I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT “BELONGING”
Look at it This Way | Chris Silva | May 10, 2023
Recognizing the tremendous resources you spend recruiting students in an increasingly competitive landscape, it’s a strategic—and, for some, existential—imperative that you keep them.
Not long ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article on why it is critical that campus leaders understand how “belonging” plays a vital role in their student retention and persistence efforts. That rang true to me. For over fifteen years I worked in student affairs and had the pleasure of welcoming students (and families) during our high-energy, sweaty, summer move-in days. In January I also had the anxiety-inducing moment of answering questions from my vice president: “Why all the empty beds? Why did all those students leave at the end of fall?” Knowing the importance of these questions to senior leadership, I would meet with my team and go through the list of withdrawn students, discussing what we knew about each one, correlating spreadsheets from the registrar’s office with our own data, and trying to identify individual students’ reasons for withdrawing.
“Why all the empty beds? Why did all those students leave at the end of fall?”
What did I learn then? The results tended to be consistent from year to year. Some students transferred, some dropped out, some just packed up and left. Deeper exploration illuminated the core of the matter: they had not found their place within our campus community and decided to seek it elsewhere. While we had put incredible effort into recruiting and supporting these students, something was just not right with their experience on campus.
A common assumption among faculty and administrators is that “academic rigor” is the driver of attrition, assuming students leave because the institution’s curriculum is too challenging (or because it is not challenging enough). At the same time, paradoxically, responsibility for boosting student persistence is often assigned to student affairs. However, in my experience and in our research, the role of “belonging” can be driven by both academic and non-academic factors and plays an integral role in shaping student decisions to stay or leave. This materializes in different ways, depending on an institution’s unique characteristics, and is impacted by the ways in which they experience the campus.
For all students, belonging is about finding connection through affinity. It has even stronger impact among students of color, trans, gender non-binary, international, and first-generation students—those for whom the college experience tends not to be designed. Fueling their sense of place is about creating and encouraging active participation in programs, events, and initiatives, academic and otherwise, that align or challenge (with due support) their identity and interests. Furthermore, belonging is also about opportunities that enhance (or impede) students’ access to vital student support services—academic and emotional counseling, career support, etc.—and connections with staff and faculty, the latter having greater impact.
Now, as a consultant to higher ed leaders, my perspective on persistence has evolved as I reflect on my former vice president’s questions in a different way. While belonging seems to be the topic du jour, inspiring institutions to create programs and organizational structures focused on this topic, it should not be assumed that it’s the main or only reason a student decides to persist or withdraw. Student satisfaction and persistence make for a complex equation that varies from institution to institution. I’m still a big believer in the value of national data about the student experience (NSSE, CIRP, etc.) to provide a broad understanding of these topics. But I’ve also learned that understanding the roots of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for students at a specific institution is the critical step toward improving retention and graduation rates. Is the key issue belonging? Affordability? Range of academic offerings? Approach to the curriculum? Advising? Campus culture? Engagement with the local community? Or all these things? What do students expect when they enroll, and do you do a good job at meeting those expectations?
Student satisfaction and persistence make for a complex equation that varies from institution to institution.
For quite some time, institutions have just accepted the loss of students to attrition as “the cost of doing business” and put the onus of finding community or their way through an institution solely on the student. In an ever-competitive higher education market, an institution’s ability to take the initiatives it’s marketed to prospective students (and their families!) and execute those efforts in ways that have meaningful impact not only makes an incredible difference to students’ willingness to persist at a given institution but also to the school’s annual revenue.
I’d now have a different conversation—one that would involve the president, provost and other key members of the Cabinet and the faculty. My focus would be to:
Use data-driven insights to create a value proposition that is compelling to both prospective and current students.
Then identify both what leads to satisfaction and what are the biggest barriers and pain points for students (and for particular segments of the population).
Lastly, take action to provide students with an experience that is so valuable and rewarding that they choose to remain and graduate rather than withdraw.
Ultimately, creating an environment where students value the undergraduate experience and feel a deep sense of belonging is not only a moral imperative but also increasingly a strategic priority designed to ensure institutional health and viability.
