| This qualitative in-depth interview study posed a broad research question about the lived experiences, from their own vantage point, of Black male college students at a large, public Predominantly White Institution in the Northeast United States. Study participants were eight undergraduate Black male college students within the Black Male Student Union organization at Barbaro University. Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar and Arellano's (2012) model for diverse learning environments provided a framework to study how the various dimensions of the campus climate influenced the sense of belonging for the Black male college students at the PWI under study. In-depth interviews with participants offered insight into these students' reported sense of belonging with respect to the academic and social realms of campus life, including elements of the campus environment. Their responses and the five themes that emerged across participants' stories revealed that all eight participants in this study did not feel as though they belonged at Barbaro University. Findings from this study also demonstrated that these students' sense of belonging was shaped by their perceptions of the campus racial climate, peer interactions, student-faculty interactions, and their participation in a same-race campus organization. |
