Silent Witness

The present study traces campus climate at Virginia Tech, site of the deadliest school massacre in modern U.S. history, from 2003 to 2017. Using the unobtrusive method of content analysis as a measure of campus climate, data in the form of desktop graffiti—student-authored graffiti on classroom desktops—is analyzed according to amount and content. A total of 1,443 desks are studied, resulting in 8,172 pieces of intelligible graffiti analyzed. Data collected prior to the massacre is compared to data collected one semester, one year, and one decade following the massacre. From this emerges an unobtrusively painted picture of campus climate at Virginia Tech over the course of 14 years, spanning before and after tragic events. The present study adds to the literature on classroom culture post-campus violence and speaks to the subtler, often obscured, impacts of school shootings.

Benchmarking Age-Friendly University Practices: AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) Study Insights

The Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative endorsed by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) provides institutions of higher education with guiding principles for addressing the needs of aging populations. Benchmarks are now needed for assessing age-friendly academic, workplace, and physical campus environments, perceptions of campus constituents, and recommendations for advancing age inclusivity. This symposium will discuss what the AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) administered to a national sample of colleges and universities is revealing about the study of age-friendliness in higher education. The sample includes data from over 10,000 faculty, staff, students, and older learners surveyed in 2020-21. Whitbourne will introduce the conceptual model that served as the foundation for the ICCS, with special attention to the need to assess and compare “objective” age-friendly practices with “subjective” perceptions of these practices. Bowen will describe the utility of examining age-friendliness across institutional units with different functions: outreach-engagement, personnel, physical environment, research, services-resources, student affairs, and teaching-learning. Beaulieu will present data demonstrating the importance of assessing perceptions of specific constituent groups including faculty, staff, students, and lifelong learners. Montepare will discuss insights gained about the definition and manifestation of what it means to be ageist, age-friendly, and age-inclusive in higher education. Silverstein will describe strengths and challenges observed across campuses along with recommendations and promising new directions for advancing age inclusivity in higher education.

Taking a Campus-Wide View of Age-Friendly Practices in Higher Education

The first AFU principle is to “encourage the participation of older adults in all the core activities of the university, including educational and research programs.” As this suggests, a crucial goal of age inclusivity in higher education is to resist the siloing of older adults and age-inclusive efforts in age-specific programs and cohorts. In response, the Age-Friendly Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) assessment was designed to assess age-inclusivity across seven areas of institutional activity: outreach & engagement, personnel, physical environment, research, services & resources, student affairs, and teaching & learning. By restructuring and expanding the “pillars” of institutional activity outlined by AFU principles, the ICCS presents two key advantages for benchmarking AFU practices: (1) it traces age-inclusivity across many facets of institutional operations; and (2) it prompts participants and report readers to recognize their role in current and potential age-inclusive efforts, regardless of their role or department on campus.

Assessing and Tracking Success of Advancing Age Inclusivity

Assessment is an important component of advancing age inclusivity on your campus, and the AFU Principles are a useful guiding framework. Assessment helps move the campus from making a commitment to endorse the principles to actually taking stock of current campus practices and movement toward achieving the vision of an age-friendly institution of higher education. To establish a baseline of campus practices, assessment can be done before or after an institution joins the AFU Global Network. Evaluation also follows periodically to assess how well a campus is adhering to the AFU Principles once measurable goals are established and priorities are integrated within an institution’s strategic plan. The toolkit contains examples from multiple campuses of mapping the principles, conducting an audit, doing a photovoice evaluation, holding listening tours, and using the newly developed AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS).

On Being Ageist, Age-Friendly, Age-Inclusive: Differentiating Core Constructs and Their Implications

The pioneering Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative has called for institutions of higher education to respond to the needs of older, more age-diverse populations through new approaches to programs, practices, and partnerships. In exploring in more detail what it means for a campus to be age-friendly, the national AFU Inventory and Campus Climate Survey (ICCS) study has raised questions about how core theoretical concepts are defined and manifested. Using observations from the ICCS study, this presentation will discuss tensions among constructs (e.g., does being age-friendly indicate the absence of ageist attitudes; are age-inclusive practices by design age-friendly?) and how differentiating these constructs better can help higher education focus its efforts in more intentional and productive ways.

Toward a Model of Age Inclusivity in Higher Education

The AFU principles clearly state the aspiration of promoting age inclusivity in higher education within the context of the UN Sustainability Development Goals. With these principles as a starting point, the Age-Friendly Campus Climate Inventory and Survey were developed to assess the extent to which AFU principles are put into practice (Inventory) and how campus constituencies perceive these practices. Based on social ecological models, a framework for measuring age inclusivity was developed in which practices ("objective environment") are compared to perceptions ("subjective environment"). Participating campuses (N=29) completed the inventory for each major executive unit, providing scores that were grouped by major campus functions, including research, teaching, community engagement, and support. By comparing these scores with perceptions of each function by samples of constituencies of faculty, staff, and students, it is possible to test the person-environment match as conceptualized by social ecological models providing important clarification for the AFU principles.

"I Can’t Be Racist, I’m Gay”: Exploring Queer White Men’s Views on Race and Racism

In society and on college campuses, whiteness has staked a claim as the default race for queerness. This has manifested in queer and trans people of color feeling like outsiders who must resist hegemonic whiteness at personal and institutional levels. This qualitative study explores how queer white men negotiate their relationship to race and racism on and off their campuses. These men oscillate between normalizing whiteness, working through whiteness, and working with their whiteness. Implications for improving campus climate and the experiences of queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) students, staff, and faculty are discussed.