PERCEPTIONS AND EXPERIENCE OF
STUDENT COMMUNITY AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Somer Finlay and Richard Jenkins
August 2008
(Summary version)
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

‘Community’ is highly valued by students. It’s something they
want, and they feel the lack of when it’s not there. It’s
something that contributes significantly to a sense of well-being
and to an ability to negotiate transitions.

Students generally do experience a sense of community, of
belonging, somewhere in university life, though they don’t
necessarily express it as a sense of belonging to the institution as
a whole.

The data suggest that community is a complex concept; it’s
diverse, multi-dimensional, and different people understand and
experience it in different ways. It’s a felt state, a subjective
experience.

Community is ‘organic’ and self-organising from a student
perspective. It can’t be forced, and organisational arrangements
can’t, in themselves, create a sense of community. It is ‘bottom
up’ rather than ‘top down’. This suggests that creating the
right conditions in which students can develop community is likely
to be the most helpful, or even the only realistic, approach.

The research data do, however, reveal much good practice within
the University that could helpfully be shared. There is material
about what helpful conditions for facilitating community are, what
might be constraints, what we understand by the term community
and why it should matter to the University.

Significant numbers of students, for one reason or another, feel
excluded from a sense of community and the University should
support them (which, of course, already happens to a large extent).
Awareness of community could be a dimension of the
University’s approach to student transitions.
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
Talking about the idea and importance of community, and
establishing spaces for discussing it, for sharing ideas and
experience, might encourage the development of community
within the University more generally.

There is already a considerable amount of community-building
work, which is not organised or informed by a ‘community
strategy’. Consideration should be given to the development of
a University-wide approach (including both students and staff)
that would recognise publicly the importance of community, and
encourage departments to work to their strengths and think
about community in ways that work for them.

The centrality to many students’ lives of on-line social
networking sites, such as Facebook, is a recurrent theme in the
data. There is much material to suggest that these sites are a
positive presence in many students’ lives, which do indeed
facilitate self-organising community. Another recurrent theme is
that this is very much regarded as a social space into which the
University should not project itself too intrusively.

Finally, we recognise that there are some paradoxes involved in
trying to create “community” or a “sense of belonging”. First
that community building creates a sense of exclusivity, a stronger
boundary around the group concerned. Second, that community
tends to develop organically, in a self-organised way rather than
through direct organisational action. In trying to “do
something” about community therefore, the most valuable thing
we can do is likely to be to create the conditions under which it
can prosper.
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BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
2.1
Project Plan
This project arose from commitments in the University’s Student
Support Strategy, in particular that the University will:

enable every student to build sound relationships with other
students, within academic departments and within the institution
as a whole.

contribute to the creation of a sense of belonging in the
University and to the building of self-regulating communities of
students.
The concept of a ‘sense of belonging’ is also referred to in Our Shared
Vision.
Project aims:
To discover what ‘community’ and ‘belonging’ mean to students
and to identify existing good practice in order to disseminate this within
the institution.
Project objectives:

To investigate existing community-building activity from the
perspective of ‘service providers’, principally the key partners in
our institutional Student Support Strategy (Student Services, ACS,
Union of Students, academic departments), alongside other
stakeholders such as U Sport, Graduate Research Office, Alumni
Relations and colleagues responsible for student Safety/Security.

To undertake a selective investigation among our own students, in
order to explore their understanding, perception and experiences
of community, probably via a short survey and follow-up focus
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groups. It has been agreed that PGR students would be included
within this research.

As appropriate to make reference to relevant academic research,
and to engage with staff in the Department of Sociological
Studies who have offered consultancy support.

To benchmark comparable practice elsewhere.

To identify key ‘success factors’ for effective campus
community in our context.

To collate good practice exemplars, to be shared widely within the
University.

To suggest areas for future work and development.
Potential project benefits:

An improved understanding of students’ experiences of
community on campus, including the increasing influence of online virtual communities.

An increased emphasis on community building within the work of
the various student support ‘stakeholders’, adopting a more
intentional and strategic approach in this respect.

A better appreciation of the relevance of community networks to
the student experience.

The better integration of minority and/or marginal groups within
the overall student community.
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
A better long-term engagement with the University by students,
post-graduation (“friend-raising”).

Improved communication between staff and students, especially
on-line communication.

An improved student sense of ‘belonging’ is likely to have a
positive impact on student satisfaction and academic success.
2.2
Community and belonging
Before reporting the findings, a few words are necessary about how we
are using the notion of ‘community’ here. Although it was one of the
founding concepts of the modern social sciences, there is a long history
of controversy, particularly within human geography, social anthropology
and sociology, about the meaning and analytical value of the notion of
community.
Many social scientists argued during the 1960s and 1970s that the
concept was imprecise (meaning many different things to different
people), ideological (as a ‘feel good’ word to which no-one could
object, hence its many political and policy uses) and inaccurate
(underplaying conflict and overplaying cohesion). As a result, even
though it was in widespread vernacular use, social scientists turned their
attention away from community studies and turned their backs on
‘community’ as an analytical concept.
More recently, however, particularly from the late 1990s onwards, there
has been something of a revival of the concept of ‘community’ in
social science. This is partly in recognition of the fact that - precisely
because of its many ‘real world’ uses - it simply cannot be ignored,
and partly because of a genuine need to find some way of talking about
an important, basic human phenomenon, namely the shared sense of
belonging, with others, to collectivities, from families to nations.
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In this report, it is the latter sense of ‘community’ that is intended,
which might just as accurately be called ‘belonging’. Belonging and
community are important dimensions of human life, which arguably
contribute to individual emotional and physical well-being. Their
presence or absence is an important aspect of the experience of
everyday life in large organisations. These aspects of individual and
collective life are not exclusive or monolithic, however: we all participate
in, or belong to, many different communities, and we do so
simultaneously.
It is important to note that we did not attempt to pre-define meanings of
‘community’. We did not tell students or staff, before they took part in
the research, how they should understand the concept for the purposes
of this inquiry. This was because, first, staff and students had their own,
pre-existing understandings of the notion, which we were unlikely to be
able to suppress, and, second, particularly with respect to the students,
we were trying, albeit indirectly, to ‘get at’ meanings and experiences
of ‘community’ from their points of view.
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KEY FINDINGS
3.1
What is ‘community’ at the University of Sheffield?
Students and staff offered many different definitions and experiences of
community. In starting to define community, and develop a language
that can be understood by all, it is important to look at these many
perspectives. The main themes are:

‘Identity’ means being able to identify with a wider group and
being identified as part of that group, but also having an
increasingly diverse identity and belonging to multiple
communities, virtual as well as rooted in locality.

A ‘shared understanding’ means having a shared interest or
common goal with others, working together with other people as
part of a team.

‘Connection’ is about having friends and attachments, feeling
settled and not isolated or lonely. Multiple relationships and a
network of support that avoids unhealthy dependency are both
important. Opportunities for communities to interact with each
other matter, too, as do regular face-to-face interaction, knowing
your neighbour and being surrounded by familiar faces, and just
knowing that ‘someone is there’.

‘Contribution’ refers to taking an active part in, and
contributing to, the community/communities: being involved in all
areas of university life, academically, personally, socially, and
locally. It also suggests having the freedom to engage or
disengage, and opportunities to participate without any pressure
to do so. This is an inclusive environment in which one can
participate if one wishes, in which one can develop and express
oneself safely.
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
‘Choice and variety’ denoted multi-layered and accessible
opportunities to be part of something.

‘Sense of ownership: Responsibility to your community as well
as rights. Being part of a student-led community and one where
there is routine so that you can put down roots.

‘Something of value’ suggests a place or institution that one
can be proud to be part of, a source of long-lasting memories.
This requires something tangible to buy into and a sense of
tradition, something that is real and ‘organic’.

‘Feeling safe and secure’ requires spaces that are wellmanaged and maintained, in which students feel safe and secure,
and where they know that student services are working together
to support them.
3.2
Why ‘community’ matters to the University

Because there is a connection between feeling one belongs to a
community and emotional well-being.

Because feeling ‘grounded’ cannot be underestimated,
especially for young people.

Because emotional well-being is an important factor encouraging
academic success.

Because happy students are more likely to become happy alumni
and sense of community is an essential building block for this.

Because a sense of belonging now is a necessary ingredient of the
success of future communities connected to the University.
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
Because a strong sense of community among students will help to
create positive perceptions of Sheffield and the University of
Sheffield.
3.3
Key factors that may encourage effective ‘campus
community’ at the University of Sheffield

Enabling students to make their own decisions and to develop a
sense of ownership within their community.

An environment that encourages and supports freedom of
expression.

Recognition that student culture has changed and that students
belong to, and participate in, many ‘communities’.

Support for individual students, through Student Services,
personal tutors, ACS etc.

Successful community initiatives often result from acts of
individual leadership; time for people to interact and the existence
of social spaces are also critical factors.

Active involvement from academic departments on issues of
student welfare and social relations.

Better relationships between academic and support staff and
between individual departments and the University.

A University that is seen to listen to students in reality as well as
rhetoric.

Commitment to a University-wide sense of community, embracing
students and staff, to which diverse smaller communities can feel
they belong.
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
An environment in which home and overseas students can enter
into constructive and mutually supportive relationships.
3.4
Key factors that may inhibit effective ‘campus community’
at the University of Sheffield

Constraints on staff and student time.

The non-availability of appropriate social spaces, in academic
departments in particular.

Communication issues.

The lack of an explicit university-wide community strategy.

A very diverse student population.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
Strategy
1. Create a university-wide management strategy, or at least a more
intentional approach, to guide community building activity. This would
provide focus to existing extensive activity and would help us to think
in a more coordinated way about an important issue that the University
addresses in its key values statement.
2. The approach taken should be facilitative in nature rather than
prescriptive, setting out to create the conditions under which
community can develop, recognising that this tends to happen
organically rather than as a result of deliberate organisational action.
3. The University could set out to factor community into key
organisational planning processes: capital, curriculum and service
development for example.
4. A student community strategy could be a sub-set of the Student
Support Strategy, alongside others on Student Mental Health,
Internationalisation, Transition, Supporting the Supporters and so on.
Ideally, there should be activity on sense of belonging for both students
and staff given their close interconnectedness.
5. Recognise publicly the importance of community both to students
themselves and to the institution as a whole. Encourage departments to
work to their strengths and think about community in ways that work
for them.
6. Continue to gather data about community, for example through the
NSS, the TORA survey and staff survey.
Creating a dialogue about student community
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7. Create a dialogue in the institution, talking about the importance of
community; establish spaces and opportunities for discussing it and for
sharing ideas and experiences. Start by sharing this report.
8. We have learned a good deal about student community in the course
of this research: about what community is, about the conditions that
tend to encourage it and about constraints. We’ve also identified lots
of good practice. We should share all this. We could also bring together
people within the University carrying out research in this field.
Supporting the excluded
9. Maintain and develop our focus on those who seem to be excluded
from community. (We already work extensively in this area).Build this
into our work on student transitions.
Other specific areas for action
10. Enabling better integration of international and home students.
11. Recognising the importance of 1st-year accommodation in student
experience of community.
12. Recognising the potential for creating greater sense of community in
the teaching and learning arena, under developed at present.
Copies of the full report are available from:
Alan Phillips
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Associate Director of Student Services (Student Health and Well-Being)
alan.phillips@sheffield.ac.uk
Tel; 24136
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