What does belonging feel like?
When a student walks into our classroom, how long does it take for them to feel: This is a good space for me. Or: This is a space where I won’t be comfortable and will never be able to take down my guard.
Emerging from this long pandemic, I think many of us are struggling to re-find belonging. Strategies and activities that worked in years past to build belonging have lost some of their force. And yet it is now, more than ever, that our students need to feel like they belong.
One counterintuitive strategy to consider is thinking about ways that students can find belonging in our disciplines. Though I was often socially lonely in high school and college, when I turned to books, I found a place I could call home. While it is true that not all our students will become academics, it is worth thinking about what it might mean for them to feel a deep personal connection to authors or issues we are teaching. Though they may feel precarious belonging in other aspects of their lives, they may find an intellectual home through our courses.
As well, we might do even more to think about the influence that our courses might have on the type of social belonging that happens across campus. Here, I have two ideas to consider.
First, one of my favorite things to do as a professor is to play intellectual match-maker. Though I often allow students to select their own groups and conversation partners, there are other times when I will intentionally create groups, putting people together with common intellectual interests but who never interact in class. We faculty have insight into what students are interested in, and we can use that to form new connections in our courses that may extend outside of the class.
Second, another thing I love about working at a residential college is that I hope the things we talk about in class will influence the quality of conversations that happen across campus. More than once I’ve heard from students who say they talked to their roommates or friend groups about things we talked about in class. I want to suggest that we can be very intentional about trying to facilitate these types of conversations, by assigning work that gets students excited about their learning, and that allows them to find their voice and their interests.
Students come to college looking to “find their people” and find their passions. As faculty, we can play a role in assisting them in this tremendously important quest.