At a glance
The "Spill the Tea" program, launched in Autumn 2023 by the Department of Global Health (DGH), is a student-led initiative… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2024-2025
- Small
- Awarded
- $2,855
- Funding partners
-
- UW Resilience Lab (UWRL)
The "Spill the Tea" program, launched in Autumn 2023 by the Department of Global Health (DGH), is a student-led initiative designed to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts while fostering social and emotional learning. Through small group discussions and panels, the program provides safe spaces for DGH students to explore professional development and DEI-related topics, such as microaggressions, conflict resolution, self-compassion, and being queer abroad. This initiative emphasizes marginalized student voices and promotes connection, resilience, and skill-building, addressing gaps not covered in standard coursework.
The program has demonstrated higher engagement and stronger impact than previous staff-led efforts. Key outcomes include fostering community, enhancing compassion, improving self-awareness, and developing professional and emotional skills. Future sessions will focus on topics like intercultural communication, imposter syndrome, vulnerability, internalized stigma, and navigating difficult conversations, with a panel dedicated to international student experiences. The goal is to expand this impactful program, maintain student-led safe spaces, and continue supporting DGH students’ growth and resilience.
The DGH Students Spill the Tea On... (Spill the Tea) program was developed and led by Cindy Zha, the Graduate Student Resource Coordinator (GSRC) in the Department of Global Health (DGH) as part of her charge to provide student-led programming that supports DGH students and addresses issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Spill the Tea was launched in Autumn 2023. Five events were offered, four of which were small group discussions, and one a larger panel discussion on being queer abroad. The small group discussions were student-only safe spaces for students to connect on DEI and professional development topics. The small-group discussion topics included microaggressions, conflict resolution, boundaries, and self-compassion. The panel topic was being queer abroad. Spill the Tea focuses on students and makes marginalized student voices paramount. Spill the Tea was created to promote social and emotional learning among DGH students as opportunities to learn these skills are not supported in standard coursework. With this in mind, these initiatives are more effective when they are student-led as they promote inclusion, break- down power hierarchies, and utilize the expertise students have with the student experience.
Historically, staff-led events attempting to connect students resulted in low engagement. The pilot year of Spill the Tea yielded higher participation and more impact in building social and emotional skills, such as compassion and resilience. The goal is to expand and improve this program, maintain these student-led safe spaces, and support the continued development of social and emotional skills of DGH students.
Desired outcomes for DGH Students Spill the Tea on... are:
- Students develop a sense of connectedness and community.
- Students will expand their social and emotional skills.
- Students build compassion for each other through sharing with others and hearing about other’s experiences.
- Students will have increased self-awareness surrounding their identities and experiences with each topic.
- Students will build skills in each of the chosen topics which help augment their professional development and resilience.
October 2024 Intercultural Communication
This topic will be beneficial for DGH students at the beginning of the year to promote open communication and compassion among international and domestic students. (DGH enrolls a large number of international students every year.)
November 2024 Imposter Syndrome
This topic will give space for students to connect on the feelings of imposter syndrome and the ways they manage this self-doubt. This also serves to build a support network for when students have these thoughts and feelings.
January 2025 Vulnerability
Students will learn and discuss what vulnerability means for them and how this skill can support their work in Public Health.
February 2025 International Student Experiences Panel
This panel will include 4 panelists who are international students. The goals of the panel are to create a larger discussion on what it’s like for international students while they are studying at UW, what challenges and successes they have encountered, and what they hope to build in UW
communities. This panel will be open to all School of Public Health students, staff, and faculty to raise the voices of these students.
April 2025 Internalized Stigma
This session aims to fill the gap in our courses to specifically talk about the impact of internalized stigma and strategies to reframe this way of thinking. Another goal is to generate compassion among students who both experience and don’t experience internalized stigma. This session will build resilience among those who do experience internalized stigma with developing coping mechanisms and finding strength in connecting with others who understand this experience.
May 2025 Navigating DifficultConversations: Feedback and Empathy
As students, we are not taught how to have difficult conversations, especially with people who have more power than us. This session will help teach students the skills of how to both receive and provide constructive feedback while using empathy to communicate difficult things effectively.
Cindy Zha
Project lead
- czha2@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
- Years
- 2 year(s) remaining at UW
- Affiliated groups
- Global Health
Kirsten Greene
Support
- kngreene@uw.edu
- Affiliation and department
- Program Manager for International Programs and Student Opportunities
- Stakeholder approval form
Request amount and budget
n/a
Measure the impacts
To evaluate the impact of Spill the Tea, an RSVP/survey will collect information on participant’s existing knowledge on the topic prior to the discussion. This will be used to gage the baseline level of knowledge participants have and inform preparation for discussion on each topic. Then, post-discussion surveys will be generated and distributed within 24 hours after each event to gather feedback from the participants on their experience. The survey will ask questions pertaining to the desired outcomes for Spill the Tea, such as “Did this session help you buildconnection and community with other DGH students?”. These questions will be tailored to eachtopic. The results from the surveys will be recorded in an Excel spreadsheet to consolidate participant responses for all sessions. The date and time of the event, number of participants, and cost of the session will also be recorded in the same Excel spreadsheet. In addition to the surveys, the GSRC will designate the first 10 minutes of the sequential Spill the Tea event to ask the attendees for their reflections on the previous topic. These methods of evaluation will help generate a fuller understanding of how students are impacted directly after the session, and if they had the opportunity in the time between each Spill the Tea to use the skills they learned. All this information will then be used to generate a report to share findings and make recommendations on how to improve Spill the Tea and the program's sustainability.