No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent
A part of the main.
— John Donne

The need to belong is a universal and defining feature of being human. When people feel welcomed, respected, and accepted, they can thrive in challenging circumstances. On the flipside, feeling like an outsider or an outcast can be psychologically crippling.

When young adults head off to college, this fundamental need becomes particularly acute. Often living away from home for the first time, navigating unfamiliar surroundings and exploring a bewildering array of career paths, students yearn for belonging and social acceptance among their peers and communities.

Considering the challenges of the last few years, nearly a quarter of college students reported depression or anxiety in 2023—almost 10 percent more than pre-pandemic rates. The problem is more pronounced among students from underrepresented groups or among the first generation in their family to go to college. 

“The way most universities have dealt with this is by hiring counselors,” said Greg Jones, a theologian who became president of Belmont University in 2021. But Belmont is taking a more proactive approach. Jones, who is also a trustee at the John Templeton Foundation, asserts that mental health and emotional capacity can rise by fostering a greater sense of belonging. 

Their approach is supported by seminal research on belonging by psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary. Their hypothesis contends that the need to belong exists in all cultures throughout human history.

In a recent interview with a research journal, Leary doubled down on the pervasiveness of the need to belong.

Leary and Baumeister’s initial research in the 1990s focused on interpersonal belonging—the individual relationships forged between friends and loved ones. However, over 25 years later, they reflected on the need to add more consideration for belonging within larger groups. 

Leary emphasized the need for belonging in schools given the negative ramifications that result without it. “Low belonging in school may be a central cause of depression in children and adolescents,” he said.

At Belmont, fostering belonging is a mission situated within the Office of Hope, Unity and Belonging (known on campus as the HUB), which also works to promote fairness and full participation for all people. This framework is usually dubbed “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), but Belmont leaders want to go deeper than what is typically expected or required by law. D’Angelo Taylor, the institution’s first vice president of the uniquely named office, said the new frontier is belonging.

Taylor’s peers at other institutions often compliment the scope of his office and affirm the need for more emphasis on belonging. As he explains it, Taylor wants Belmont to be “a place that my lived experience is being honored and seen and is worthy in the eyes of the folks I engage with.”

“We want people to feel that this is your community, not just some place they’re being included,” said Jones. “What you really long for is a symphony”—where there are differences, but there is unity and purpose—“where people come together, where people find belonging to a same community.”

Belmont, which is an ecumenical Christian university, tends to enroll a predominantly white, Christian student body. But in recent years, campus minister Heather Daugherty says, it has been rapidly diversifying with people from minority or marginalized communities, other religious traditions, or none at all. In recent years, the institution has articulated the goal of creating a campus culture where everyone belongs amid student differences—a foundation that Jones believes gets to an underlying cause of rising mental health challenges: a lack of belonging or connectedness.

Taylor’s office runs programs and supports growth in belonging in a variety of ways, including heritage celebrations, thoughtful conversations around traumatic current events, and a well-resourced student center.

One offering, a relationship-building program called Unlikely Friends helps students navigate uncomfortable divisions that have led to some feeling like they don’t belong. The program bases its name on an idea from Jones’ book. “Unlikely friends’ play a pivotal role in uncovering blind spots, challenging biases, and building bridges that foster communal flourishing,” summed up Daugherty, who leads the program.

In the early implementation phases, Unlikely Friends aspires to build a path towards collective well-being at Belmont. Recently, the first cohort of 30 students participated in skill-building exercises over four weeks of shared dinners, discussing race, religion, gender roles, and political elections. The eclectic group included people from different religious backgrounds, genders, ages, and ethnic backgrounds. 

“On a college campus, when you’re eating in the dining hall, it’s very easy to put people in boxes,” said Daugherty. Humans often sort themselves into groups of “who looks like me, worships like me, votes like me… The easier thing to do is write off the people who did not vote like I do.”

Such behavior is not surprising. Humans have limits to how many relationships they can sustain, and they gravitate towards those they perceive to be like-minded. Leary said that we “associate with people differentially based on interests, beliefs, values, skills, and other characteristics.” 

Unfortunately, this means that exclusion is inevitable. Individuals’ judgements can divide people who might need to cooperate or cause unfair repercussions for others. Further, those who are more likely to feel excluded, such as minority populations and first-generation students, are more likely to experience mental health challenges.

Psychologists have long known that social support can alleviate poor mental health. But belonging implies more than having a safety net when things go wrong—belonging builds emotional strength and a positive experience of connectedness with groups, people, and places. In college, students may feel a sense of belonging—or not—to their sports team, their major, or their dorm or fraternity. In the broader scheme of things, they may feel a strong sense of connectedness with their institution.

But to feel this requires continued engagement, and not just shallow interactions, but deeper ones. For Taylor, the biggest obstacle to fostering belonging is “getting people in the space to have conversations about their lived experiences and find the humanity in one another.” That might necessarily require multiple programs or access points and, at times, innovations like Unlikely Friends. 

Will Belmont reach its aims? That’s where hope enters, said Taylor. “Hope sustains. Hope keeps us going.” Hope embraces the idea that there can be a better future and provides the motivation to reach it—together.