Developing Belonging and Mattering as BIPOC Students through Student Consulting
Authored by a BIPOC undergraduate student and drawing on the experiences of several other BIPOC students, this essay weaves together four voices to address the question of why pedagogical partnerships matter to BIPOC students in particular. The essay explores themes of exclusion and validation and argues that pedagogical partnerships can increase belonging and mattering for BIPOC students.
This essay seeks to put into conversation four separate perspectives, including my own, of current and past BIPOC student consultants while explicitly looking at belonging and mattering. In the broadest sense, belonging can be thought of as a feeling connection and fit in a particular context, while mattering is, according to Cook-Sather and colleagues (2024), transferable across rather than dependent on context, and it is based on feeling valued for who one is rather than on fitting in. I will look at belonging and mattering through the lens of BIPOC student consultants’ experiences in the predominantly white institutions (PWI’s) of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges. PWI’s, such as the Bi-Co, were not built for BIPOC students and faculty. Therefore, I take the stance that striving for belonging and mattering in these contexts is not only an act of resistance against the system but also a celebration of the diversity and wealth of perspectives that are gained through putting the perspectives of BIPOC student consultants in conversation. I utilize these claims to offer suggestions for further developing belonging and mattering for BIPOC students.