How do student leaders help to create and sustain college communities?

Abstract

Lancaster University is distinctive in having a collegiate system. Colleges are vibrant centres for activity and engagement, providing support and co-ordinating overlapping networks for all members of the University community. Essential to university experience is the importance of belonging and community, in which individuals have a sense of “membership, influence, integration” and experience “fulfilment of needs, and shared emotional connection” (McMillan and Chavis, 1986). Institutions and sector bodies are currently rethinking the way that student communities are built and maintained to meet the needs of Generation Z (Vytniorgu, R, 2022). This report will focus on the importance of College Community Assistants (CCAs), Junior Common Rooms (JCRs) and Postgraduate Board (PG Board) in actively creating and sustaining belonging in a way that empowers students and staff to thrive, build networks, and contribute to the wider community. The authors have used work on community and belonging by Masika & Jones (2016), Thomas (2012), Blake et al. (2022), and Ahn & Davis (2020) to inform a pilot qualitative study which uses student and CCA focus groups to explore how the roles of CCAs and student leaders help create and sustain belonging within college community and how they understand their roles. We found that community is defined mainly in three general themes, namely comfort and support, opportunity, and tradition, in which CCAs and student leaders all play significant roles. It is hoped that our findings can be applied to other contexts where student leadership roles are deployed, not only within universities, but also to other educational institutions and bodies inside and outside of the UK.