Transitioning, Belonging, and the Black Student Experience: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the orientation and transitional experiences of Black undergraduate students at Metropolitan State University (MSU, pseudonym) an urban, public research university in the southeastern region of the United States. MSU is a unique research site for this study, as Black students’ six-year graduation rates equal that of White students. Using sense of belonging as a conceptual framework, the research team collected data from 28 participants in seven focus groups throughout the 2018-2019 academic year. Findings revealed that participants experienced disparate orientation and transitional experiences, as well as a poor racial climate throughout their time at MSU. Specifically, participants noted a shortage of Black faculty, limited Black cultural programming, and a need for identity-based space. Among working with campus partners to improve the racial climate, implications for orientation professionals include recruiting professional and student staff members who represent the racial composition of the university and ensuring culturally relevant content during orientation programs.

"This Research that We are Doing is Just the Beginning of the Conversation”: Undergraduate Researchers Enacting Literacies of Relationality

“…While Terry, Vaughn, and Rae had initially designed the YPAR inquiry as a one-semester service-learning field experience following the summer bridge program, we continued our YPAR research-team meetings into the next academic year, fall 2017, as undergraduate researchers, now college sophomores, navigated new classes, social, and work activities. As a rendering of critical listening and storying, and enacting of literacies of relationality, Chauntel, Regina, Sarah, and Jewel shared findings that October of their research on experiences of transition to a PWI, in the public space of a YPAR symposium co-organized by a Black faculty member on our university campus (Morgan et al, 2020), and attended by youth researchers from middle and high schools across the state. Three weeks before that, we had gathered in New Perspectives Gallery for the exhibit we noted in opening this manuscript, where Chauntel, Regina, Sarah, and Jewel placed one photograph each on an easel, and we projected onto the screen stretched across one of the gallery walls the photographs taken and captions written during the photovoice project (see Figure 2).…”

“…Rust and Korstange (2018) found benefits for students participating in first-year seminar courses through "prioritizing reflection and integrative learning" (p. 76). Morgan et al (2020), in a study examining the "orientation and transitional experiences" of Black undergraduate students attending a public research university in an urban setting, found that participants observed a "shortage of Black faculty, limited Black cultural programming, and a need for identity-based space" (p. 1). Morgan and colleagues identified implications for "orientation professionals" including "recruiting professional and student staff members who represent the racial composition of the university and ensuring culturally relevant content during orientation programs" (p. 1).…”

“…As an approach in adolescent literacy teaching and research, Wissman et al (2015) called attention to "research pedagogies" of "created spaces, engaged participation, and embodied inquiry" (p. 186) across adolescents' multimodal literacy activities. Relationality and the building of reciprocal teaching and learning in our research collaboration unfolded as connective threads across the design, enactment, and public sharing of a photovoice project that had its beginnings in a for-credit summer bridge program, and extended across more than two years of weekly research-team meetings involving the examination of undergraduates' transition experiences (Morgan et al, 2020;Rust & Korstange, 2018).…”

“…Given this context of service-learning experiences, a growing scholarship considering how teacher-education models may meet unique needs of preservice teachers of Color (Rogers-Ard et al, 2013), and access, retention, and transition scholarship involving students of Color (for ex., Carey, 2019;Flennaugh et al, 2017;Howard et al, 2016;Knight et al, 2019;Morgan et al, 2020;Yao et al, 2019), Terry in spring 2016 proposed a redesign of the service-learning field experience for the summer 2016 critical multicultural education course. Specifically, Terry, Vaughn, and Rae redesigned the service-learning experience as a YPAR inquiry, to begin in fall 2016.…”

“…It made me more socially aware on campus, [...] just recognizing that this space is totally different than high school. Sarah further reflected in a research memo, on the interplay of experiences of transition to the university, and nurturing space for reflection (Morgan et al, 2020):…”