THE NARRATIVE EXPERIENCES OF BLACK AND BROWN FIRST GENERATION FRATERNITY MEN IN HISTORICALLY WHITE FRATERNITIES

Part of the higher education structure is the co-curricular experience, and is a way for students to develop a sense of belonging on campus, which leads to positive outcomes, like self-actualization and persistence (Strayhorn, 2012, 2018). This study is to better understand the lived experiences through narrative inquiry of fraternity men’s sense of belonging and why they persist through graduation. However, as my study progressed I only had men of color volunteer as participants for my study. This offered a different lens as well as different lived experiences of members of Alpha Tau Omega and Delta Sigma Phi. A student’s academic experience, however, is only a piece of the overall college student experience. Since the founding of America’s oldest colleges, students have engaged in co-curricular activities that provided them the opportunity to interact with one another away from the classrooms and (watchful eyes of) faculty members (Thelin, 2011). Student interaction, both in and out of class with their peers, faculty members, and administrators, is essential to developing a sense of belonging on campus (Manley Lima, 2014; Strayhorn, 2012, 2018). Strayhorn (2018) has argued that because sense of belonging leads to student success, an institution’s ability to assist a student with developing a sense of belonging directly relates to successful persistence and graduation.