Towards a Pedagogy of Care: Re-imagining academia for graduate-international students in the post-pandemic era

Fairuz Sharif - Ph.D. student at University of Ottawa in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies

Sohini Ganguly - Ph.D. student at University of Ottawa in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies

Introduction: The 2020 pandemic has brought life-threatening challenges closer to home. Globally, it is affecting every section of the population in varying degrees. Our paper focuses on academia and the challenges faced by graduate-international students within academia in the pandemic era. We discuss the challenges of incoming graduate-international students during Covid-19 in two parts- (1) challenges students faced during distant learning and (2) challenges they encountered while relocating to their designated learning institution during a global pandemic. The article shares anecdotes of graduate-international students’ personal experiences, the necessity to overcome the challenges faced by them, and how we can reimagine pedagogy in the post-pandemic era. Issues such as inclusion, diversity, and intersectionality have become The ideas emphasized in this paper is a form of resistance to the existing system which can be silently oppressive to certain bodies and races. By system, we refer to the neoliberal, white supremacist academic structure and systematic barriers that privileges white bodies. Our ideas pose a challenge to the normative academic space, advocating the need for effective engagement and inclusion towards the marginalized bodies of color in academic spaces. The pedagogy of care is both a form of change and resistance.

even more critical. Universities must cultivate care, understanding, and concrete engagement with students from varied backgrounds. We are suggesting a Universal Design (UD) to pedagogy, as theorized by Dolmage (2017), which is used to make university spaces more accessible to all. Keeping Universal Design (UD) as our theoretical framework, we are coining the term “pedagogy of care” to discuss building communities, building better pedagogy, building designs for all, and building opportunities where international students have more agency to hold institutions accountable for their actions (Dolmage, 2017, p. 118).

In post-pandemic times, we propose a shift towards a “pedagogy of care”; instead of temporarily accommodating people, physical and virtual structures should be designed with a wide range of citizens in mind and includes planning for the active involvement of all (Dolmage, 2017, p: 115). However, UD, like inter-

sectionality, is becoming a buzzword under neoliberal university structures (Dolmage, 2017). Academia must think more deeply about providing solid support to students worldwide that will continue in post-pandemic time. As Corbera et al. (2020, p. 191) note, “this disruptive time can become an opportunity to foster a culture of care, help us refocus on what is most important, redefine excellence in teaching and research, and in doing so make academic practice more respectful and sustainable.” Academic institutions must cultivate a culture of care within their ecosystem, towards teachers and students alike, without any hierarchy and supremacy across all disciplines. A nuanced discussion is presented on how true “pedagogy of care” will be ensured by creating a space that is open for vulnerabilities within academia, without any biases and shame.

Theoretical Framework: We frame our paper around UD, an architectural design coined by designer and architect Ron Mace (Dolmage, 2017). UD is a modified concept of accessibility for disabled people. Dolmage (2017) talks about academic institutions and their steep steps as a metaphor for exclusion in academia. They look at how these steps are designed to restrict certain bodies and minds from educational institutions. UD caters to all bodies and minds and uses a transformative access approach in which everyone’s input is considered in building that space. By space, UD does not only mean the infrastructure but also the culture of that space. Incorporating the transformative access approach, space is seen as a social and learning leeway, where everyone’s input is considered in building that space.

We have taken inspiration from Bailey and Miller (2015) for the stylistic approach of writing this paper. In their work, they have conveyed their feeling of isolation and lack of belonging as Blackqueer professors in their new academic environment (Bailey and Miller, 2016, p. 171). This piece highly resonated with us and truly depicts that racial bodies even when they are in a position of power within pedagogy, are secluded by skin color and their race. Our feeling of isolation was mutual and understated. In today’s political climate, students share apathy towards social causes and intersectional understanding; whereas, in the course of history, students have sparked movements through their work and collaboration (Bailey and Miller, 2015, p.176); and the shared experiences in our academic space have ignited that spark to translate into something meaningful in the form of this paper.

Research Methods: As mentioned before, the paper is about the personal experiences of graduate-international students coming from different countries. As researchers and authors, we are aware of our privileged position to access higher studies in North American institutions. By pedagogy, we refer to Canadian pedagogy as we can only speak for our experiences in a Canadian university. However, it can still be relevant to European and American pedagogy because these institutions in pedagogy are built from a colonial point of view, keeping white bodies in mind. Hence, the struggles of graduate-international students go beyond the borders of Canadian pedagogy. As authors and Ph.D. students starting off their degrees during the pandemic, we both share our testament in this paper, which makes us “a compromised researcher” (Griffin, 2012, p. 334). Research that is ‘close to heart’ surfaces a variety of vulnerability; makes feminist researchers expose themselves and, in the process, become compromised between the research method and emotions (Griffin, 2012, p. 334). We acknowledge as researchers at an early stage of our careers, invested in research close to our hearts like this one, is likely to affect the validity and reliability of our research (Griffin, 2012). But, as we proceeded and talked to more of our peers, we realized that this work is a tale of reality for many other incoming graduate-international students who started their new degrees or school year amidst a pandemic. Although, as insiders of graduate-international students’ cohorts, we cannot share commonalities in every way. It is imperative, that every insider researcher will encounter challenges due to different class backgrounds, social status, gender, and sexual identities (Noh, 2019, 332). That makes a researcher ‘in-betweeners’ (Noh, 2019, 332). That is why when we expand our research to a cross-Canada study, with future funding opportunities, we need to mind ourselves to nuanced intersectional understanding which is not in lieu of ‘disciplinary feminism’ (Bilge, 2013, p. 409). Bilge (2013) explains: By disciplinary feminism, I refer to a hegemonic intellectu-

al position with regards to knowledge production, a way of doing “science” which is more concerned with fitting into the parameters of what constitutes legitimate scientific knowledge than challenging those parameters (p. 409). With this research, we are claiming to reimagine the academia for graduate-international students with a pedagogy of care that challenge the existing parameters of educational institutions much like Bilge’s (2013) argument.

Challenges during distant learning:

In this solitary journey of Ph.D., kick-started amidst a pandemic, the most daunting challenge for graduate-international students was distant learning and class schedule at odd hours. Graduate-level courses were mostly all synchronous live lectures, set according to the designated learning institution’s time zone. With 8-12 hours of the time difference, attending those classes at odd hours affected the productivity of students and led to mental fatigue. Navigating through the technical intricacies and maintaining attention for long hours on virtual seminars added to the overall challenges of graduate-international students. However, distant, or online learning helped many international students join classes and continue their learning experience with ease from their home countries. It is a viable option for disabled students as well. While the online teaching market will grow as remote learning is cheaper and less time-consuming, this is still a problem for subjects that need practical experience. On the other hand, online teaching or learning experience has exposed uneven access to resources and fundamental privileges of class, race, and gender. A high-speed Wi-Fi at home to support uninterrupted virtual classes is not an easy possibility for everyone. It is not only a question of affordability, but sometimes the geography of space is also important to acknowledge when we question accessibility. Many of these students, joining these online classes from the Global South, lack the required resources due to a lack of high-tech infrastructure in their countries. The space issue also becomes valid when many graduate-international students did not have a learning environment or a designated study room at home as family co-habitation is a common thing in those countries. Due to the pandemic, many had to fulfill the role of caregiver to family members while being full-time Ph.D. students. These were some valid challenges for graduate-international students, that cannot be relevant for their classmates, faculties, and administration who belong to the West or Global North. Information in in-accessible language was another challenge that we faced as graduate-international students. Due to the pandemic, we regularly depended on the university website for various information and updates in distant learning. We found most of the information written with a native English-speaking audience in mind. English is perceived and spoken in different ways in different parts of the world. The English language is vast and only a fraction of it is known by us as graduate-international students, whose primary language is often not English. Furthermore, it becomes difficult to understand the jargon, clauses, rules, and legality of any information which are new to us as outsiders. For example, something as simple as obtaining a study visa or teaching contract would contain terminology that we were not familiar with as beginners. All of that makes sense to us after a couple of years but in the beginning, familiarizing ourselves with formal English, added to our anxiety and confusion. By default, universities have the assumption that we know everything as graduate-international students. Often students do not reach out to administration staff for clarification for fear of looking ‘dumb,’ whereas it is entirely understandable that a newcomer would not understand everything. Even when we reach out to the administration staff for clarification, their answer is not always helpful. Often, we are treated with late replies or non-responsiveness. Time difference became vital if we needed quick information on urgent matters during distant learning. We acknowledge the challenges that universities also had to adapt to the pandemic, and it is an unprecedented event for everyone. Still, it is far more complicated for graduate-international students. There should be a better solution for these problems considering online learning is a feasible option for disabled and international students. We also observe a lack of readiness plans by the universities. Although most universities assured graduate-international students that they understand and cultivate a culture of care, but we often found them with no readi-

ness plan. Professors who preach intersectional awareness would be somewhat flexible, supportive, and reliable. They would be sensitive to the student’s circumstances. But we cannot be sure this is always the case for students from all disciplines across.

Challenges of relocating during a pandemic: Relocating to the designated institution’s location during a pandemic was the next challenge for graduate-international students- involving a lot of anxiety, uncertainty, and tension for them. Graduate-international students had to provide paperwork for immigration to prove student status, quarantine plans, Covid-19 tests, symptoms of Covid-19 registration in various apps, course enrollment verification in order to fulfill international flying requirements. In such instances, we see the discrepancy and unjust regulations that exist within the system in academia. International student tuition is a huge source of profit generation for universities in the Global North and Europe (Cantwell, 2015; Usher, 2016; Varughese and Schwartz, 2022). At the start of the pandemic, institutions assured graduate-international students that they would be handled with care and all necessities would be fulfilled by the university administration when they must fly. However, when it was time, universities started charging fees for providing required documents such as student and enrollment status. Due to the pandemic, there was a capitalist opportunity to make more money from international students by these neo-liberal institutions. In one such instance, when she required a document, one of the co-authors, Fairuz, resisted the system which excluded her further. She refused to pay an extra amount of money for such documents when universities and departments could easily publish these documents in a word or PDF document with letterheads, which she later, received from her department. That said, not all graduate-international students have the same assertion with the administration. To add, we are not stating that regulations are unnecessary; nevertheless, sometimes a little cooperation from universities can make graduate-international students’ lives less complicated, particularly amidst a pandemic. Another significant issue is the unfamiliarity with health insurance, which is a new concept for many incoming graduate-international students. The use of health insurance, how to access it, where to access it, how does clinic services work, what to do in a medical emergency, all this information is very important for new students uprooting their whole lives from one country to another. During a pandemic, the issue of health insurance becomes vital. We observed a lack of reediness plan among the university administration in this issue. Accessibility to health insurance should not be something that students have to seek after a health emergency but rather the university administration should make it more readily approachable. Again, this is a great example of universities assuming that we know. After traveling, the mandatory isolation and quarantine regulation had jarring effects on the mental health of these students. Completion of Covid-19 tests after the fourteen-day isolation period of isolation was compulsory by universities. This information was also not readily available for students. In some cases, not being able to provide Covid-19 tests results on time lead to an extended period of isolation for graduate-international students. Here, it is important to mention that this segregation in terms of health care laws for graduate-international students is due to their relocation from certain Global South nations. Several nations like India were on a travel ban list, so many graduate-international students could not relocate to their designated institution’s location up until recently. Sohini, one of the co-authors, is one of the prime examples of such a case. This segregation in terms of our citizenship status is that this “differently treated” by authorities is not only limited to immigration, the healthcare system, or the larger society that views us as outsiders. All the above contexts in this paper show that graduate-international students are “differently treated” within the academic space as well. And this bothers us. It is a white supremacist and colonial approach to segregation. Academia is a space for equals who possess great merit and earn their credibility. We question the system in academia and a pedagogy which operates in silent oppression of graduate-international students. Thus, we propose to move towards a pedagogy of care, care not only shown by professors, but also by administration staff and numerous departments that need to reevaluate their process of handling matters when it comes to international students.

Towards a pedagogy of care: The first step towards a pedagogy of care is accessibility. In Universal Design (UD) accessibility does not only mean making wheelchair-friendly buildings but making all minds accessible to language and knowledge. We suggest building structures that fit everyone while identifying the violence within the systems that benefit one race (Cutrara, 2021). If we want to be genuinely inclusive and address systemic bias, we need to rebuild structures with greater access and freedom for all abilities (Cutrara, 2021). Then, we propose to create a translation tool for information websites where graduate-international students can get the information in their language if required. It will provide a one-stop solution for all information without forwarding them from one office to the other. Also, a first-year one-on-one mentorship program that is available virtually and physically can help newcomers. Senior students will be assigned new students, share their old class materials like books and notes, help them with information, and help them navigate through the right office or contact people for any help. If such programs are already available in an institution, we propose the right promotion and advertising of its usefulness to graduate-international students. If any new feature can help graduate-international students, it should be surveyed and added to such existing programs. This way, we can shift from systematic barriers to systematic inclusion that will stop providing systematic benefits to one race. Next, we must consider when Charania (2011) proposes a pedagogy with transformative and reflective actions. The situatedness of every action, that Charania (2011) mentions, can be applied for graduate-international students; where white bodies that are normative and privileged within pedagogy, can choose to help those students when they are new here, without moving across the world to help another person of color. Such actions also convey a sense of responsibility and accountability in white people who have access to all resources. This measure will be more effective since it will help new students with learning, engaging, and finding the right information. Charania (2011) speaks about Global North and Global South not only in terms of geographical location but also in terms of socio-economic divisions between the two (p. 352). She questions the need for a geographical move from the Global North to Global South to combat injustices. Many white women with privilege want to help the women in the South by situating them in their location. They do the non-glamorous work of development, whereas another person of color does the actual fieldwork. She questions this idea of development that white women perpetuate the predominant notion that everyone in the Global South needs saving (Charania, 2011). This idea stems from a deeply hierarchical relationship with those who are from the colonized nations (Charania, 2011). Our ideal pedagogy of care is towards the psychological and emotional well-being of both teachers and students. Cutrara (2021) recommends the value of self-care, setting off-hours timings, and providing clear information to students and teachers (Cutrara, 2021, p.12). We are talking about promoting care by sharing feelings, showing more sensitivity to the situations we are living in, and at the same time acknowledging the injustices, complicity within the structures of academia, and promoting accountability. Cultivating a pedagogy of care within academia can also be in the form of resistance to neoliberal, white supremacist, patriarchal structures of academia. Our pedagogy of care is a counter-response to the capitalist ways of doing things where “neoliberal universities uphold productivity, view students as consumers of education” (Mehrotra, 2021, p. 538). The pedagogy of care implies valuing performances that promote the well-being of all and moving away from only individualistic growth. This involves looking beyond the normative definition of excellence, rat race in academia and giving attention to the diverse circumstances, life experiences that involve uncertainty, conflicting emotions of students, Ph.D. candidates, teachers, scholars, professors. (Corbera E. et al., 2020).

Finally, we propose making care an essential part of learning and teaching. In most cases, it is female professors who are left with the task of providing care that should be practiced by both male and female professors. To quote Hooks (1994), “to teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin” (p. 13).We also suggest an effective technical support team for teachers and students. Both

teachers and students should be given clear instruction on how to navigate virtual spaces. Teachers, especially, should have an effective technical team who can help them with the technical knowledge so that the focus can be on learning and caring for each other, not adding to more anxieties and confusion. Through applying these various steps and changes, we can move towards a pedagogy of care in academia that effectively responds and caters to all needs, including those of graduate-international students.

Conclusion: The primary concern remains whether inclusion for all people in this neo-liberal academic culture is possible or not. According to Dolmage (2017), Universal Design (UD) has been reduced to a buzzword in a neo-liberal academic culture. The true purpose of UD is to ensure the inclusion of all. This may remain unattainable in academic spaces due to a lack of resources, funding, and fear of increasing the workload of existing staff. In academia, UD, like inclusion and diversity, has been co-opted by institutions to prove they are disabled-friendly and intersectional. Birk (2017) calls out the system and structures that are responsible for the injustices that exist in academic institutions (p. 8): The systems and their history in racist ideologies, not individual people of colour, must be held accountable for perpetuating uneven access to the academy and other institutions of power. There is a reason why certain bodies are able to effortlessly navigate systems: The systems were made for them to navigate, are geared for the ways in which they think. This is not a coincidence (Birk, 2017, p. 8). Birk (2017) also talks about the unfair culture of academia where people of color are expected to share their stories of struggle to educate or make white people aware of them (p. 9), similar to what we are trying to achieve through this paper. In contrast, white people get to be inspirational storytellers by sharing their incredible adventures (p. 9). The pandemic has also helped us see the vulnerabilities within educational spaces (Cutrara, 2021). By vulnerabilities, we mean understanding the varying circumstances of students addressing the biases, complicity, and inequalities that exist within academic spaces. We need to ensure that we provide justice in these spaces and cultivate a culture of care towards students and teachers. Through a pedagogy of care, we propose a meaningful learning/ teaching experience where teachers and students exchange their uncertainties, fear, share stories of survival, struggle, and vulnerabilities and support each other in the journey. bell hooks notes, “most professors must practice being vulnerable in the classroom, being wholly present in mind, body, and spirit” (hooks, 1994, p 21). This will ensure true engagement with students and a secure environment in these unprecedented times. This way, students and teachers can both support each other in dealing with the anxieties and feelings of uncertainty. Finally, we cannot go back to the old ways: the neo-liberal capitalist structures of doing things, from administration tasks to teaching methods, must be re-evaluated considering the pandemic. Covid-19 has given space to the silenced, marginalized voices within the system. The pandemic also made us aware of the prejudices existing in educational spaces for a long time. We cannot pause and switch to the old normal from the new normal. That ship has sailed. As much as distant learning has been challenging in many ways, it has created learning opportunities for disabled and international students to access education without moving away from their homes. The pandemic has given us time off from the capitalist and colonial ways of doing things and we should build on that. We propose, for consideration, bending the rules where possible and a culture in academia that cultivates genuine care and inclusion, so that everyone can participate without any systematic barriers.