Students' Views of Connectedness in a College of Education with Respect to Climate and Diversity

The increased commitment to recruit and retain diverse students and faculty among higher education institutions calls for an examination of current and future needs with respect to campus climate and diversity. This qualitative study explored students' perceptions of connectedness with respect to the climate in relation to diversity in a College of Education of a public university in the Western US. Two main categories were identified: the first is based on comments that indicated a degree of connectedness in the college; the second involved comments that centered on a sense of disconnection. Within both categories, two distinct themes were revealed. The first incorporates (a) the participants' voiced feelings about connection/disconnection, and the second refers to (b) the context of reception that the participants described, which includes spaces and people in the college. A discussion of these findings is provided, along with conclusions and recommendations related to policy, practice, and research. [Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association (NRMERA) (34th, 2016).]