Student Belonging: A Critical Pillar in the Scholarship of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Campus Activities - JCAPS Vol. 4 Issue 1

The scholarship and professional practice of campus activities are likely entering an inflection point in its history. Numerous scholars, pundits, and bloggers have recently described what has become known as the “twin pandemics” – the global spread of Covid-19 and its resulting upheaval, public health crises, and community anxiety, combined with a global-scale reckoning of societal injustice and inequity based on social identity and economic privilege. Indeed, both have served to reinforce and lend focus on the other. Public health crises, for example, lay bare who has resources to address them and who does not. The potential connection to campus activities practice and scholarship was seeded prior to these profoundly disruptive events. Still, both have directly contributed to the speed and strength of discussion in our field for how, why, and for whom we do our work.

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Campus Activities Practice and Scholarship believe that inclusion has always been the central purpose of our work in campus activities and will make a case that this must be our focus as we contemplate how to move forward in a way that has been informed by the “twin pandemics.” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which we will often refer to collectively here, are not simply a current popular fad that will pass as the Covid-19 crisis lessens and attention in higher education passes to other topics. Indeed, the National Association of Campus Activities had begun integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion topics throughout its Association-wide Research Agenda long before most people knew what a “coronavirus” was. But it is also safe to say that our field has evolved in its understanding of how to approach this work. In the previous issue of this Journal, the Editorial Board described the updated Research Agenda, outlining its essential parts and highlighting what had been added from the previous version. Here, we focus on a specific, actionable area within the new Research Agenda – a concept that has served as a longstanding pillar in campus activities work, and also one that could be expanded in our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion – student sense of belonging.