Religious, secular, and spiritual identities (RSSIs) are an important aspect of the complex experiences of students in higher education. Often dismissed or forgotten by higher education professionals, RSSIs have shifted drastically over the 20+ years since Love and Talbot first wrote about them in 1999. While scholarship on RSSIs has steadily…

The Sanction Enhancement Group, pilot tested in the Division of Housing at the University of Florida, was a structured group experience for residence hall students. The group's experience reflected a major goal of the judicial system within the Division of Housing--education through redirecting behavior. The group members were students whose…

Students' sense of community is at the heart of their college success and can be impacted by many factors, including staff, programming, and hall design, as well as demographic variables such as age, ethnicity, and gender. The purpose of this study is to investigate how gender and student housing type at a faith-based institution influence sense…

A heterogeneous student body is valued in part because diverse interactions among students help create educated and competent citizens and promote learning and development. Campus housing is a primary setting for diverse interactions as students navigate living with individuals who differ from themselves. This study investigated how the roommate…

Construction and new facility decisions regarding student housing remain difficult for many colleges and universities. Challenges associated with these decisions include rising building costs, waning government funding, daunting facility safety codes, and compliance with evolving accessibility legislation, among many factors. One solution,…

Sense of belonging is critical for students throughout their college experience, and even more so now, given the current concerns about undergraduate graduation rates. The purpose of this study was to explore how students' perception of their sense of belonging on campus is affected by where and with whom they live. We utilized a multidimensional…

Modernizing perspectives on roommate compatibility might be one way that administrators reinforce the value of the roommate experience in contemporary campus housing. Using the insights of a study published by Hallisey, Harren, and Caple in "Journal of College and University Student Housing" in 1980 as a springboard, this article will…

Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) develop and strengthen students' persistence by providing a greater sense of community, opportunities for co-curricular activities, and socially engaging and academically supportive peer environments (Shapiro & Levine, 1999). While researchers have affirmed the rationale, impact, and efficacy of LLCs, very…

Students of Color Experience predominantly White institutions (PWIs) differently than do White students in terms of belonging, support, connecting, and success. While this topic has been explored broadly, there remain gaps in the literature about experiences of Students of Color in the context of residential communities, which provide the setting…

Social integration for lateral transfer students (four-to-four-year) is promoted by a living environment that encourages learning about campus, connecting to resources, and developing peer groups. Interviews with 27 lateral transfer students revealed that those who had previously lived on campus had expectations that residence halls would provide…

The purpose of this study was to examine the demographic and academic variables of students involved in roommate changes to determine which variables predict who will move from a room and who will stay in a room and what alternatives to current housing arrangements are selected by those who initiate the roommate changes. [This article was…

Students enter college with preconceived ideas about what their experience of college life will be like. Since the first Hollywood film about college, movies have contributed to society's perceptions of what it means to be a college student. Contrary to the images promoted by higher education marketing departments, Hollywood's portrayals…

Blind dates can go awry, but a roommate mismatch can spoil a semester. Nasty habits. Bitter grudges. Epic stand-offs over square inches. Luckily, most pairings don't get that ugly, whether campuses make them randomly or by running survey responses through a computer. These days many students even control their own fates: More and more colleges let…

Cutting-Edge provides inclusion in college for students with intellectual disabilities (SWID). Cutting-Edge students attended college by taking undergraduate courses, resided in student housing, and engaged in student-life events as well as pursued community service, internships and employment. Undergraduate students were the best means to teach…

These two conference papers from the Biennial Conference on Postsecondary Education for Persons who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing focus on campus life issues for individuals with deafness or hard of hearing. The first paper, "A Customized Residence Hall Experience for Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing" (Nancy Kasinski and others), describes…