Intro:
Case Study on Safe Spaces pt. I
9.20.2021
HCD Collaborative Project - Case Study of Safe Spaces in Transportation for LBGTQ+ Students
LGBTQ+ people face a history of discrimination and pain, be it from verbal or physical attacks. While it is unrealistic to believe something can be done to completely get rid of these transgressions, there are always things that can be done to help. People walk to their cars together all the time, and there are systems put in place to help the general public stay safe. The University’s safe ride is a reliable method of transportation, for example, but there may be situations where safe ride is not applicable. UARK students, specifically LGBTQ+ ones, don’t have a specific “safe space” on campus, and they definitely are lacking a portable one.
It’s important to feel safe in a learning environment, but this can be hard when you are trans and see a trump sticker, or gay and see a confederate flag hat. Of course freedom of speech is important, but when that makes others uncomfortable there should be some way for those uncomfortable individuals to be safe. There’s plenty of crime on the UARK campus, and many incident reports. While not all are directed towards LGBTQ+ students, it’s important to note this gap in safety infrastructure.
There are programs in place to help LGBTQ+ students feel safe, such as the student led organizations and multicultural center’s program. However, these can be somewhat hard to find if you are not actively looking for them, which causes many to not know about these groups and wander in solidarity. If we could build a safe space on campus and in our transportation, commuting to school and actually learning without fear would be much easier for LGBTQ+ students.
So far in our group case study we have framed our HMW design question (How Might We Question), collaborated to determine where LGBTQ+ students feel the most and least safe, created a detailed mind map of our users, collaborated to create a word cloud based on social media pages of currently existing safe spaces for the users, and created environmental analysis of commuting and studying locations on campus.
LGBTQ+ people face a history of discrimination and pain, be it from verbal or physical attacks. While it is unrealistic to believe something can be done to completely get rid of these transgressions, there are always things that can be done to help. People walk to their cars together all the time, and there are systems put in place to help the general public stay safe. The University’s safe ride is a reliable method of transportation, for example, but there may be situations where safe ride is not applicable. UARK students, specifically LGBTQ+ ones, don’t have a specific “safe space” on campus, and they definitely are lacking a portable one.
It’s important to feel safe in a learning environment, but this can be hard when you are trans and see a trump sticker, or gay and see a confederate flag hat. Of course freedom of speech is important, but when that makes others uncomfortable there should be some way for those uncomfortable individuals to be safe. There’s plenty of crime on the UARK campus, and many incident reports. While not all are directed towards LGBTQ+ students, it’s important to note this gap in safety infrastructure.
There are programs in place to help LGBTQ+ students feel safe, such as the student led organizations and multicultural center’s program. However, these can be somewhat hard to find if you are not actively looking for them, which causes many to not know about these groups and wander in solidarity. If we could build a safe space on campus and in our transportation, commuting to school and actually learning without fear would be much easier for LGBTQ+ students.
So far in our group case study we have framed our HMW design question (How Might We Question), collaborated to determine where LGBTQ+ students feel the most and least safe, created a detailed mind map of our users, collaborated to create a word cloud based on social media pages of currently existing safe spaces for the users, and created environmental analysis of commuting and studying locations on campus.
These methods have helped us to better inform our study of our users habits, needs, and wants