Background
Stress associated with trauma is likely present in every student gathering at Duke University – not only in each student organization and residence hall, but also in every classroom and laboratory. Students bring experiences of past trauma with them and also experience diverse forms of stressors and trauma while at Duke, including sexual assault. In a 2018 survey, 47.8% of Duke undergraduate women reported unwanted sexual contact since matriculating.
While in recent years Duke has invested heavily in providing high-quality mental health and support services to trauma survivors and curbing the rate of campus sexual assault, there is a need to attend carefully to how stress and trauma show up in classrooms and academic programs. Students who are trauma survivors bring essential insights and perspectives to classroom contexts but may also experience academic challenges.
Trauma survivors may respond strongly to particular texts, topics or contexts that evoke memories of trauma and stress. Faculty may wonder how to foster a learning environment in which all students can thrive and may be uncertain about how to manage trauma-related content in the classroom (such as in the case of conflicting information about “trigger warnings”). There is a clear need for trauma-informed education for students and faculty that will explore the ways that trauma shows up in the classroom, increase empathy for those who are struggling and promote a positive learning experience.
Project Description
This project will develop and implement seminars for students and faculty on trauma-engaged teaching and learning and will collect data to inform future efforts to better support trauma survivors in the classroom.
The project will build on work from the 2020-2021 team that explored a series of essential questions including: How does trauma affect students’ experience of academic work at Duke? How do students perceive faculty approaches to addressing trauma in the classroom? How do faculty perceive, address and engage in the way that trauma affects learning in the classroom? How might classes be taught, and academic programs be administered, in order to cultivate an environment in which survivors of trauma can thrive in their academic work?
The 2020-2021 team used the data collected in response to these questions to develop Trauma Engaged Duke (TED), a series of informational seminars for students from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, the Divinity School and the School of Medicine. TED seminars educated students about the effects of stress and trauma – broadly defined to include child abuse and sexual violence as well as stress and trauma in the context of racism, homophobia and other forms of social oppression. Participants learned where they can receive additional information and care and completed survey questionnaires assessing their knowledge of trauma before and after the seminars. Selected participants engaged in focus group interviews, which resulted in the development of a foundational qualitative dataset.
Building on the work of the 2021-2022 team, which conducted focus groups among undergraduate students in Trinity and Pratt and graduate students in Divinity and the School of Medicine, the team will learn about trauma-informed teaching practices at Duke and work toward supporting and building a trauma-informed educational culture.
Throughout the year, 2022-2023 team members will engage in ongoing qualitative analysis of the student focus group data from the prior year, in order to identify salient research findings and to share these both at Duke and beyond, through publication. The team will also continue to implement focus groups for faculty within Duke’s undergraduate schools, the Divinity School, and the School of Medicine, exploring how faculty members experience and address the topic of trauma in the classroom. Team members also provide TED seminars geared toward undergraduates and graduate students at the request of student groups and organizations. After data analysis, the team will work towards the formation of a working group, comprised of team members and other university leaders, that will draw on focus group research findings and other literature to identify and implement best practices for trauma-informed teaching and learning at Duke.
Anticipated Outputs
Primary qualitative data; three academic articles on trauma-informed undergraduate education; theological education and medical education materials.
