You Belong

Nebraska Wesleyan University’s strength is built on our community members’ support of one another. Together, we create an educational institution and a social community where a diverse array of individuals belong to one another and strengthen the university.

This semester, we’ve had to pay closer attention to how we create a community where everyone feels they belong. Social connection—in the classroom and out—has become more difficult in a time when we show care by remaining physically distant. A polarized country, where public health and human rights are politicized, adds to the challenge.

President Darrin Good has shared his immediate and deep sense that he belongs at Nebraska Wesleyan. He also recognizes that not everyone finds their place in this community so automatically. “So many things—my own education at a small liberal arts school, my position and my identity as a white man with a PhD—make it easy for me to feel comfortable in this environment. I hope everyone experiences a similar sense of belonging at Nebraska Wesleyan, but I know that not everyone does—or at least not as quickly as I did.”

So President Good has set out on a mission: “I strive to make Nebraska Wesleyan University a place where we all work toward that feeling of belonging for every person on campus.”

Nebraska Wesleyan’s foundational culture is one of individual relationships, with personal attention to students at the fore. While COVID-19 is a hurdle to some of the ways students and faculty connect with one another, one-on-one relationships continue to flourish. This year, faculty are relying on virtual technologies for individual advising. They are balancing technology and safety while delivering the same exceptional education through hybrid instruction models.

President Good knows that faculty-student relationships are often the roots of belonging in a small-college experience. “At Nebraska Wesleyan, faculty are hired and tenured to be excellent teachers. With my faculty background, I understand the incredibly hard work of faculty focused on student success as well as the joy of teaching in a setting focused on personal attention to each student. The expectation is that faculty will challenge students’ worldviews in healthy and nurturing ways grounded in the liberal arts.” Nebraska Wesleyan’s broad and deep curriculum prepares students for their professional life in any field. And it empowers them to consider and define their worldviews for themselves.

“As I’ve gotten to know our students, I’ve learned that Nebraska Wesleyan students really are special,” President Good says. “They are earnest and mature. They take responsibility for their own behavior and know their choices affect their peers and community.” With the tagline and hashtag Protect the Pack, our Prairie Wolf students take seriously their role in keeping day-to-day life as normal as possible.

Throughout 2020, faculty and staff have had the opportunity to follow students’ lead in conversations of racial justice. In events on campus and virtual discussions, Nebraska Wesleyan students are creating space for dialogue around their own experiences and taking leading roles in institutional conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion within the community.

As students step up to lead, faculty and staff are mindful that students need more mental, emotional and academic support than ever to handle isolation or quarantine and the great weight of the world in 2020. President Good goes back to NWU’s culture of faculty commitment to students to bolster his confidence that every student can find belonging—even in this time. “When I talk to alumni, I hear the same sentiment again and again, ‘I found my voice’ or ‘I found my career path because a professor convinced me that I could achieve my goals.’”