The Impact Of College Union Involvement On Student Perceptions Of Sense Of Belonging And Campus Climate

College unions have long been promoted as community builders and laboratories for learning. However, little research has been conducted to understand the relationship between college unions and community building. The purpose of this study was to identify if a relationship exists between college union involvement and student perceptions of sense of belonging and campus climate, and to explore how students make sense of their college union experiences. Correlation and regression techniques were applied to 478 college union student employee and volunteer survey responses at a large Midwestern university. The results suggest a statistically significant relationship between event attendance and a favorable view of campus climate. The analysis of ten student journals revealed a relationship between sense of belonging within the college union and perceptions of campus climate. Students developed sense of belonging by utilizing their voice, growing their leadership perspective, meaningfully interacting with diverse others, and participating in programming. This dissertation serves as the first mixed methods study to provide empirical evidence that there is a relationship between involvement in the college union and student perceptions of sense of belonging and campus climate. Study findings suggest that college union involvement plays an important role in community building and student learning.

Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included, accepted, valued, and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover, belonging is influenced by the campus environment, relationships, and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered, a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored, and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging.Over the last 10 years, colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention, persistence, and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors, the term “student sense of belonging” gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition, or an overarching theoretical approach, as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research, applications, and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist, so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study.

This book explores how belonging differs based on students’ social identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or the conditions they encounter on campus. Belonging—with peers, in the classroom, or on campus—is a critical dimension of success at college. It can affect a student’s degree of academic adjustment, achievement, aspirations, or even whether a student stays in school. The 2nd Edition of College Students’ Sense of Belonging explores student sub-populations and campus environments, offering readers updated information about sense of belonging, how it develops for students, and a conceptual model for helping students belong and thrive. Underpinned by theory and research and offering practical guidelines for improving educational environments and policies, this book is an important resource for higher education and student affairs professionals, scholars, and graduate students interested in students’ success. New to this second edition: A refined theory of college students’ sense of belonging and review of current literature in light of new and emerging theories; Expanded best practices related to fostering sense of belonging in classrooms, clubs, residence halls, and other contexts; Updated research and insights for new student populations such as youth formerly in foster care, formerly incarcerated adults, and homeless students; Coverage on a broad range of topics since the first edition of this book, including cultural navigation, academic spotting, and the "shared faith" element of belonging.

Community college students are often excluded from persistence studies due to the unique characteristics of community colleges and its students. Recent studies have heavily relied on retention models that do not adequately account for the role individual and campus culture plays in students’ persistence decisions. Using Museus’ (2014) Culturally Engaging Campus Environment (CECE) model, this cross-sectional, correlational study examined the impact of campus environment perceptions and sense of belonging on the persistence decisions of students at a rural community college in the southeastern part of the U.S. Correlation analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between two independent variables, campus environment perceptions and sense of belonging, and one dependent variable, students’ persistence decisions. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if differences in campus environment perceptions and sense of belonging existed between racial and gender identity groups. Lastly, a t-test was conducted to examine differences between residential and commuter students. Utilizing the CECE Survey for Community Colleges (Museus et al., 2017), a total of 234 responses were analyzed. The results revealed that students are more likely to persist when they have a positive perception of the campus environment. It also revealed that students were more likely to persist when they possessed a strong sense of belonging. Upon examining differences of campus environment perceptions, the results showed that gender identity influenced campus environment perceptions and race influenced sense of belonging among students. There was insufficient evidence to establish differences of campus environment perceptions and sense of belonging among residential and commuter students. Limitations regarding this study included its generalizability due to the low number of survey responses and the physical aspect of campus environment and campus culture. Recommendations for policymakers and practitioners include consideration for community memberships, increase campus support for underrepresented groups, and cultural competency for training. Recommendations for future research include the use of different theoretical frameworks to understand student persistence, continued studies involving community colleges, inclusive campus environment perceptions and sense of belonging studies, and qualitative studies on campus environment perceptions and sense of belong of community college students.

"Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included, accepted, valued, and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover, belonging is influenced by the campus environment, relationships, and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered, a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored, and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging. Over the last 10 years, colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention, persistence, and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors, the term "student sense of belonging" gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition, or an overarching theoretical approach, as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research, applications, and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist, so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study." --

Author's abstract: SENSE OF BELONGING ON A CONSOLIDATED CAMPUS: A MIXED METHODS EXPLORATION OF STUDENT PERCEPTIONS by AMY D. SMITH (Under the Direction of Steven Tolman) ABSTRACT This study explored the extent to which a subset of students who matriculated post-consolidation at the Armstrong Campus of Georgia Southern University felt they belong at their institution. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, this study used a survey to examine general feelings of belonging and the influencing factors for belonging while presenting individual narratives collected from semi-structured interviews for eight students’ experiences. The data collected in this study revealed that significant differences exist in critical factors of sense of belonging based on race, gender, and LGBTQ+ identity. Additionally, data showed the importance of academic, social, and campus-community belonging with faculty relationships, peer friendships, and a strong campus culture and identity emerging as critical to overall belonging. Study participants revealed that intercampus dynamics impact how they perceive consolidation to affect their experiences and that campus identity emerges as more important than institutional identity. This study fills a gap in the literature as limited research exists on the impact of HEI consolidations on students, especially regarding sense of belonging. When considering and implementing future consolidations, HEI leadership must consider the implications for student belonging to mitigate attrition and enrollment drops and ensure they complete their educational mission of helping students meet their fullest potential.

The ideal college campus provides a supportive, inclusive atmosphere for all students, enabling them to challenge their beliefs, extend their understandings, and engage in meaningful learning and knowledge production – inside and outside of the classroom. However, even on a single campus, students do not share uniform perceptions regarding the support and inclusivity of their campus environment. Students who identify with historical marginalized groups regularly report a lower sense of belonging and a less inclusive climate than their privileged peers. Students’ sense of belonging is integral to student success and it is increasingly understood to be tied to social identity, particularly for students who identify with a minoritized group. Sense of belonging is also closely related to a student’s perception of various campus environments. Students’ most immediate experience with campus environments is via the components of campus in which they regularly interact and an important component of the residential campus environment is the informal learning space - the places outside of the classroom in which students choose to do their studying and academic work

This volume is a detailed and up-to-date reference work providing an authoritative overview of the main issues in higher education around the world today. Consisting of newly commissioned chapters and impressive journal articles, it surveys the state of the discipline and includes the examination and discussion of emerging, controversial and cutting edge areas.

Public Interest in Higher Education explores the evolution of student activism on college campuses, how students, staff and faculty work together to identify collective problems they experience, and what challenges they must face to determine the best solutions.

The current study explored the relationships within a higher education institution between innovative and inclusive mission-identity perceptions and school sense of community among first-generation U.S. citizens and first-generation college students, with varying racial backgrounds. During Fall 2012, a total of 4,492 participants at a large, urban, and Catholic university completed the Innovative and Inclusive (I/I) subscale from the DePaul Mission and Values Inventory as well as the School Sense of Community (SSOC) scale. Two 2 x 2 x 5 ANCOVAS were run to determine whether there were any differences across generation statuses and racial background for both measures. Additionally, regression analyses were run to determine whether students' perceptions of the campus mission as innovative and inclusive predicted students' scores on the school sense of community scale. Results found that Caucasian students reported a stronger school sense of community, whereas Hispanic students reported stronger mission-identity perceptions. Furthermore, generational statuses significantly interacted for SSOC, whereas first-generation college students perceived higher I/I perceptions compared to non-first-generation college students. Moreover, students' perceptions of I/I significantly predicted students' SSOC scores. Implications for Community Psychology and higher education policy are discussed.