Institutional Well-Being Associations for Black and Indigenous College Students Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Expanding Understandings of the Relationship Between Race and Well-Being in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

Objectives
Historically Black and Tribal Colleges and Universities (HBCUs & TCUs) produce alumni with higher well-being than their counterparts at predominantly White institutions (PWI’s; Gallup, 2015). This study analyzes the institutional actors (faculty, advisors, and student services) who support Black and Indigenous student well-being before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research asks: what individual and institutional characteristics predict the likelihood of institutional well-being support connections for Black and Indigenous students before and during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Theoretical Framework
McCubbin et al.’s conceptualization of Indigenous relational well-being (2013) is the “sense of satisfaction and happiness derived from confidence and perceived competence to overcome adversity, respect, and be in harmony with nature and ancestors through cultural practices, the management of financial resources, family commitment, access to quality health care, and involvement in and contributing to one’s community.” Indigenous relational well-being works with social network theory to explore the structure of relationships and how relationships shape consequences for the organization and individual outcomes. (Daly, 2010). Using a network theory and a relational well-being analysis considers the role of agency students have within a particular structure.

Data Collection and Analysis
The Healthy Minds Study (HMS) is a national survey that examines college student health (Healthy Mind Network, 2021). I converted a stratified random sample of (n=943) responses from Black and Indigenous college students into a two-mode social network (Borgatti, 1997; Valente, 2010). Exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) is a modified general linear model statistical analysis to characterize a network as an outcome of various network configurations and interactions (Borgatti et al., 2018). Similar to logistic regression, the model parameter estimations are built to determine if configurations occur more or less frequently than expected, given the network density.

Preliminary Results and Significance
Preliminary findings show that students attending institutions in the Northeast U.S. and those with no personal connections for social-emotional support were significantly less likely to nominate institutional actors within their well-being support network. Additionally, Indigenous students, students with disabilities, with high well-being, and a high sense of belonging are significantly more likely to reach out to academic and institutional connections for support than those without disabilities, or with lower well-being. Finally, students who completed the survey during the COVID-19 pandemic were less likely to have academic and institutional connections than the previous year, although this decrease was not statistically significant.

This study complicates previous studies that posit that staying connected to home and family can be a distraction and antithetical to student success for minoritized students. This study also indicates a relational feast or famine, with students who need the most support perceiving none or few from their institutions. Future research can compare the relational and structural components of well-being between students with higher and lower well-being and between perceived and received support networks. Practice implications include expanding structural and agentic well-being interventions that integrate personal and on-campus relationships, enhance faculty and advisor training, and facilitate relationship-rich educational conditions.

Author

• Paris D. Wicker, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author