How to bridge the gap between diversity and belonging| THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect

For universities, a “B” is currently much better than the proverbial “A”. And by “B” I mean “affiliation”. Colleges and universities have known for decades that bringing diverse students to their campus creates a better learning experience for everyone. Students are introduced to other cultures, different ways of thinking and new approaches to solving complex problems. However, the truth is that just bringing different students to a university is not a wonderful experience. In fact, it introduces a whole new set of problems. Students who differ from an institution’s core demographics often feel marginalized and have lower success and graduation rates than their majority peers. So how can universities help students feel like they belong on campus once they get there?

Universities have long had student affinity groups and some have even created separate spaces such as multicultural centers or different identity-based spaces on campus as places for student groups to congregate, socialize and form others. And alongside increasingly diverse student enrollments, we see spaces for student veterans, first-generation students, and even disability cultural centers.

But diversity is not only found in the visible area. Diversity officers and those interested in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) would do well to recognize the myriad of invisible differences inhabiting today’s college campuses that transcend racial and ethnic identities and socioeconomic class, the divide between rural and urban, neurodiversity, physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and even political diversity and other diversity of opinion. There are so many students who, for one reason or another related to their own identity, feel at best uncomfortable, or at times downright excluded, from the very institution that hosted them.

This is why the above groups and rooms are so helpful in making students feel like they belong on campus. As a bonus, they can also help increase the visibility and awareness of a particular group. Take the rise of cultural centers for the disabled, for example. This is not the university office for Disabled Services (ODS) or your campus housing office. The ODS is often a place where disabled students find that they have to jump through all sorts of hurdles just to have the same chance of success that their able-bodied classmates have from day one.

The opposite are cultural centers for the disabled. They are places where disabled students can feel a sense of belonging, increase visibility, destigmatize disability in science and meet with like-minded people. From a more outward perspective, they can also serve to educate others about disability and disabled students on campus. Syracuse Disabled Cultural Center is a leading example and there are more and more of these centers on the horizon.

But having these groups and spaces is not enough to help all of our students feel the basic sense of belonging on campus. So how can universities create a culture in which diversity is valued and used socially? and academic areas? They need student-, teacher-, and institution-centric interventions to bridge the gap between inclusion and belonging.

Student-centred interventions include academic support such as tutoring centers, inclusive curricula, well-designed courses with learner variability in mind, and transparent assignment design. This should include social interventions, ideally including summer programs to ease the transition to university and to welcome students to campus, living and learning communities based on shared ideas or values, and student-encouraged programs to interact with and learn from each other in meaningful ways.

This type of bridging-the-gap opportunity has been lacking on campus in the recent past. For example, the Appalachian State University, where I work, conducts a series of structured conversations for campus members that determine that the most effective way to understand each other’s political differences is to share their individual and shared values ​​of Face to face (and even over a longer period of time) to discuss boarding by the college).

Instructor-focused interventions include Universal Design for Learning (UDL) training for teachers to help them design courses for the wide variety of students in their classes, including those who are neurodivergent. See also the last Dartmouth Accessible Initiative, which includes the implementation of learning institutes and course grants to integrate UDL. This lowers the artificial barriers that many heterogeneous and neurodiverse students face, and helps educators do much of their job—teaching—more effectively. Also interdisciplinary Faculty learning communities (even virtual), book clubs, or even podcast groups (like Dartmouth’s Supporting Neurodiverse Students discussion group) help teachers implement inclusive strategies in their courses.

Finally, institution-focused interventions include acknowledging neurodiversity in EDI initiatives and incorporating neurodivergent leadership. In addition to creating cultural centers that raise awareness of the great diversity of learners on campus, institutions must also support initiatives to bridge the gap between these diverse groups. This includes structured spaces and programs for community members to talk to each other about their differences as well as their similarities. We need to go beyond recognition, festivals and diversity awareness by teaching our students how to interact inside and outside of the classroom.

Universities need to pay more attention to who is on campus and create lines of communication. On-campus centers and affinity groups can help students get to know themselves and find other like-minded students. That is essential. But we also need to find ways to learn about, accept and participate in each other’s worlds, to know others and to know ourselves fully. There will be awkwardness and discomfort, especially at the beginning, but it is our duty to help students overcome this discomfort in order to come to understanding.

Lillian Nave is Senior Lecturer in the First Year Seminary at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. She is also the presenter of the ThinkUDL podcast, where she speaks to colleagues around the world who are making their learning and working environments fairer and more accessible to all people.

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