Creating a Sense of Belonging Through Personal Connection
Students who live on-campus at the University of South Carolina will have the opportunity to create and maintain relationships with peers, faculty, and staff who contribute to a students’ support network. Feeling connected with others helps students feel that they matter, belong in the community, and can contribute to a safe, healthy, and productive living and learning environment. Students who feel that they belong and matter can take pride in and ownership of their home at UofSC.
Develop a sense of belonging at Carolina
• Identify a support network
• Describe a personal definition for self-confidence
• Explore their identity in college
Learn to navigate healthy relationships
• Develop meaningful interpersonal relationships with peers, faculty, and staff
• Practice effective verbal communication skills
• Define consent and decision making in personal relationships
• Practice actions that demonstrate respect to peers, faculty, and staff
Be empowered to readily access resources from a caring network of supportive peers and professionals within the Carolina community
• Identify resources within their residence hall and across campus to support holistic
personal health
• Participate in opportunities through their residence hall, including leadership
roles such as Resident Mentor, Hall Government, EcoRep, etc.
• Participate in 1 or more campus organization or experience of interest
Create meaningful memories in their residential community
• Co-create community (floor and hall) events and traditions
• Experience campus events and traditions with peers in their residential community
• Reflect upon the residential experience with their community and Resident Mentor
Building Inclusive Communities
Living the Carolinian Creed involves having open, brave spaces for students to explore identity, biases, and opportunities to learn about themselves and others. Physical and psychological safety in the residential environment creates opportunities for students to practice self-discovery, exploration of differences, conflict management skills, and to affirm similarities and differences among peers, faculty, and staff.
Be empowered to practice the Carolinian Creed
• Explore meaningful interactions with peers who hold different identities, ideas,
experiences, or opinions than their own
• Demonstrate concern for the feelings of others
• Demonstrate respect for the rights and property of others
• Exhibit respect for the dignity of each person
Have the opportunity to learn how to build a safe living environment
• Develop positive relationships with peers across difference
• Express ideas and thoughts with respect and care
• Recognize the impact of personal actions within a community
• Explore difference through respectful conversations with others
• Communicate openly to resolve interpersonal conflicts
Recognize the community as a welcoming environment where all differences are valued
• Critically reflect on personal life experiences
• Describe the values, beliefs, abilities, and affiliations that shape their personal
identity
• Discuss how worldviews are shaped by cultural norms, values, beliefs, identity,
and biases
Cultivating Dynamic Learning Environments
Students will actively progress in their academic pursuits in a residential environment that supports and enhances class attendance, utilization of academic resources, and interaction with faculty. Understanding how environmental aspects such as noise, space, and relationships influence well-being and learning is important for residential students. Exploring academic resiliency through navigating challenges, setbacks, and hardships are at the heart of learning. These priorities will lead to the development of academic interests and exploration of an academic major and career potential.
Each student will increase their growth mindset
• Seek support from others who have experienced failures
• Identify learning opportunities from failures
• Evaluate strategies for success
• Implement effective success strategies in college
Consider how their living environment impacts their academic success
• Identify two spaces within their residence hall or on-campus that were created to
support their academic success
• Establish ground rules with their roommates/suitemates that support good academic/study
habits
• Design their room to accommodate their study needs
Each student will interact with faculty and staff beyond the classroom to enh nce learning
- Identify opportunities to engage with faculty/staff within the halls
- Establish relationships with faculty/staff that support learning
- Discover how to connect their interests with faculty research opportunities
- Co-design learning opportunities that apply in the classroom knowledge
Each student will utilize university resources available to support academic persistence
• Recognize when to seek help proactively
• Distinguish which university resource is most appropriate for their needs
• Develop a routine that includes utilizing university resources
Empowering Student Growth and Resiliency
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity or sources of stress. As much as resilience involves "bouncing back" from challenging experiences, it also involves deep personal growth. Developing resiliency includes behaviors, strategies, and actions that students can learn and practice daily. Forming habits related to self-compassion, re-framing life and academic struggles to embrace learning and growth, and acknowledging that failure is a natural part of each person’s journey equips students to build a menu of skills that can help them cope with, adapt to, and move through setbacks.
Each student will learn how to respond to challenges with self-compassion
• Develop a personal definition of failure
• Recognize how to reframe failure as an opportunity
• Practice perseverance through healthy strategies
• Manage adversity with flexibility
• Practice self-compassion
Each student will learn or further develop tactics of holistic well-being
• Define what holistic well-being means for their daily life
• Utilize campus resources that address all components of well-being
• Practice strategies to support their personal well-being
Each student will learn to normalize common struggles college students experience
• Identify a support team
• Develop the capacity for vulnerability in a trusting environment
• Engage in a dialogue with peers about struggles
• Recognize negative thinking traps and how to counteract them