An exploration of belonging through student union employment

Despite there being numerous studies on leadership, persistence, and sense of belonging, there are few studies that examine these constructs for student employees who work in student unions. The number of students employed, on or off campus, while working on a degree is increasing (Watanabe, 2005). One of the places on campus where students can work is the student union, also known as the living room of campus (Association of College Unions International [ACUI], n.d.a). With this growing number of working students, it is important to develop a better understanding of how students who work at student unions develop a sense of belonging, leadership development, and persist to degree attainment. This purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the sense of belonging of eight student employees who worked in a student union at a South Texas institution and how the development of leadership skills, if any, aided in their persistence. This study employed a single bounded case study method because of the ability to get rich descriptions and insightful explanations from student union student workers. For this study, the single-bounded case is framed by the student union employment. This study was framed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory (1979), which discusses how a person’s sense of belonging is directly related to how they experience their environment. As a result of analyzing the data, three main themes emerged; Cultivating Relationships to Create a Sense of Belonging, Cultivating Development through Student Employment, and Thriving in a Supportive UC Environment. The findings suggest that time spent as a student employee in the student union has an extremely positive impact on student’s sense of belonging, their development of leadership and transferable skills, and a supportive environment has assisted them in their persistence to degree attainment. Overall, the findings of the study suggest that employment in the UC provided participants with opportunities to engage with the larger campus community. This demonstrates that student union employment should be looked at more as student development than merely an employment opportunity.