four note friday 2.38 | Student Affairs Assessment and Photovoice, Part 1
Through a series of serendipitous events, this week I began exploring how photovoice has been/is being used within student affairs assessment activities. This is not necessarily a new development or novel use of photovoice (see here for an older example), but it seems to be bubbling to the surface and catching a bit of (media) attention. While I have been aware of and involved in some tangential work (see here), at present there seems to be an uptick in the deployment of photovoice projects within student affairs divisions on college and university campuses.
My first clue came a few months ago when I was interviewed for a story published in Talking Stick, a publication of the Association of College & University Housing Officers-International (ACUHO-I). The authors of the piece, Sherry Woosley and Hilary Lichterman, wrote about the use of photovoice in Housing and Residence Life. The article was titled "The Story Behind the Picture" with the taglines A picture is worth a thousand words. Photovoice may be worth more. Which I absolutely love, by the way. See below.
My second clue came from a Google alert. The alert sent me to the Flourishing @ Stanford project. From what I can piece together, this project was created to make space for students to share elements of their mental health experiences. See here for information on their 2024 project. And see here for their 2025 project.
My third and final clue came from receiving an out-of-the-blue email from a student affairs administrator (who I went to high school with—how amazing is that?!?) interested in connecting to learn more about photovoice.
All those clues have prompted me to write about this topic of student affairs divisions using photovoice in service of assessment. So, in this post, which will be the first of the series, each of the four notes below is meant to showcase an example of photovoice as student affairs assessment.
Lehigh University (Photography-based Projects)
Upon reviewing their work online, it appears Lehigh University is a strong leader in this space. See here for more details. They've done work around COVID-19 experiences, sense of belonging among first-generation students, and the experiences of neurodiverse students. While not all the projects listed above include photovoice in a canonical sense, they are all photography-based.
Stanford University (Flourishing and Flourishing 2.0)
Students' mental health and wellbeing seems to be a key topic divisions are focusing on presently. It is most certainly an important topic and something I have worked on previously (see here). The Flourishing projects at Stanford (see above links) are a vibrant example of this type of assessment work.
UConn (Innovate Wellness Photovoice Project)
Following on from the above example, mental health and wellness are also the focal points for a project at the University of Connecticut. The Innovate Wellness Photovoice Project at UConn aims to "increase understanding of how students view their own wellness and in turn, for UConn to better meet the needs of students" (para. 1).
University of Georgia (First-Generation Student Experience)
The University of Georgia's First-Generation Student Experience photovoice competition is my final example here. While I am not entirely sure what is meant by framing the project as a competition, we see here another example of work focused on first-generation students. As outlined in the article linked above, the "goal for this event was to provide first-generation students with an opportunity for creativity, storytelling, and reflection" (Pharr, 2024, para. 1). No doubt, however, that the project also serves as a way for the Office for Student Success and Achievement (a student affairs-related campus unit) to better understand the students they serve.
Based on what I have found so far, student affairs divisions around the United States and beyond are deploying photovoice as an assessment strategy with an apparent focus on the following topics: mental health and wellness, belonging, housing and residence life experiences, and the experiences of students with marginalized identities and backgrounds. This topic has piqued my interest enough to develop a series of posts, and I am excited to share more about what I learn next!
🥹 Thanks for spending a moment with me this Friday.
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Thanks again for being here.
Warmly,
Mandy
photovoice field notes
https://www.photovoicefieldnotes.com/