ADA Stories: reimagining inclusion on campus
Understanding belonging and inclusion
Look around. These spaces tell stories. Stories of belonging, of searching, of finding oneself, or struggling to. Some stories are loud and celebrated. Others are whispered, tucked away.
The problem
At UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA), we want to foster a sense of belonging for our entire student and staff community, and to better understand diverse experiences of inclusion (and exclusion) on campus.
Inclusion is a dynamic lived experience that changes with time, place and context. Traditional surveys only scratch the surface when it comes to capturing its nuances.
“While we have statistics on equity and diversity and survey data on people’s sense of belonging, we know less about the experiences behind this, the why. We wanted to find creative opportunities for people to talk safely about and reflect on their experiences at UNSW, to have their voices heard.” -Professor Emma Kirby, Project Co-Lead.
Our strategy
ADA Stories explores creative methods to integrate and understand inclusion, with a focus on uncovering less visible experiences (and spaces) of belonging. It engages in story-driven ways to imagine, understand and map lived experiences of inclusion within our campus environments.
The experiences of people from socio-economically, educationally disadvantaged and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, people with diverse gender identities, members of the LGBTIQ+ community and people living with disability were of particular interest.
The team undertook activations during UNSW events – Diversity Festival, Graduations and Paddington Community Day – to gather positive and negative stories of inclusion. People could write and record their own stories or respond to prompts, such as ‘share a memory of when someone made you feel welcome’ or ‘what place on campus makes you feel most connected to others?’, or ‘my name is X and whenever someone says my name incorrectly I feel…’ or ‘When the tutor calls my name, I feel…’.
Our initiatives
These narratives were elevated across three initiatives, developing from the Innovation Hub’s Hackathon in June 2024 that looked at novel ways of re-imagining inclusion on campus:
My Name is… raised awareness of exclusion based on people’s names. Many people can feel excluded because of their name. They can feel alienated or ‘othered’ in everyday experiences, such as in the coffee line or in class or when autocorrect mistakes their name for a typo.
My Name is… helps decolonise our understanding of names and foster a space where everyone feels seen and heard. Sharing memories and personal reflections on our names or diving into the experiences of others helps us understand and celebrate our diversity.
“People could write stories, short or long, good or bad, in any language that they wanted, that they felt comfortable in, all those little things that help people feel their view on the world is celebrated.” - Prof. Kirby.
StoryMap explored how students and staff feel in UNSW ADA’s spaces, creating proof-of-concept trails that highlight diverse stories of place that bring our campuses to life.
“We’ve discovered there are all sorts of communal spaces, green spaces, courtyards where our students like to hang out. Spaces that might not seem significant but become important social spaces.” - Prof. Kirby.
Immersive Experience has developed an interactive 360 virtual reality (VR) film based on selected stories using multiple media. Diverse stories of inclusion and exclusion will give audiences an experiential understanding of a range of perspectives.
“Reading some of the stories, it was just – I don't know how to describe it. It was really touching. So many of them were relatable, so many of them were heartening, some a little bit painful to read. There was a whole spectrum of emotions there.” - Aves Parsemain, Project Collaborator.
Our outcomes
My Name is… captured more than 1,500 stories across all forms. The team developed a digital solution that allows students and staff to record and embed the pronunciation of their name in their email signature, Moodle profile and on Teams.
More than 500 people have accessed the user-driven instructions for updating their email signature and more than 1000 for updating Moodle. The project also received strong positive anecdotal feedback. Murals of the stories are on display at Paddington and Kensington campuses.
“To feel comfortable with yourself, you need to be seen for who you are, and that requires a safe space. By encouraging and sharing these stories on campus, we're helping remind people they’re not alone. We often think our experiences are unique to us, and that can be incredibly isolating, but it’s surprising how often they resonate with and relate to someone else.” - Jace Dent, Project Collaborator.
The project will be used as an educational resource, embedding diversity and inclusion in our teaching and learning and the research training curriculum of our students. UNSW students studying multimedia will engage with the Immersive Experience and the raw data to create their own digital experience.
The story contribution platform developed by the team will be used within the School of Social Sciences as part of research methods courses. Students will contribute stories using a range of methods and then apply various analytic techniques.
Learnings from the project will inform future faculty initiatives, such as using the Story Trail map in the onboarding experience for new students and incorporating the ‘My Name Is….’ tools in GERRIC, the gifted education centre at UNSW, in their programs for students from Years 3 to 10.
These outcomes have the potential to be scaled across UNSW.
“When people feel seen and heard – and I speak from my own personal experience, but also as someone in the Student Experience Team onboarding and welcoming new students – once students feel included, it allows them to show up as themselves and share their thoughts. And recognising our strength in diversity is what we need in the world.” - Thuy Giang, Project Collaborator
By sharing and listening, we can better appreciate our diversity and build a more inclusive community. Uplifting diverse knowledges to help face today’s wicked challenges.