needs are fragmented into technical, narrowly defined problems. This system can marginalize students like Xingyue and challenge learning strategists’ professional identity by prioritizing efficiency and specialization over holistic support while encountering students with challenges beyond their defined professional roles. 

Conclusion

The identity crisis faced by learning strategists reflects deeper tensions in the evolving landscape of higher education. As institutional frameworks increasingly prioritize specialization and efficiency, the work of learning strategists is constrained within narrowly defined professional roles. This creates a disconnect between their aspirations to provide holistic support and the structural limitations that prevent them from fully addressing students’ multifaceted needs. Giddens’ concept of identity as a reflexive project underscores how these professionals navigate fragmented systems, continuously reconstructing their professional identities in response to institutional constraints (Guo 2018, 24). Meanwhile, the exercise of power within CLSS is far from neutral but is shaped by the university’s priorities and limitations. It raises critical questions about how institutional structures influence student experiences and the professional identities of student services staff.

While the complexity and expertise within specialized student services departments are undeniable, they inherently limit the effectiveness of resolving student’s challenges. Expecting learning strategists to address issues outside their expertise, such as mental health or financial challenges, would likely introduce new paradoxes. These professionals would face even greater role ambiguity and unrealistic expectations to master expertise across diverse areas, ultimately affecting the quality of support they can provide. Similarly, one of my informants elaborates that the historical models of pastoral care, whether fully exercised by faculty or holistically offered by CALSS, were limited by the contexts of their time, marked by a lack of mental health awareness and smaller, less diverse student populations.

Today’s higher education landscape is shaped by different challenges, driven by but not limited to the proliferation of student populations and diversity and the growing influence of neoliberal ideologies. By examining the identity crisis faced by learning strategists at UofT, this paper offers a lens to understand how the university’s governance and broader sociopolitical trends like neoliberalism shape the academic lives of university students and the professional identities of those dedicated to supporting them. This reflection invites us to critically engage with higher education’s distributed system with fragmented services, recognizing their strengths and limitations while re-imagining the university spaces for the future.

Bibliography

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