Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1 - 42

Residence life professionals are well positioned to optimize
the design and reconstruction of residential student spaces
to support the highest levels of personal and academic
collegiate achievement.
findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Second,
student-provided definitions used terms that
may be intangible, subjective, or not overt in
their text related to their individual experience.
For instance, many used the term " family "
to express a sense of belonging to their
residential community. This individual and
subjective experience warrants further investigation
potentially via interviews and focus
groups to begin developing a more shared
understanding of the residential community
sense of belonging. A third limitation is that
sense of belonging to a residential community
may interact with lurking variables. For
instance, students described fitting in and
being accepted as components of their definition.
While not explicitly stated, a student's
social identity and its salience may impact
their sense of belonging to their residential
community. Additionally, how a student feels
about belonging to the larger university may
impact this sense of belonging. Therefore,
more research is recommended with sensitivity
to the role played by social identity in
residential community sense of belonging.
CONCLUSION
Students have defined belonging to their
residential community to mean that the resident's
journey is shaped by active leadership
and inspired within a physical and experiential
environment, resulting in strong
connections to people and place. This definition
posited by students encompasses three
themes: space and place, strengthening
connections, and outcomes of belonging.
The need for this definition is urgent as it
is the first one contributed by student input,
and it will allow scholars and practitioners
alike to build on previously provided definitions.
Additionally, our definition, perhaps
uniquely, identifies belonging as a scale,
not a dichotomous variable where belonging
is either achieved or not achieved. This
definition is important for practitioners and
scholars as it offers a student-grounded
operational definition for sense of belonging
to a residential community within the
collegiate context. This definition will aid
in work performed by residence life professionals
as it provides a unique insight into
how students define belonging. This definition
should inform practice in such areas as
strategic planning, programming models,
and daily interactions with residents. As a
recommendation, further research is suggested
to examine how to best operationalize
and implement this definition of belonging
to enhance the student experience
on college and university campuses.
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42 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1

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