Following public discussions on the need for Blackboard, George Brown College’s (GBC) online education system, to be more trans inclusive, students will be seeing changes in regards to the display of names and pronouns come the end of February 2021.
“All students will have access to a self-service module whereby they can input a preferred name,” says Candice O’Donnell, the manager of registration and audit at GBC.
GBC students are currently unable to change their name or add pronouns to their Blackboard profile. This has caused difficulties for trans students in particular who have frequently been misgendered and deadnamed. The issue was brought to the attention of the Student Association of George Brown College’s (SAGBC) board of directors in November by Robby Thompson, the SAGBC’s preparatory and liberal studies representative.
The SAGBC funds the Dialog.
Thompson says he has not witnessed any resistance with moving this issue forward.
“There has not been any resistance whatsoever, from within the SA or George Brown College that I have been made aware of. The folks who will be collaborating about these changes all accept it, and the SA is in full support.”
The college’s solution to this issue is a system overhaul that will allow students to input their name into George Brown’s Stu-View platform, and then their inputted name will appear on all George Brown related systems and documents. This may exclude government tax-related documents and credentials.
“Students’ preferred first name will be listed in Blackboard, however, what we are implementing is not just a change to Blackboard. There are many systems utilized across the college areas. Our goal is in a phase-wise implementation to utilize a student’s preferred name,” says O’Donnell.
Various departments in the college were contacted when developing a solution, but more will be contacted as they move forward with implementation. These departments include academic divisions, the Office of Anti-Racism and Human Rights, and student focus groups.
“Many considerations had to be made as this change overlaps all service areas and academic centres,” says O’Donnell.
The solution requires changing many systems across GBC such as Stu-View, student email, and Blackboard which is why changes are not to be expected until the end of February 2021. In the meantime, students are able to change their names through the registration department.
When the initial issue was brought up to the SAGBC board of directors, Thompson wondered why this issue was not tackled before students were brought into an online school format. He says there are still no answers for why these considerations were not made earlier.
The college says it is still early in the process, and there will be more updates to come on how these changes will be implemented.
