Centering Student Voices to Advance Belonging at Glendale Community College

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Learning in Practice: Student Voices, Shared Governance, and Organizational Learning in a Multi-College Research Practice Partnership

Abstract

This presentation shares a practitioner’s account of co-leading equity inquiry through student narratives at Glendale Community College, a California Community College participating in a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) with UCLA. As a leader of the campus-based inquiry, the presenter helped design and deliver structured data experiences for targeted constituent groups across the institution. Rather than a large-scale rollout, the college team used an incremental facilitation model: small groups already working on equity challenges were exposed to anonymized student narratives and engaged in structured reflection. These groups—ranging from student government to STEM faculty to governance bodies—used the data to identify localized design changes.
Guided by a simple but powerful theory of change—that intentional exposure to student data prompts new design choices—the team protected time for dialogue, designed alternative data packets to scaffold engagement, and tracked emerging shifts in practice. Examples include: integration of student narratives into student government training; redesign of the Math Discovery Center’s tutoring ethos; and new professional development focused on inclusive group work.
The presenter also shares how members of the GCC team took on expanded leadership roles across governance structures, strengthening alignment between inquiry and decision-making. While the work was not framed as formal research, it contributes to this symposium by demonstrating how cross-functional facilitation, grounded in student voice and relational trust, can lead to distributed learning and adaptive practice. The presentation will draw from facilitation tools, group selection strategies, and examples of observed outcomes to illustrate key takeaways. This case illustrates how equity inquiry—when rooted in authentic voice and role-aligned strategy—can scale learning across systems and build institutional capacity for change.

Author

• Tiffany Ingle, Glendale Community College