Office for Faculty Excellence

Foster Belonging

What does it mean to belong in a classroom, in a discipline, in a university?

If this seems like a silly question, likely that’s because you’ve always felt comfortable in a college environment. When you belong somewhere you don’t notice that you belong: you simply exist with little anxiety or self-consciousness and are not plagued by doubts as to whether the University is a place where you could succeed, or where you should want to succeed.

However, many students who come to Montclair do not feel like they belong. In the Fall 2021 “Educate Your Educators” survey, only 28% of responding undergraduates reported that they agreed or strongly agreed that “most students feel a sense of belonging” at Montclair, down from 41% in 2019. More recently, the University’s Noel Levitz survey from Spring 2022 showed improvement: 37% of undergraduates report that they agreed or strongly agreed that “most students feel a sense of belonging.”

When students have a strong sense of belonging they are more successful:

  • Students who feel connected and respected, and who have a sense of belonging are more motivated, more engaged, more persistent and achieve higher academic success (Nat’l Academies of SEM, 2017).
  • Sense of belonging is a key predictor of college students’ persistence and well-being (Gopalan & Brady, 2020; Walton & Cohen 2007; 2011, Yeager et al 2016; Walton et al 2023).
  • Sense of belonging predicts satisfaction with college (Thomas and Galambos 2004)
  • Students’ sense of belonging can be improved through pedagogical and curricular practices (Cohen & Viola 2022; Murphy et al 2020)
  • Students who have a sense of belonging persist at greater rates (Gopalan & Brady, 2020; Hausmann et al, 2007; NASEM, 2017; Yeager et al 2016; Walter et al 2023).
  • Having a sense of belonging is a predictor of motivation, engagement, and achievement (Zumbrunn et al., 2014).
  • Students who have a sense of belonging have established “supportive peer relationships” and believe that “faculty are compassionate” and that students are “more than just another face in the crowd (Hoffman et al., 2003).

Bake Belonging Into Your Course Design

  • Use the Montclair Syllabus which prompts instructors to welcome students, provides extensive resources, and renames office hours, “student hours,” to make it clear that students are welcome, among other features. See “Warming Up” Your Syllabus for strategies to foster belonging.
  • Build a first day of class plan that emphasizes connection, builds confidence, and leaves students believing that you are an invested, motivated, and caring instructor.
  • Develop systems for learning names; insist on learning them [name tags].
  • Ensure course materials are accessible, drawing on universal design for learning principles.
  • Create assignments that invite students to share, showcase, and draw upon their personal experiences.
  • Use a warm, encouraging tone in syllabus and other documents
  • Use student surveys to seek students’ views on how class is going or to invite them to tell you about who they are beyond “student in the class”
  • Have a curriculum that appeals to our students – Integrate varied perspectives and materials that reflect people from all walks of life.
  • Connect course curricula to real-world content that is relatable to our student body

Support Belonging through Your Daily Practice

  • Learn and use your students’ names; recognize them as individuals and not bodies in seats.
    • Make it easy: Use a name tent
    • Read this study that suggests how powerful being known by name is for students.
  • Identify the students you know the least well and seek out a way to engage them individually, such as asking simple questions, or offering compliments on their ideas or comments.
  • Cultivate student success so that all students feel known, seen, and valued.
  • Help students feel like they can succeed and overcome imposter syndrome.
    • Examine how you give feedback to students: Critical feedback on assignments should emphasize:
      1. reflection of a teacher’s high standards
      2. students’ potential to reach them and
      3. substantive feedback to improve. For example, a framing comment like the following can be adapted: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” (Steele, 2011; Yaeger et al., 2014).
    • Frame the purpose of assessments effectively: Emphasize that tests and assignments are diagnostic of students’ current skill levels, which can be improved with practice, instead of a measure of permanent ability (Aronson, 2002).
    • Use reflective writing to normalize struggles.
    • Recognize the variety of people who have become contributors to/members of the field.
    • Move course assessments away from timed, high-stakes tests. Courses with design- or writing-based assignments, as well as low-stakes quizzes, tend to have more equitable outcomes.
  • Be aware of and mitigate cognitive bias.
  • Make space for students’ voices and experiences.
  • Encourage a growth mindset and the value of effort over innate intelligence.
  • Address controversial topics — It’s not impossible to have fruitful and educational valuable conversations about topics that matter personally, socially, politically, and otherwise.

Plan an Intervention to Foster Belonging

Socially disadvantaged students who experience a “belonging intervention” are more engaged in university activities, develop more friendships, have higher GPAs, and are more likely to have a mentor (Brady 2020, Walton et al 2007 & 2011, Yeager et al 2016).

The Idea: Recognize doubts about belonging, and cast belonging challenges as temporary & mutable

The Intervention: Students read and reflect on older students’ stories of experiencing challenges to belonging in college and how their experiences improved over time. (Brady et al 2020, Walton & Cohen 2011, Yeager et al 2016).

Solicit or find authentic student voices who can speak from their experiences of first encountering non-belonging and then persisting and being helped to finding belonging and from that, a sense of belonging. 

  1. Solicit: Write to former students who you witnessed not just succeeding, but first struggling. Invite them to help you. If your students are interested in helping, ask them to record or write their short vignette. You might share these slides to help them understand your project.
  2. Find: Try We Belong in College
  3. Assign the project to students. See Andrew Roland’s assignment, UNM.
  4. Write your own: Create a Belonging Story.

Next, ask students to read / view the student perspectives and follow the viewing with a writing activity, with short written essays (two paragraphs) such as:

  1. Why do you think it is common for students to feel unsure about their belonging when they first come to college?  Consider your own experiences with transitions – to high school, to college, to a new community – to compose your response.
  2. Most college students become comfortable in their chosen major, college, and university over time. Again, based on your experience, how do college students become comfortable? How do college students develop that sense of belonging?
  • Read more about OFE’s take on Belonging by viewing the slides of our Belonging Intervention workshop, January 2023.

Last Modified: Friday, March 28, 2025 5:15 pm

EJI

For more information or help, please email the Office for Faculty Excellence or make an appointment with a consultant.

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