Amplifying Student Voices: Riverside College's Student Street Team

Project Description:

In an effort to become more student centered, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness at Riverside City College (RCC) includes a three-student Street Team. These student workers provide valuable, direct feedback to inform planning, communication, student equity, and how to better connect students with RCC's supports. Having students embedded in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness (IE) has encouraged more student-centered research and several aha's moments. The students have helped staff collect and share student feedback, amplifying student voices. They have also created solutions to some of the gaps they have identified.

The Street Team project began in fall 2022 as a partnership between IE and marketing. The Street Team shared direct feedback on how the college can better communicate with students in a wide variety of areas including catalog design, website and social media, and helping students connect classes to careers.

As the Street Team's role evolved, it began collecting student feedback via weekly surveys. These surveys have helped inform the college about student perspectives on a wide variety of topics including studentâ'sprofessor communication, study habits, preferred messaging methods, and enrollment in transfer-level math and English.

When the Street Team's efforts identify gaps, the team works with college employees to create student-centered solutions. For example, the Street Team identified that students need to be more aware of available supports. Working with marketing and graphics, they created a Student Wealth Map's with support locations and QR codes. Another example is when the Street Team worked with marketing to create short videos about campus academic supports.