Introduction
This “Wishlist” has been compiled from responses to a student survey distributed electronically at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Spring 2021. The survey, which solicited responses from students across disciplines and academic years, was composed of quantitative questions posed on a seven-point Likert scale, as well as qualitative open-response questions. Over 300 respondents from a wide range of disciplines engaged with the survey.
The resulting “Wishlist” can be read through as a whole or consulted in part by administrators, program specialists, student support workers, and instructors.
In the interest of clarity and ease of communication, we have arranged the (often recurring) points emerging from this data into working categories. We recognize that these categories (Institutional Training; Student Programming; Administration; Policy) often overlap in practice, yet we thought it useful to highlight that each of these suggestions can often be taken up productively in ways specific to each of these categories. (Practical steps towards destigmatizing failure may look different at each of these levels, for example, though there are shared components across the board).
It is not the case that the suggestions in these lists will be feasible for, applicable or appropriate to any given context. We encourage individual readers to engage with the data presented here as it works best for them (and, if applicable, for the specific student contexts to which their work responds).