Thriving on Campus: Queer Students’ Perspectives About University Wellness Offerings

• In Event: Ecological Perspectives of Well-Being and Thriving in Higher Education Spaces

Abstract

Objectives
Decades of empirical research and institution-based studies indicate that the campus climate for 2SLGBTQ+ students does not promote well-being. Although research on campus climate and 2SLGBTQ+ students in higher education abounds (see Duran et al., 2020; Rankin et al., 2019), there is little to explain this paradox in person-environment interaction. On the person side, research on mindsets such as thriving, resilience, and grit may play some role; environmentally, ecological approaches to studying 2SLGBTQ+ students have found variations in supportive and hostile microclimates that may provide some clues (Vaccaro, 2012). Still, the processes that occur at the intersection—the physical, psychological, policy, and programmatic spaces where students encounter and experience the campus—remain understudied and not well understood.
Campuses continue to promote “thriving campuses” that foster thriving conditions. While some students may feel there are conditions to help them be successful and “thrive,” others may feel the opposite. To understand this issue, our research question asks: What do 2SLGBTQ+ students’ narratives reveal about the concept of thriving on campus? We contend that engaging with the complexity of the student-environment processes is essential to understanding how 2SLGBTQ+ students not only survive on campus but thrive.

Theoretical framework
We depart from resilience and grit literature to build on emerging literature on queer thriving (Greteman, 2018; Hill et al., 2021; Pitcher & Simmons, 2020). We also use The Okanagan Charter (2015) which specifically frames the importance of fostering well-being on campuses.

Methods and Data Sources
Thriving on Campus is a 2SLGBTQ+ campus climate study looking at student experiences across Ontario, Canada, and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (Thriving on Campus, 2023). The study involved a scan of 2SLGBTQ+ policies, facilities, and services at the 21 public-funded universities in Ontario. This work resulted in a mixed-methods analysis of 2SLGBTQ+ identified students and their experiences on campus, followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews with interested participants. We interviewed nearly 50 2SLGBTQ+ participants with multiple and intersecting identities.

Results
Thriving on campus relies on institutional action (e.g., contending with institutional history; accountability to equity, diversity, and inclusion values). Authors had to contend with a smaller number of participants who defined thriving on campus as having little or nothing to do with institutional action but instead characterized thriving on campus as an individual responsibility. The majority of participants, however, described thriving on campus as both dependent on institutional action and individual qualities.

Significance
Scholars and professionals who frame minoritized students’ success as an institutional problem shift accountability to the organizational level, asking not for more ‘postsecondary education ready’ students but for more ‘student-ready’ universities and colleges (McNair et al., 2016). This approach calls for campuses to examine and improve the climate for equity-deserving students who are marginalized by race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, social class, and other identities and experiences. Bettencourt (2019) characterized the problem as “the barriers that students encounter as a gap in the responsiveness of colleges and universities” (p. 4) to their needs and experiences.

Authors

• Brandon R. G. Smith, Michigan State University

• Michael Woodford, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Kristen A. Renn, Michigan State University