By Molly McGouran

How do you conduct research on a university without talking to students?  

It is a question that caught me off guard during my fieldwork and, at first, felt incredibly limiting. I had started with what I thought was a clear, straightforward plan: observe, interact, and interview students at the University of Toronto. My goal was to understand how academic programs created by Student Life—like those run by the Centre for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS)—were being used by the students they aimed to help.

My original plan for my research was a student-focused approach. After being connected with CLSS, it was incredibly exciting to think that I could get insight from the source of who was creating programs all the way to the students who are utilizing these programs.  I thought about the ethics protocol, booked a meeting with CLSS administration, and signed up for a virtual study hub run by the CLSS… and then I got an email.  All of us working in the CLSS had been instructed that while we could attend student-facing programming, we could not solicit students for interviews or include information about other student attendees in our work.  

Suddenly, I was locked out of the very group I wanted to understand.  My field site was not lost in the traditional sense – there was still programming to attend and administrators to speak with—but the voices I thought would drive my research were no longer accessible.

I felt that what this change necessitated was a reframing of difficulties into a new opportunity to learn more about Student Life.  I had to learn how to adapt and turn obstacles into opportunities.  I had to ask myself: What can I learn, even without direct access to students?  By analyzing the content being taught in programming and the decisions being made by program creators, I found a new angle to understand how the CLSS frames their work.  

For example, the email itself became part of my research.  Why were we, as researchers being allowed inside CLSS administration, so restricted?  I learned that these limitations were tied to Student Life administration trying to be a pastoral entity towards UofT students.  Participants in CLSS programs, I was told, did not sign up to be research subjects—they signed up to seek help.  What I saw as a “normal” negotiation of entry into a field site was reframed as solicitation, a violation of the trust Student Life was trying to build.

  Losing access to students forced me to rethink what my research could be, and the answer was to use myself as a proxy for the student perspective.  Still being able to attend programs myself removed other students from my research, but it did not remove the student perspective altogether. It made it easier to focus on how administration constructs programming for students and their intentions, even if I did not exactly get the perspective of students who seek out programming on their own.  This showed me how methodological difficulties can reveal new angles of observation.  Losing access to students did not shut the door on my research, it just forced me to walk through a different one.  

Conducting research without students pushed me to rethink my approach, my assumptions, and my understanding of UofT as a field site. In a way, the challenge mirrored the reality many students face.  Navigating university support systems can feel like running into walls, searching for answers in places you did not expect.  My experience as a researcher reflected that very process: hitting limits, reframing questions, and finding new ways forward.