Strengthening Campus Belonging: How to Put Theory into Practice

Research from the scholarship of teaching and learning—and the sociology of education—emphasizes the need to cultivate belonging on university campuses, particularly for first-generation and other minoritized students (Kezar & Maxey, 2014, p. 31; Nunn, 2019). The reasons for this are many. Relationship-rich educations correlate positively with student success (Astin, 1977; Mayhew et al., 2016; Strayhorn, 2012; Tinto, 1987). Students thrive when there are many opportunities to connect meaningfully with faculty, staff, and peers within a culture of high expectations and high support (Felten & Lambert, 2020). There is now a consensus in the literature that it’s not enough to simply encourage students to take responsibility for their own educations; institutions play an active role in shaping salient forms of belonging (Bensimon, 2007; Brown McNair et al., 2020; Nunn, 2021). And the greatest challenges of times—from structural inequality to political violence, climate change to mass migration—require the perspectives of students from diverse disciplines and positionalities. What role should universities play in fostering inclusivity on campuses of the future? And given the resource-intensive nature of this work, how can universities cultivate forms of belonging in sustainable ways? This presentation draws on the concept of “small teaching”—a model of professional development that favors small changes over big overhauls (Darby & Lang, 2019; Lang, 2021)—to theorize an approach to building capacity for campus belonging. Throughout the presentation, I will seed reflective questions with the goal of leaving you with an audit tool for long-term planning and at least one actionable change you can make now in your role as a student, teacher, or administrator committed to inclusive leadership on your campus. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said to an audience of students and community members at Oberlin College on October 22, 1964: “The time is always right to do what is right.”

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