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Equity factors in here, too, with students receiving financial aid (n=2,181) being significantly more likely than their peers without financial aid (n=734) to cite various barriers to participation. Regarding off-campus work, 38 percent of students on financial aid say it’s a barrier to participation in campus life, compared to 29 percent of students not receiving financial aid.
Zayd Hamid, a first-gen undergraduate at George Mason University in Virginia enrolled in an accelerated master’s degree program in public policy, is at the high end of the involvement scale, spending about 10 hours a week on student government. Hamid, an aspiring university president, also serves on a student advisory board to his university’s president and works part-time as a manager and brand ambassador for campus recreation.
Hamid says he manages these and other responsibilities and interests by “living very much in accordance with my Outlook calendar” and by using Fridays and weekends to get ahead on the next week’s workload.
“The balance is being able to be in the moment and focus on tasks that need to get done,” he says. “I’m getting better, but it is a struggle for me at times. There’s no sugarcoating that.”
Hamid agrees that it helps to work on campus versus off, as he feels involved in university life even when he’s on duty.
“Personally speaking, I feel that campus work is not a barrier to campus life-it’s a way to get involved in it,” he says, qualifying that he’s consistently worked for university life programs relevant to the student experience. “If a campus has a vibrant work culture across units, that directly contributes to students feeling involved in campus life and work. And if we incorporate feelings of belonging, well-being and engagement into the workplace culture across campus units, which I think George Mason University does very well, that helps students feel like they belong.”
25) to promote on-campus student employment. He also argues for expanding the definition of involvement to include activities like working out with others at the campus gym. And he emphasizes the importance of classroom engagement in promoting not only student success but outside-of-class involvement and belonging.
Other pieces of the puzzle: meeting students where they are and creating incentives for students to participate. Alabama A&M brings activities to students’ residence halls. Two recent examples include a cooking tournament and a barbershop pop-up. The university also held a dance for students who missed out on their high school proms due to COVID-19, explains Talley.
Alabama A&M offers incentives for attending large-scale events. Students who check in on a platform called Presence receive points (one point for attending an athletic event and, say, four points for attending a Nobel laureate’s talk). These points make students eligible for regular drawings for cash or scholarships-some $500 this month alone-and even larger end-of-semester prizes. The university also solicits feedback from students about event quality via the platform.
“This may sound a bit pricey, but it’s not, because more students are getting engaged,” Talley says. “And the more students are engaged, the higher our retention rate and ultimately that graduation rate will be. We’re not forcing them. But we’re putting some dessert on top of the broccoli so that they can be excited about their engagement levels.”
