Research has focused on the importance of family to Latinx/a/o students. Yet, Latinx/a/o college student identity models have remained linear and individualistic. Centering Chicana/Latina Feminist epistemology and methodology, this study utilized pláticas to understand how a collectivist orientation influences the academic identity development of…

Nonbinary college students are an underresearched and often misinterpreted and misunderstood population. These students face compulsory heterogenderism (Nicolazzo, 2017), institutional cisgenderism (Seelman, 2014), and other structural barriers to belonging and student success. Through qualitative interviews (N = 6), this phenomenological study…

Strong communities, measured in terms of belonging, are often shown to produce positive social and educational outcomes. Although useful, this approach narrows the potential scope of the concept and inadequately measures complex communities where positive outcomes, such as student engagement, can be mixed with negative outcomes, such as social…

Researchers have revealed a strong association between sense of belonging and students' social class and economic background. Notably, students from less advantaged economic and class backgrounds typically report a lower sense of belonging in college compared with their middle and upper-class peers. To address gaps in college completion, educators…

The purpose of this study was to develop a substantive theory using a grounded theory approach to describe the development of advocacy and allyship among college students with marginalized identities. Findings support that participation in advocacy and allyship is a continuously evolving and messy process of becoming aware, educating self,…

Basic needs insecurity, including insufficient or inadequate food, housing, and other personal necessities, is a common problem on college campuses, especially at community colleges (Baker-Smith et al., 2020; Broton & GoldrickRab, 2018), and an increasing number of higher education institutions are attempting to ameliorate this issue (Broton…

Student engagement in higher education is theorized as a significant link between classroom behaviors and measurable student success outcomes such as grade point average, year-to-year retention, and (on-time) graduation. There are a wide variety of definitions of student engagement, some more dominant than others, in the higher education…

Prior scholarship has established that myriad factors shape college students' sense of belonging, including aspects of one's campus environment, namely students' living arrangements and learning conditions (Johnson et al., 2007). To this end, many colleges and universities established cultural centers, first-year seminars within year-long…

In addition to demographic characteristics, it is important to understand how the location of prior educational experiences may impact adjustment for international students. Indeed, international students who graduate from high school outside their home countries are assumed to have easier college adjustments than others due to their previous…

Scholarship on disability in higher education has unveiled the complications that students face in coming to terms with their disabilities and traversing college based on the ableist settings they inhabit. Nonetheless, the paths, priorities, and unique challenges depicted in the literature are often limited to one institutional setting. In this…

In thinking about their experiences as community college advocates, Erin Doran and Kayla Lucht found that they both came to community colleges as adjuncts to supplement their incomes--but that a deep admiration and love for their students kept them there. Like so many others in higher education, they fell into their roles as community college…

Higher education researchers have defined the need of feeling connected to a place or community as a sense of belonging or a student's ability to connect to campus through support systems, positive interactions, and mattering (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012). A student belonging to or within an institution has been associated with…

This study explored the experiences of undergraduate BIPOC students in leadership education and development programs at two predominantly white institutions of higher education. Informed by interpretative phenomenological analysis, interviews with 36 students in various leadership roles (including residence life, peer mentoring, student…

Researchers continue to investigate the underrepresentation of Black undergraduate students in STEM majors. Hostile racial environments (George Mwangi et al., 2016) and the lack of culturally relevant resources (Johnson & Elliott, 2020) inform participation and persistence for Black students in STEM majors. The incorporation of collaborative…

Supported by considerable public investment through post-9/11 higher education benefits, student military service members/veterans (SSM/ Vs) have been one of the fastest-growing groups of nontraditional students in American universities in recent years. Despite their increased numbers and potential to diversify science, technology, engineering,…