mAPPING belonging at TRU

Belonging | Sense of belonging in higher education refers to "students’ perceived social support on campus, a feeling or sensation of connectedness, and the experience of mattering or feeling cared about, accepted, respected, valued by, and important to the campus community or others on campus such as faculty, staff, and peers" (Strayhorn, 2018, p. 4). Follett (1942) observed that in a community, people with different frames of reference arrive at unity by “getting the desires of each side into one field of vision” (p. 39). Mental sketch mapping holds significant value for the field of education: making visible the foundational assumptions and threshold concepts that act as frames of reference, or mental maps, shaping what we see and how we see it. 

Wayfinding | We come to know our environment experientially through our senses, languages, and stories. Our brains build new pathways to store memories when events are repeated or emotionally charged (Brendtro et al., 2013). As we move through and settle into our environment, views, sounds, scents, textures, tastes, movement, time all create individual impressions that are tied to the emotions and meaning of past experiences, and combine into holistic memories (White, 1999). Our senses are predisposed to pick up on details that hold significance for us, storing meaningful visual images, locations, words, and stories to create a mental map of our environment used for way-finding (Lynch, 1960). 

Mental Maps | Familiar mental images and stories, like those related to friendship and home, enable us to recognize pleasing and meaningful elements and qualities in unfamiliar landscapes, helping to "assuage fear, to establish an emotionally safe relationship" with our environment (Lynch, 1960, p. 127). Self and mutual awareness of our mental maps can affirm our sense of self (identity), nurture our sense of belonging, and build our capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect (TRC, 2015, 63iii). 

Place Attachments | Belonging refers to the feeling of being personally accepted, respected, included, and supported on campus, but research shows that marginalized student groups face more barriers to experiencing place attachments than majority group students (Fan et al., 2020; Strayhorn, 2019). In contrast to feeling like an unwanted guest, places that invite us to stay, be ourselves, and belong can have a “gravitational pull” that “flows out down the paths that lead to them" (White, 1999, p.185). 

The vibe or feel we get from a place is shaped by many factors, including: 

• The wide diversity of cultural experiences that shape our perceptions and preferences 
• The words we use to describe the architectural character of a place 
• The stories we carry and share about our experiences and the history of a place
• Formal and informal place names

For example, some students refer to TRU Parking Lot NT as Narnia, an informal place name that describes its distant location 'far away from home' and infuses it with complex meaning from The Chronicles of Narnia.