Make Yourself at Home: Impacting Sense of Belonging Through Resource Utilization

“Make yourself at home!”  We say this often to folks as they enter the space we call home, and surely have heard the same from others when we enter their space. 

Now imagine that home is massive. Composed of dozens of buildings, filled with visitors from all over the country and world. And some of them are far more comfortable there than you. What good does telling someone to make themselves at home really do in that instance? 

In answering that question, you’ll likely touch upon feelings that are common for first-time college students. And those feelings will compound for:

• First-generation students, who may have never been to a home like this before and have no immediate family or friends to show them the ropes.
• International students, whose customs or expectations might not be accounted for in the home’s decor or traditions
• Historically underserved students, who might need certain things that the home isn’t equipped with because they weren’t considered during its design.
• Students with disabilities, who may be struggling to recreate the supports and adaptations they had holding them up at their last place.

When we say “make yourself at home” when someone crosses the threshold of our front door, we ultimately ask them to cultivate a sense of belonging in a pre-defined space. And students, too, need to find this sense of belonging when they arrive on campus.

Sense of Belonging's Role in Student Success

When we speak of a sense of belonging, we envision it in a manner similar to Dr. Terrell Strayhorn, who defines it as “a student’s perceived social support on campus, a feeling of connectedness, and the experience of mattering—feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the campus community or others on campus (Strayhorn, 2019 p. 4).” It is talked about in a way that is meant to, for many, mimic how we hope people will feel in their own homes. 

Regina McCoy, Associate Vice Provost for Retention and Student Success at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, affirms that goal for her own campus:

“At the heart of every thriving educational institution is a sense of community, a feeling of belonging that transforms a university from just a place of learning into a home. It is this sense of belonging that, especially for first-time college students, marks the difference between merely surviving and truly thriving in the university environment.”

This dynamic was echoed in a recent Tyton Partners report, “Driving Toward a Degree 2023: Awareness, Belonging, and Coordination.” In it, they revealed an important finding: “the report found a direct correlation between awareness of support services and feelings of belonging—students who had higher levels of resource awareness also felt higher levels of belonging in their community.”

Think again, for a moment, about the friends whose homes you feel most comfortable in. The ones where a friend might know what mug fits your personality best, who has shown you how to use the remote so you can pull up something entertaining to watch, who has shown you where the blankets are if you get cold. At its core, that’s belonging - having a sense that what you need, is freely available to you. 

Stifling the Stigma of Resource Utilization with Peer Mentorship

To some, this finding might feel intuitive, and some may argue with a sense of defensiveness, but we do have those resources! We told them about them! They’re in the handbook/syllabus/orientation presentation! 

To these folks, it’s worthwhile to counter with a number of questions. “Did you really tell them? Do they feel as though they can use them? Do they feel welcome to ask for reminders—or, even, for help at all?”

There’s a difference between knowing a friend’s home has a bathroom and knowing where it is when you need to go. Similarly, Tyton’s “Closing the Resource Utilization Gap” report recognizes that telling is the first step in creating a sense of belonging—not the sole means. “Simply telling students about on-campus resources doesn’t do enough to close the resource utilization gap,” the report notes. Instead, 

Institutions need a proactive and intentional strategy and mechanism to ensure that... a) students know what supports are available to them and b) feel comfortable using them. Institutions need to sculpt awareness about what they provide for students, make resources more accessible, and increase students' help-seeking skills.

To return to the home analogy for a moment:  if these things aren’t established early on in clear ways, it doesn’t always feel any more comforting when we go back for subsequent visits...or in extreme cases, we simply don’t return. And again, what’s true for homes can also be true for the college experience.

In a home, these supports could be things like a trash can, the drinking glasses, the remote control, or the wifi password. On a campus, there could be resources like the counseling center, student health services, disability services, tutoring, and academic support. These are resources that could be tremendously helpful, but when we’re new, they’re challenging to ask for. And as it happens, these two challenges share a solution: support from a peer. 

Peer mentorship can reduce the stigma of seeking out these resources. Studies show that historically underserved populations on campuses (e.g. international students, first-generation students, transfer students) struggle to access these resources, both practically and psychologically. Even once they learn about them, past assumptions about help-seeking might prevent them from sending that email or visiting that office. Shame is one of a few obstacles to resource utilization, according to collegiate behavioral researcher Ross O’Hara. Others include ambiguity (students not having a sense of who else is using the resources), opacity (most of these resources exist in offices or spaces that are hidden), and stigmatization (feeling silly or “less than” for seeking out and accepting help). 

But when someone they know and trust can testify to its value, and can empower them to push back against the stigma, they can benefit from all that is available to them. In our work with transfer students at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, this peer intervention was key to normalizing help-seeking behavior:

In some cases, double the number of mentees reported using these services than respondents in the Mentee Comparison group. This finding is particularly interesting as it suggests that mentors were able to normalize help-seeking behavior and provide important recommendations to where mentees could go for assistance.

To once again quote UNCG's Dr. McCoy, 

“By pairing incoming students with empathetic and experienced peer mentors, we’re not just offering our students a guide through the academic maze, but we’re giving them a friend, a confidante, and a reliable support system.”

In our next installment of this blog series, we’ll talk more about what it looks like when peer mentorship influences resource utilization on Mentor Collective partner campuses. 

For additional information about how Mentor Collective’s software and services can increase resource utilization - and, by extension, belonging - on your campus, we’d recommend reaching out to our team for a demo.