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Getting to Know Laurier Students

Originally published in September 2024  |  Research Note contributed by Debora VanNijnatten, Melissa DiLeo, Director: Student Life and Experience, & Adam Lawrence, Dean of Students 

Faculty at universities across Canada are considering how teaching methods, learning activities and course assessments might be adapted to respond to the needs of an increasingly diverse student population and a transformed teaching context post-pandemic (VanNijnatten 2024). Certainly, the kinds of pedagogical approaches that are more likely to draw our students into active engagement with their own learning and foster student success are those that “meet students where they are at” (Guzzardo et al. 2021). Indeed, one of the most significant barriers to academic success, according to the Inside Higher Ed’s Student Voice Survey, is teaching styles that don’t match how students learn (Flaherty 2023). The scholarship on teaching and learning suggests that instructors who know their students well are better able to create a learning experience that is genuinely student-centered (Baker 2023) and that students learn better when they can connect with their instructor and feel ‘seen’ (Miller 2020). But how well do we know our students at Laurier, especially the newly arrived 2024 first-year cohort?

Research Insights 

This Note attempts to provide Laurier faculty with greater insight into the students in their courses. This is not an easy task, as data exist in multiple places across and outside of the university. Here, we place Laurier-specific information (generously contributed by our campus partners) in a national and regional context, in order to indicate likely characteristics of our 2024 cohort of first-year students. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we will report on more recent Laurier-specific data in winter 2025 when new data from the Canadian University Survey Consortium becomes available.
A few takeaways from what follows: 
  • Laurier students are highly diverse and bring with them different learning experiences and preferences;
  • a significant number of our students commute (even in the first-year cohort), with all the attendant disincentives to journey to class or take part in university life; 
  • students are increasingly likely to be food insecure because of tight finances; and 
  • two-thirds of students are working as many hours as they spend in class. 

The increasing role of ‘Non-Traditional’ students

There can be no question that our university student populations – in Canada and at Laurier – have become more diverse. The Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) provides survey data for students in first year, the ‘middle years’ and in their graduating year, on rolling 3-year cycles. The 2022 First Year Student Survey (the most recent available) of 15,000 students at 44 universities indicates that fully two-thirds of students are 18 and under; they tend to be single; the majority are female; and over 90% are Canadian citizens or Permanent Residents. 
However, so-called ‘non-traditional’ students – student demographics that have “previously been underserved by, or under-represented, in the university sector” (Glauser 2018) – now make up almost half of our incoming student cohorts (2022 data). Moreover, students at comprehensive universities like Laurier are more likely to self-identify as a visible minority. In addition, 10% of incoming students were first-generation students with neither parent having obtained postsecondary education, a very small proportion – only 4% – identified as Indigenous, and an increasing proportion are so-called ‘mature’ students (defined as age 22 and older).
At Laurier, while we will have specific information on the 2024 cohort in the Winter 2025 data set, there are similar characteristics in the make-up of our existing student body.   
  • • Winter 2024 term data show of 15,834 full-time undergraduate students, fully 84% were in the 17-21 age bracket. However, for the part-time cohort of 3648 students, this youngest grouping makes up only 42%, with age skewing higher and significant clustering in the 26-30 and 31-40 age brackets. For graduate students, the largest age group for both full-time and part-time was 31-40 years of age (with 184 and 390 respectively). 
  • • To get a sense of gender representation, in 2022, OUAC data indicated that there were 10,502 women enrolled across all undergraduate programs at Laurier, relative to 9,497 men. 
  • • There are 1,414 International students from 99 countries at Laurier shown in 2022 data, with a higher proportion in our graduate student population.

Living Arrangements

The living arrangements of our students matter in terms of their overall university experience and their academic success. Students who are more firmly drawn into the on-campus environment “tend to have higher motivation, more academic self-confidence, higher levels of academic engagement and higher achievement” (Pedler et al. 2021). A survey of 18,500 students carried out by StudentMoveTO at TMU’s School of Urban and Regional Planning provided evidence that long commutes discourage going to campus for class and other activities, participating in co-curricular activities, and succeeding academically (StudentMoveTO Symposium, 2022). 
At Laurier, the majority of first-year students (65%) are living in on-campus residences, as the 2023 data show:
Table summarizing students living in residence on the Waterloo and Brantford campuses
Students in Residence Waterloo Brantford
First-year 3019 242
Senior/Graduate 6 63
Exchange 19 0
WLIC -

46
 
However, in 2023-24, approximately 35% of students in the first-year cohort were living off-campus, which includes those living at home in Waterloo/Brantford with family or in off-campus housing or living at home with family/friends and commuting into Brantford/Waterloo. While there is no accurate data on the breakdown of these groups, through LOCUS mentorship and feedback surveys submitted to the Student Experience office, Dean of Students, we know that many students are commuting in from GTA via GoTransit and can live more than an hour from campus. 

Employment and Study Time

One of the concerns we often have about student engagement in their own learning is whether they are working long hours during the week and on weekends, which would detract from the time available for studying and completing assignments.
Alex Usher from Higher Education Strategy Associates, in his review of Labour Force Survey data, finds that our students are not actually working any more than they used to (see Figure 1) – about 40% of full-time and 70% of part-time students are working. Usher also points out that students are working an average of 21 hours per week, a figure that has apparently remained relatively stable since the turn of the century (with the exception of 2020-21 during the COVID-19 crisis). We can compare this with the 15-17 hours spent in class/tutorial/lab, approximately, for the typical Arts or Science student.
CUSC data sketches out a similar picture of the ways in which students are juggling work and study. The 2022 CUSC First Years Survey (2022, 28) shows that: “About 4 in 10 first-year students were employed at the time of the survey, most often off campus. Among those who were employed, results show that the typical student worked 17 hours per week.” Students in their final year are working more, about 20 hours a week, and they are “twice as likely to say their employment has a negative impact than a positive impact on their academic performance” (CUSC 2024, 12).
At Laurier, we don’t have specific data for the first-year cohort yet. However, the 2023 Graduate Outcome Survey from the Career Centre reported that 74.6% of respondents were working part-time or full-time during their academic terms. Many of these students work on-campus (about 3000) each year in over 3500 different positions. 325 students were employed under the Laurier Work-Study Program (LWSP), typically working 5-10 hours per week, while 25 students were engaged in the International Student Work Experience Program (ISWEP), typically working 5-7 hours per week. 

Food Security

In 2021, the National Student Food Insecurity Report, containing data from more than 6100 students across Canada, reported that “[w]ell over half of Canada’s postsecondary students experience food insecurity,” with 20.7% classified as “severely food insecure” and another 36.1% as “moderately food insecure.” The numbers were worse for gender and racial minorities, and particularly bad for international students. 
Within our region, a survey of the University of Guelph students found that 23% of the 986 respondents were classified as food insecure, with 11% as “severely food insecure”. As the final report noted, “[a]pproximately one third of all respondents reported that they have had to sacrifice buying healthy foods in order to pay for essential expenses such as rent, tuition, textbooks, etc.” At Western, the University Students’ Council (USC) food centre was reporting a 600% year-to-year increase in Western students requiring their assistance as of March 2024.
While we don’t have clear survey data that probes levels of food security among students at Laurier, there are many indications that our students do experience food insecurity and that this number has been increasing alongside the affordability crisis. For example, across Laurier’s campuses, significant numbers of students attended food-focused events in 2023-24:
  • Fresh Fruit Friday: 885 
  • Thrive Food Events: 770 
  • Other: 840 (Programming examples: mason jar meals, food tour, make your own bread) 
On the Brantford campus, 1,200 students attended the Brantford Breakfast Bar and 26 students accessed the DOS Brantford Emergency Grocery gift card program in 2023/2024. Brantford staff also report that, at events where fruits and vegetables are being provided, they often hear feedback that attending the giveaway gave them the only piece of fruit they’ve eaten all week and that they are thankful for the food because it’s too expensive for them to purchase within their budget. 
On the Waterloo campus, one indicator of food insecurity is the number of food parcel requests to the Dean of Students Office:
This table summarizes the number of food parcel requests between 2023-2024
Term Food Parcel Requests
Spring 2023 63
Fall 2023 284
Winter 2024 239
Spring 2024 88
Fall term so far (Sept 1-23) 64
In addition, 84 students were referred to other food access programs (e.g. SU food bank, Distro, Mini-Market). Clearly, affordability is linked to food insecurity; outside of academic reasons, Student Care and Support staff in the Dean of Students Office report that the top reason students connected with their office was for financial concerns, topping even mental health, which has long held the top spot.
Watch for Part 2 of this Note in Winter 2024 where we will report on more recent Laurier-specific data in Winter 2025 when new data from the Canadian University Survey Consortium becomes available.

Citations and Further Reading 

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