Author Archives: Emily Hertzman

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / final papers / Undergraduate Ethnography

Empowering Learners, Transforming Institutions:Learning Strategists’ Role in Higher Education 

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A Final Report By Hanisha Mistry Introduction The fluorescent light hummed softly in the temporary office on Bay Street, a functional yet impersonal space where the Centre for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS) had set up during the Koffler Student Centre renovations. Despite its unremarkable setting, the CLSS is defined not by its location but by … Continue reading →

The Complementary Roles of Mentors and Strategists
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

The Complementary Roles of Mentors and Strategists

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By Hanisha Mistry There is a need for Student Life’s resources, and there is a reason why we have both peer mentors and Learning Strategists. A poignant quote from a conversation I had with a Learning Strategist captures this need: “Students are saying, ‘I need to talk about my learning in not an evaluated space.’” … Continue reading →

Too Many Students, Too Few Strategists
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Too Many Students, Too Few Strategists

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By Hanisha Mistry Learning Strategist’s days cannot accommodate all of U of T St. George. The University of Toronto’s St. George campus serves approximately 68,454 students, while the Centre for Learning Strategy Support (CLSS) operates with only 22 professional staff and 12 peer mentors. This stark disparity reflects a systemic imbalance between the student population … Continue reading →

Co-Creating Knowledge: Ethnography With, Not Of, Interlocutors
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Co-Creating Knowledge: Ethnography With, Not Of, Interlocutors

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By Hanisha Mistry When I first imagined going into the field as an ethnographer, I envisioned something akin to Bronisław Malinowski’s arrival in the Trobriand Islands. I pictured myself stepping into a space where ethnography was an unfamiliar word, and my interlocutors, unacquainted with the methods of anthropology, would meet my questions with unfiltered answers. … Continue reading →

Student Life’s Strategic Plan: an Ethnography of Organizational Culture in Higher Education
Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / final papers / Undergraduate Ethnography

Student Life’s Strategic Plan: an Ethnography of Organizational Culture in Higher Education

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Final Report By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio We have become familiar with the idea that large organizations like Universities are guided by Strategic Plans and produce annual reports. My research in the University of Toronto’s division of Student Life permitted me to examine the practices involved in this production and the rationality or mode of reasoning … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

How U of T’s Student Life drastically differs from student affairs organizations at three competing universities

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By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio From conversations with ANT473 peers, focus groups, and friends, I have concluded that Student Life (SL) has a reputation for offering a complex range of services that can overwhelm students and deter them from accessing the support they were promised. According to an SL staff interlocutor, SL has ten units and … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Auditing Impact at Student Life

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By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio In the early weeks of ANT473, Professor Li assigned students  “Coercive Accountability: the rise of audit culture in higher education” by Cris Shore and Susan Wright (2003), which brought our attention to the effects of technological practices as they interact with social life and cultural change. Audit technologies, which I understand … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Liminality within Higher Education: OISE Master’s Students Experience Contradictory Identities

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By Daisy Sanchez Villavicencio It’s 2:10 pm on a Friday and rather than finding a comfy seat in a lecture hall, I face a panel of rectangular screens with students in varying settings and others’ black/blank. Since the pandemic, I’ve attended countless online lectures and feel myself instinctually take my position as a traceless attendee … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

On Coping With Ethnographic Disappointment

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By Cameron Miranda-Radbord It is a real loss for future generations of students in ANT 473 that Professor Li is retiring, but if the course continues to be taught, I have a scintilla of what I think is wisdom: your ethnography may not be everything you hoped it was.  When I researched “anthropology disappointment” and … Continue reading →

Ethnography of the University / Ethnography of the University: Focus on Student Life 2024 / Undergraduate Ethnography / Updates

Staff Turnover

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By Cameron Miranda-Radbord What the heck happened to the staff who were supposed to conduct Signature Program Assessments? No, really – as I spoke to a Student Life staff member, I was perplexed by her explanation of why many of the Signature Program Assessments were not completed. Administrators, she told me, had moved departments. If … Continue reading →