Academic Belonging Events

Departmental belonging activities framework

(Updated as of Fall 2025)

As part of Xavier’s overall retention efforts, the Offices of the Provost and of Student Affairs aim to support departments’ efforts to provide belonging events for graduate and undergraduate students at Xavier.  We acknowledge that many departments are already doing this work, and we thank you for your work.

Overview of events

We suggest 2-4 events per academic year.  Graduate programs should consider whether summer events make sense.

• From various sources and expertise, we’ve identified 5 concepts that make these events helpful: Community, context, connection, calling, confidence. See the framework below for more information.
• All events should emphasize community and consider context.
• Each academic year should have events that emphasize the other characteristics (connection, calling, confidence) at least once.
• In the first 3 weeks of a term, there should be a purely social event (i.e., an event that emphasizes community only) for each department or program.

 

Departments should be taking student attendance where possible. The Provost’s office will begin asking for reports on events and attendance in fall 2025.

• You may use a simple paper sign-up sheet. If you’d like something different, Christian Mastilak can help set up an efficient attendance-taking process.
• Request help here or contact Christian if you’d like assistance in setting up an attendance process for your event.   
• Please use this form to report attendance.

If your department needs help getting approval to use your available funds for a specific event, please contact Christian.

For any other questions or concerns, please contact Christian. Thank you for your work on belonging at Xavier!

 

Framework for event purposes

Departmental belonging events have the following characteristics (among others):

Table describing the framework, which includes community, context, connection, calling, and confidence.

What	How (suggestions)
Community Help students see that they are “Xavier students, not just students at Xavier**.”   ** Thanks to Kiley Solomon for this formulation at the First Year Alignment Task Force meeting January 7, 2025.	Invite fellow students across years, especially first-years with sophomores and older students; include interactions among graduate students, faculty, and alumni where appropriate. For online students, encourage regular interaction with each other in classes. For example, follow up on “virtual introduction” posts to start conversations around common experiences or interests.
Context Make good use of space, calendar, students’ stage of development, identities, grad vs. UG; commuter vs residential, small group vs. large.	Plan events around student’s needs – advising, career fair, midterm study breaks, known exam times. Avoid stressful times, but also plan to support these times. When appropriate, live-stream or record events for remote students. Graduate programs should consider whether summer events make sense for their student populations. Consider time zone differences when necessary.
Connection Help students see that they are already a part of their field (even if they’re “just” UG students); take them seriously as participants.	Discuss the state of and developments in the major, field, discipline; invite students to respond, participate, ask and answer questions.   Again, consider how to accommodate online students’ opportunities to participate remotely.
Calling Help students understand their vocation and their post-Xavier career options, and see themselves as successful within several of those options.	Include alumni and other practitioners in the field; include CDO; include “you got there from here?” stories (where major and vocational path seem distant from each other). For graduate students especially, provide opportunities for them to share their paths and experiences.
Confidence Equip students with resources to success, and help them see themselves as able to use relationships and resources to succeed at Xavier.	Introduce them to the people who will help them succeed and walk them through interactions (e.g., advising or career coaching appointments).

 

Specific ideas

These ideas are provided by Dr. Melissa Burwell, Dean of Advising, and Jamie Kuhlmeier, Associate Director of Graduate Student Success, and are culled from various sources and experiences.

• Monthly lunch in the Caf to meet fellow majors & faculty; identify 1-2 faculty to host it with a topic that is tied to discipline/major (e.g. latest finding, what’s the debate happening nationally in the field). Make a sign so students know where to sit. Rotate faculty and topic.
• Co-host an event with a student organization connected to department/discipline. Gather input from student leaders to see what would be of interest to members
• Use common hour for department event.
• Offer a new major meet-up with their new faculty (once a month). Provide snacks and a chance for students to meet with their new faculty in person just to get to know one another.
• Host a meet-up before a lecture or event on campus that ties to your discipline. Have coffee in GSC or a meal in the Caf before/after to discuss it. Or meet in a residence hall lounge to talk about it together.
• Invite 2-3 alumni to speak to first-year students about their experience in the discipline or host a panel of seniors to discuss their senior projects/activities and invite first-year/exploratory students to attend (make sure there is food offered or extra credit for an intro class).
• Invite students to present research/projects/poster presentations. Highlight conferences or workshops attended by students on department bulletin boards.
• Offer a mid-term madness study break/session (or finals break) – offer treats in/near faculty offices to encourage students to stop by and ask questions as they prepare for exams.
• Host a viewing party for a recent documentary or film related to the discipline (and yes, offer snacks!) and discuss it together. Or if one is coming out, offer to go to the theater together and then discuss it afterward.
• Host a department coffee hour for students and faculty (similar to CIE’s) – pick a topic of interest to the discipline and host a discussion.
• Take students on a tour to local employers that align with the discipline/field.
• For sophomores/juniors, host an internship/experiential learning session where students share their experiences. How they found the internship, what they learned, and future plans, etc. Invite Career Development Office to provide a tailored internship for the major workshop.
• If you don’t already use a departmental Canvas site, consider using that to educate and inform students about major-specific opportunities for experiential learning, employers, graduate studies, etc.
• Monthly newsletter or podcast highlighting student and faculty research/activities/highlights
• Identify processes to maintain contact with students (grad and undergrad) who are away for a term on internships, study abroad, etc. –reach out to them 2-3 times per term to maintain a Xavier relationship.

• For graduate programs especially:
  • Build mentoring or pairing of new students with continuing students into the program design.
  • Help incoming graduate students know what’s possible here, and how to achieve it – that is, give them recent and specific examples of research presentations or publications, conferences, internships or employment advances, thesis or dissertation idea generation, etc. and how those students got that work accomplished.