Sense of Belonging, Pullias Lecture, Welcome New Faculty....and more

Guest Editor Joseph Kitchen, Pullias Center Assistant Research Professor

Dear Colleagues,

This month’s newsletter focuses on the importance of fostering a college sense of belonging. In response to COVID-19, many institutions have resorted to the necessary social distancing measures, accelerated the use of online course formats, and restricted social gatherings to keep students safe—making for a very different college student experience. It should come as no surprise that the consequences of the pandemic for students include increased social isolation, decreased wellbeing, and an uptick in mental health issues. Humans are innately social creatures who thrive in healthy social environments and the pandemic has robbed students of many traditional opportunities to safely build connections and community with peers and educators.

The pandemic has made it difficult for students to take full advantage of the kinds of structured experiences and serendipitous encounters that help them build meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging such as being an active member of student clubs and organizations, making friendships in the classroom, and opportunities to closely engage with and work alongside faculty and staff on campus. Colleges and universities cannot simply accept that students today may not have many opportunities to build a sense of belonging during the pandemic without exacerbating issues around student retention, wellbeing and success. As I’ve written elsewhere, institutions bear responsibility to engage students—particularly from underserved and marginalized backgrounds—and support their college sense of belonging. They are not off the hook for this responsibility during the pandemic. Whatever the future course of COVID-19, supporting students’ college sense of belonging needs to be a top priority for educators and leadership in higher education.

In this issue, we explore the Promoting At-Promise Student Success project and draw out lessons learned about student success that could be applied to promote and sustain students’ sense of belonging during COVID-19 and beyond. Concerted, intentional efforts to foster a college sense of belonging will become increasingly necessary as higher education and students alike cope with the aftermath of years of COVID-19 and an uncertain pandemic future.

This issue highlights the promising role of a new student success model called ecological validation as well as proactive advising and tailored support, and discusses how these practices may be useful to promote a college sense of belonging in the context of the pandemic.

Warmly,

Joseph Kitchen

Assistant Research Professor, Pullias Center

Proactive Outreach and Tailored Support: A Recipe for Student Success

Seeking out connections with students is at the core of strategies my colleagues and I identified through the Promoting At-Promise Student Success project. Proactive advising outreach and tailored support may offer promising inroads to build relationships with students and foster a sense they are a part of a college community that cares about them and that they are an integral part of a community of learners.

Proactive outreach and tailored support for diverse students is essential to promote student success. This is especially true during a time of isolation and social distancing caused by the pandemic. It falls on educators and advisors to initiate connections with students to build trusting relationships, to make sure students feel like they belong to a college community who cares about their success, and to show them how they can fully realize their role as an integral part of the college community in a way that speaks to their individual needs and goals.

Ecological Validation: Taking the Initiative to Create a Sense of Belonging

Before the pandemic, many of the typical learning experiences and programming opportunities offered at colleges and universities were simply platforms that enabled students to build connections, community, and belonging. While institutions commonly seek out programmatic and structural solutions to fostering belonging among students—such as first year seminars or a student activity center for instance—they should not lose sight of the importance of how student support is delivered in these spaces and its role in promoting belonging.

Based on findings from the Promoting At-Promise Student Success project, my colleagues and I argue that it is less about what specific program, class, or social activity is offered to students and more about how student support is offered in those spaces that matters for student success. I have illustrated elsewhere that, indeed, how support is delivered promotes student success. I contend that how support is delivered in the aforementioned spaces and the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with other students, staff, and faculty at the heart of many of those learning experiences and programming opportunities is what fosters a sense of belonging. In a forthcoming article in the Journal of College Student Development, my colleagues and I proposed the concept of Ecological Validation as one promising direction for fostering student success that focuses on how support is delivered, rather than strictly what support is delivered that could be applied across educational contexts to promote belonging during the pandemic.

SPOTLIGHT

Pullias Lecture Keynote Speaker Announced

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, slated to speak

The 43rd annual Pullias Lecture will be held in person at USC's Town & Gown ballroom on Thursday, March 10. The keynote speaker for the event will be California Community Colleges' (CCC) Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who in 2021 took a 4-month sabbatical from his position at CCC to serve as the temporary senior advisor to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on higher education issues, including college affordability.

Oakley has served as chancellor for the California Community Colleges since December 2016. He is an ardent advocate of the Vision for Success, a clear-eyed, honest look at where the California Community Colleges is succeeding and where it is falling short. This document, the North Star of the California Community Colleges, establishes a vision for improvement with clear goals and a set of commitments needed to ensure student outcomes significantly improve.

Pullias and AAC&U to Honor 2021 Delphi Award Winners on January 21st

Pullias Center Director Adrianna Kezar and AAC&U's Ashley Finley will lead a panel of Delphi Award winners from University of Denver (DU) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) discussing innovations in supporting contingent faculty at the AAC&U Annual Meeting on 1/21 at 9:30am, EST in Washington DC.

Read more about the award-winning models from DU and WPI as their faculty and administrators share details of their programs to enhance job security, improve quality of life and provide mentorship opportunities for non-tenure-track faculty.

The Pullias Center is grateful to The Teagle Foundation, which has funded The Delphi Awards since 2017. The annual Delphi Award, now in its fourth year, presents a $15,000 cash award to two universities who have worked to support non-tenure-track, contingent and/or adjunct faculty in pursuing strategic priorities such as student learning and community engagement

The Pullias Center and AAC&U are pleased to announce that beginning in 2022, The Delphi Award will be funded by the TIAA Institute. The TIAA Institute helps advance the ways individuals and institutions plan for financial security and organizational effectiveness. The Institute conducts in-depth research, provides access to a network of thought leaders, and enables those it serves to anticipate trends, plan future strategies and maximize opportunities for success.

Royel M. Johnson Joins Pullias Center/Rossier as Associate Professor of Education

The Pullias Center welcomes Royel M. Johnson to our faculty! Dr. Johnson is a nationally-recognized scholar whose interdisciplinary research addresses issues of educational access, racial equity and student success. His work has an unapologetic focus on racially/ethnically minoritized and other institutionally marginalized populations including young people with foster care experience and justice-involved youth. Learn more about Dr. Johnson here.

MORE NEWS

Zoë Corwin and Pullias Center Research Associate Neftalie Williams,' Mattering the Margins study on skateboarding, mental health and community was mentioned in an Los Angeles Times article: Are skateboarders really solving the world’s problems, one trick at a time?

Adrian H. Huerta is co-PI with Long Beach City College on a $990,000 US Department of Education grant focused on college pathways for gang-involved youth. The Phoenix Scholars program will provide an asset-based, holistic approach to removing educational barriers and improving student outcomes for this vulnerable population.

Adrian H. Huerta is a part of the inaugural cohort of the Health Equity Fellowship for Trainees with Health Affairs to translate his research on gang-involved populations to public health audiences.

Adrianna Kezar presented Leading out of the Pandemic Through Shared Equity Leadership at the Middle States Accreditors Association annual conference in December.

Joseph A. Kitchen was appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of College Student Development, a leading academic journal in higher education. His term begins January 1, 2022.