Including Alice: Uncovering the Narrative of One Student's Experience at the Intersection of International Student Status and Mental Health
Conference
Kali, MB, Secules, S, McCall, CJ. (2021). Including Alice: Uncovering the Narrative of One Student's Experience at the Intersection of International Student Status and Mental Health
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Kali, MB, Secules, S, McCall, CJ. (2021). Including Alice: Uncovering the Narrative of One Student's Experience at the Intersection of International Student Status and Mental Health
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Background: Several known unknowns of inclusion, including international student and mental health concerns, are rarely spoken about in diversity and inclusion topics. Faculty development resources for inclusion are limited, and narrating student experiences could help faculty empathize with and understand their students better. Purpose: We share life stories of one minoritized student's experience in engineering education. Within each story, we incorporate aspects of student identity and faculty interactions to help uncover new insights about inclusion in engineering education. Methodology: We conducted one-on-one interviews with six minoritized undergraduate students as a part of a larger pilot study. This paper centers on the story of one participant, Alice, a Latina international student who experiences mental health struggles. Through narrative and discourse analysis techniques, we synthesized three key stories for our analysis. Findings: Story 1 centers on Alice's identity as an international student and faculty microaggressions regarding international status. Story 2 centers on Alice's diagnosed anxiety and challenges with requesting accommodations from faculty. Story 3 centers on Alice's experiences with a medical emergency and the faculty's treatment of students' personal lives. Implications: This paper has implications for faculty members, including differentiating the intent the faculty member perceives from the enactment of the events that occur and from the often outsized impact that small moments can have on minoritized individuals. We suggest that inclusive communication and acts of perspective taking can help faculty members proactively create inclusive classrooms that make it easier for students' to bring their whole selves to engineering.
