Carving to excise, carving to create: Conversations on creating and sustaining safe spaces in higher education

Abstract

In this piece, we grapple with the conditions of creating and sustaining liberatory, healing spaces connected to higher education, delivering our analysis through a fictive podcast format. We present three different scenes authored by undergraduates, tied together by common, intersecting threads of both struggle and resistance, community in/as healing amidst layered crises and traumas, and deep desires for universities to fulfill their potential as learning spaces of safety, structural critique and connection. We consider our individual and collective roles as faculty and program directors in these institutional settings, and the conditions that help and hinder opportunities for students to co‐construct or live into liberatory spaces. We also consider the threats to the sustainability and viability of these initiatives, as well as the disproportionate impact on minoritized students, staff, and faculty. These learnings are in line with research that highlights the importance of students' sense of safety and belonging, the role of student agency, and perspectives that position educators through the lens of accompaniment.