Chapter 4: “My Idea of College Is That’s Where You Make Your Connections”: Connecting and Surviving

Chapter 3 explored how and why being seen at college, especially by professors, matters so profoundly to New Majority students. This deep hunger for recognition for being known of course has a lot to do with students’ anxieties and doubts, the “Imposter Syndrome” that they often reference. It is hard to do your best when the social environment confirms rather than lessens your worst fears.

But New Majority students also love making connections with faculty because they love making connections. They usually come from highly sociable families and cultures and from an early age have been key parts of a team, a household, in which each member must contribute to ensure success, often under very difficult circumstances. And in fact they often create very warm, collaborative relationships at PSU. Many of these micro-environments of course exist where New Majority students dominate, in the scholarship programs and cultural centers that serve them. But New Majority students often create powerful communities on their own, inside and outside of classrooms, both because of and in spite of their professors.

Gaining Awareness and Navigating for Academic Success (GANAS) Program

The department that we heard mentioned most frequently that students had absolutely no complaints about was the GANAS Program, which stands for Gaining Awareness and Navigating for Academic Success, and is part of the Diversity Scholarship Program. GANAS serves a significant minority of Latine students as PSU.

GANAS members commonly talk of the incredible sense of mutual support they experience from each other. Much of this is built into the program, through its peer mentor structure. After the first year, many students return to mentor first-year students. “Without GANAS,” Anonymous 19 concludes, “I wouldn’t have known how to navigate my first year,” and she became a mentor in the program her second year. “My whole career at PSU, I was with GANAS,” she concludes; “they were really good at building community.” “My whole career at PSU, I was with GANAS,” she concludes; “they were really good at building community.”The program “showed us that we were worth investing in! We matter!” remarks Cheyla Urbano-Santos.

Michelle Galvan asked her friends from GANAS to take classes and share textbook costs with her: “We studied together, and that made it so much easier.” She mentored her last three years at PSU and made friends that she has kept after graduating. “Jumping into GANAS is probably what got me through college,” she concludes. It would have been “ten times harder” without it. Anonymous 1 also identified GANAS as key to her success, as it is “a tight-knit community” where “we laugh at the same things.”

Students praise GANAS staff for taking a particular interest in each student. Anonymous 26 cited her monthly meetings with Director Emanuel Magaña, who would ask “what is your goal for this term?” and “Do you need more support?” With this much help, she thought, “I have to push myself.” Anonymous 19 remembers crying in Emanuel’s office–who then helped her to solve her challenge. Lily A. appreciated that Emanuel was constantly telling each student after their conversations, “reach out if you need anything,” and, when she did, he could sometimes “fix the problem in one email.” She further states, “Being able to have him as a resource when I needed support whether it be academic or personal, and being able to actually seek help knowing he cares for his students is something I will always be grateful for.”

Student Organizations and Cultural Resource Centers

New Majority students also frequently praise student organizations, particularly the Cultural Resource Centers. Anonymous 9 is grateful to the Middle East, North Africa, South Asian Student Center (MENASA) for being “really inclusive” and welcoming. Without the Pan-African Commons and MENASA, reflects Thierry Ndayisaba, “I would [have] dropped out.” “As a human,” he explains, “we need someone to talk to,” specifically people you share a culture and first language with.

First-year student Elizabeth Rodriguez made lots of friends at La Casa Latina in her first term, and by Spring term, “I’ve felt like I belong.” She found there a group of students whose families are also from Michoacán, “people with the same values” as her: “family, keeping relatives really close, laughing a lot, pushing through when circumstances are really tough.” Liliane Kwizera “would retreat into myself” in her classes, then started going to Pan-African Commons her junior year, and “was able to kind of get out of my shell,” as “I felt very supported by the people in that group.” There, “I felt 100% myself, I could yell.” Lily Hathaway, a trans woman, was immediately drawn to the Women’s Resource Center: “I still talk to some of the people I met that first day.” “I feel very cozy here,” she sums up, “in a way I hadn’t really felt before,” growing up in a more isolated environment.

Students sometimes enjoyed spending time at resource centers that did not match their own ethnicity. Stenar Narrhun is in the habit of heading over to Smith Hall late in the afternoons, as there is “always something going on,” good food and socializing. The Cambodia Club became his favorite place to hang out. Mohammed Al Qudah, who is from Jordan, enjoys the Pacific Islander, Asian, & Asian American Student Center. Anna Bui, who is Vietnamese, found that “when I went to the student clubhouse, La Casa Latina, . . . I was so welcome.” “It just made me feel warm,” she recalls, “I got to make friends.” “I realized how important PSU student clubs and communities are in my college journey, where I got to make friends, share beautiful memories, learning to be a better and more compassionate human being.” Anna has been very active in a club for pre-health students whose career goals are toward healthcare and medicine:

The club is called ‘Women’s Collaboration for Pre-Health Students,’ our mission and goal are to create a safe, supportive, empowering, and uplifting space for women and those who support women pursuing careers in healthcare. It describes it as a space where we come together to share resources, opportunities, and even vulnerability with one another about the barriers women face.

Most of all, students talk about how they loved being in spaces where they could relax, could be themselves, could take off their masks. Anonymous 30 describes the cultural resource centers as places where “there are people who get me.” They are a place to find “your people,” recalls Balkhiis Noor. “We’re all struggling,” remarks Lily A., “but we’re all struggling together.” She has to “dial it down a little bit” when she interacts with faculty; “I cross my legs when I’m meeting with my white professors,” as they give off a “I have a doctorate degree” vibe. In GANAS, she can be loud, speak Spanglish, and curse. “I know I belong at PSU because of GANAS,” she concludes, “other than that I feel I don’t belong.” “GANAS “really helps me find a sense of community, says Noemi Cruz Garcia. At GANAS, remarks Anonymous 8, “there are people who look like me and are going through the same struggles.”

La Casa Latina, summarizes Stephani Jeronimo-Martinez, “was a space that just felt safe.” Tamlyn Tashiro has been part of both the Multicultural Retention program for Asian American, Pacific Islander students and EMPOWER. In these organizations, “surrounded by a lot of brown people,” students feel less “guarded” than in classrooms and are able to connect more easily, even “casually.” Students often experience “trauma bonding,” finding out that they “went through” and “go through” similar challenges.”It’s the students who help each other through” the hard times, she reflects, “it’s the students who help other students to belong.” Being at La Casa Latina, reflects Liza Ramirez, gives her the feeling of “I can still do it,” that “I deserve it,” and I’m not the only one struggling.” “I felt peace, I can talk about my problems,” recalls Anonymous 26. “Whatever you are going through, having that smile,” sharing that understanding that “we’re going through this together, you’re not alone.”

Other Support Programs and Student Clubs

Though the scholarship programs and cultural resource centers were the most commonly cited sources of support for New Majority students, many found a great deal of support in other corners of campus, especially other scholarship programs. Stacy Martinez Arroyo and Daisy Duran Navarro credit TRIO, a federal program for students from under-represented backgrounds, with being key to their success at PSU. Lucy Martinez feels especially supported by TRIO director Linda Lui: “I love her so much, she’s my favorite person.” “I love her so much, she’s my favorite person.” She is able to talk to her about whatever is on her mind, from worrying about her aging cat to how to get into an art class.

Anonymous F2 appreciated Summer Bridge and then relied heavily on Gabe Hernandez in TRIO: “I only figured things out by going to Gabe.” BUILD EXITO, funded by a ten-year federal grant that has just expired, engages undergraduates in research. It was “absolutely the most impactful program” of Olivia Monestime’s career. Gio Garcia leaned on his College Possible coach at PSU as well as in high school. Dulcebeth Lopez Martinez got a head start on college at PSU’s summer scholars’ program, where she learned about campus resources and made some strong personal connections, all of which helped this self-described “shy” person to get ready for her classes in the fall.

Hector Amezola felt the most belonging” with the other members of the Motor Sport Club, which provided members with “a place to hang out” and “study together,” to “build community.” He was able to travel with other club members to several competitions across the U.S., and also learned valuable leadership skills, including “how to deal with troublesome members,” that he is sure were instrumental to his finding a job in mechanical engineering immediately after graduating. Martin Valle, who at first had wondered if he “belonged on this pathway” of science and pre-veterinarian studies, says that becoming an officer in the Veterinarian Club “has definitely helped me.” “I can be comfortable in this community,” he realized, and, after making more than 60 applications, he has been offered his first job in the field.

Adylene Garcia loved being part of PSU’s tennis club. “We all really cared for each other,” she remarks, “like a family.” “I had a community that cared about me.” Amer Bonie joined a PSU student group that “forced me” to socialize and also taught him about event planning and budgeting. Jo Do has felt most at home in her work in PSU’s sororities and as a peer mentor in UNST. “I feel kind of discounted sometimes” in her classes, so “what’s really kept me at PSU” has been these other places. Anna Bui has been very active in a club for women going into health and medicine. She describes it as “an environment . . . where we can just come up and talk to each other . . . about barriers women are facing.”

Stephani Jeronimo-Martinez describes herself as being a very unmotivated student her first year at PSU. “I just don’t want to do this,” she remembers thinking. But once she started a work-study job with the School of Business, the staff saw her tremendous potential and insisted on getting her more and more involved. With each year, she added more responsibilities, and by the time she graduated, less than four years after entering, she already had some graduate credit and had “a whole bunch of leadership” experience. Now, in her mid-twenties, she has a master’s degree and became the Student Success Coordinator for the School of Business, where she encouraged innumerable younger versions of herself. One of those mentees, a work-study student in the School of Business, identifies its staff, especially Stephani, as being key in helping her to persist at PSU. “There hasn’t been a time I’ve asked for help, and I haven’t felt supported,” she remarks.

Challenges

Scholarship programs, cultural resource centers, and student organizations cannot support every PSU student. The scholarship programs of course have caps, can serve only a fraction of New Majority students. Several students shared that they did not feel welcome at some of the centers or organizations, that they were dominated by people from a particular nation or ethnic or social clique. Some feared being rejected due to their sexuality or skin tone or language skills, or even their personalities. But a more common complaint was more structural challenges, particularly a lack of funding.

Anonymous 8 lamented that the GANAS mentors sometimes had to contribute their own money to fund its events. “No matter how hard we try,” she summarizes, “no one’s willing to understand our worth.” Olivia Monestime says “my heart broke” when she learned that Build EXITO was not being renewed. Others regretted that they simply were unable to be on campus, or felt unsafe, in the evening, when so many cultural events occur. Anonymous 3 shares that after being mugged on the way home from PSU she feels “kind of unsafe around campus” and “waiting at bus stops,” so is reluctant to join any clubs that meet after dark. Of course many have to be on campus only for classes because of jobs or family responsibilities.

Community Building in Classes and Majors

At a commuter college, a lot of community building has to happen in class, and many of our interviewees describe initiating or being part of highly effective study groups. Aqdas Juya relied heavily on her fellow students in many of her classes. During one in which “everyone was struggling,” the difficulties “brought us together” to work in small groups to better understand the material and prepare for exams.

Stacy Martinez Arroyo helped to create a group that was “filled with Spanish speakers,” all but one, in fact. “It was nice, she recalls, “because it felt like we are staying close and encouraging each other to stay in the program.” Outside of class, Omar Mahfouz looked for ways to build community. He invited friends he had been playing soccer with, many also from immigrant families, to start a study group at the library. The group soon became a regular gathering where students could review coursework, share strategies, and support one another through the challenges of college life.

Anonymous 2 describes a particularly ambitious set of Discord communities that Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) students created. The network includes several chat channels, with resources ranging from PDFs of expensive books to practice problems to advice “on how to navigate” particular classes and professors. The group provides her with a “group of people I sit with” in each class, and “we help each other, uplift each other.”

Edgar Ruiz Garcia, the Civil Engineering graduate who had come to the U.S. from Mexico just a few years before entering PSU, formed a group of four, including two other Latinos, that met in the PSU library, where they encountered another diverse, small group from their major who were doing the same thing, so the two groups merged and created a Discord chat so as to be able to support each other between meetings. The study group enabled him to do in two hours what had taken him six, and it also gave him a strong friend network. He noticed that the students from more privileged backgrounds often preferred to work on their own rather than joining such groups.

Likewise, Anonymous 22 in his introductory engineering class “randomly began talking with people,” and they started a Discord chat, “which was probably our main way of communicating.” “My friend group was mostly Asian” to start with, “but we definitely had a mix of other ethnicities.” “Getting through the program,” he reflects, “you need peers and friends.”

Gio, who had come to the U.S. from Ecuador only a few years before entering PSU, made a point of making friends quickly in his classes. It started in his first Calculus course, where he and his new friend “helped each other to understand the class.” He repeated the process many times: “I made friends with students in the same situations, they were immigrants.” They “made a group chat” to share ideas on questions “we didn’t understand.” As he gained more confidence and knowledge, his role shifted from usually being the one to receive help to more often being the one to offer it. Helping a group of classmates learn how to use a calculator “was the best experience I had,” he remembers. “My entire family says when you have the opportunity to help family, you have to,” and, to Gio, any student who was struggling, especially struggling to learn English, was like family.“My entire family says when you have the opportunity to help family, you have to,” and, to Gio, any student who was struggling, especially struggling to learn English, was like family.

Davika Dige has created “a good group of peers” who are all Black or Latin American pre-med students. They are all “very intelligent, very kind, very supportive.” She finds PSU and the Pacific Northwest to be “a very weird space” for people of color, with a lot of racism under the progressive surface. Her group of friends “definitely sit together and come together,” and “there’s not many of us.” We bring a different perspective to things,” she remarks. “Wealth is not the money in our pocket” but rather resides in relationships, so “we’re always rooting for each other.”

Diego Argaez sees “two worlds” at PSU and in the Architecture Program, the individualistic one and the community-oriented one. He has found many people “who can relate to my situation,” usually first-generation or people of color, students who are interested in their culture. In architecture, the individualistic students are “a little bit more closed off,” though he wonders if this is more due to shyness than hostility. When students faced a choice about how to create a building, for example, the more sociable students “had more communal areas.” “Having people who experienced the same things” that he has “definitely helped me,” and “I definitely created a sense of community” in the program. “We keep each other accountable” and are helping each other to graduate so “we can all walk down the same stage.”

Miguel Izquierdo, an engineering major, remarks that “learning together has played a big role” in his academic success. He gathers phone numbers of people to collaborate with, choosing people who “aren’t going to be judging.” The “people who are super smart . . . push you away.” “We meet up to study” and to “go over homework,” but the benefits of the group go beyond academic performance, as learning together, being vulnerable together, builds friendships, a sense of community so “when you see people on campus, . . . you get to catch up.”

Hector Amazola’s mechanical engineering classmates “liked to help each other out,” There was always a sense of community in my classes,” he recalls. Each class would typically set up a Discord chat, and use it to “relay information to the rest of us,” such as if someone received an email from a professor that clarified an assignment. Most professors would at the outset of the class stress how important it was to collaborate, but in reality, it was “not encouraged a lot,” with the exception of his capstone instructor. But that did not keep the students from forming their own learning communities.

Daniel Duarte had faced a daunting problem in one of his required classes, as he learned that some strong students were taking it for the second or third time, and the course seemed very disorganized, the grading very harsh. “”I would have nightmares about it,” he recalls. The professor simply said, “here’s the ebook, there you go,” and early in the term he stopped having face-to-face classes. Daniel tried going to office hours three weeks in a row, but the professor cancelled them three weeks in a row. But “I was good at managing relationships,” and “we made it together”; a group of students helped each other to pass the class.

Anonymous 12 struggled to make connections in her first two years or so of classes at PSU. “I didn’t have the same support” as she does now “from faculty or peers and it felt very white, there wasn’t that community PSU talks about.” The instructors “just went in, read through their power points, assigned their homework, and left.” In Graphic Arts and Design, though, “I found my community.”

Comma, the Graphic Arts and Design club started by BIPOC students in 2017-2018, was a key part of that, as it is a great place for making personal and professional connections, as some alumni who are now working at some big design firms in Portland are still active in the club. Comma has given her the opportunity to do project management, has given her important job training as well as meaningful connections. The organization conveys “almost a sense of hope . . . where everyone feels welcome” and “you are allowed to speak your mind,” from personal to professional topics.

Donny Vu started a Discord group in FRINQ for computer science students, then expanded it to include students outside that class. In one class, where everyone found the professor’s lecture “confusing,” several of them “pooled all our notes together.” Indeed, he has found that the skills he has had to develop in helping to run the Discord discussions, work that he initiated outside the requirements of the class, to be much more useful than some of the discussions that professors have required him to do, posts that seemed pointless and that no one seemed to be interested in. The Discord platform, on the other hand, “tore down the walls” between students and communicated to each this message: “I am invested in you in some way,” and “I’m going to help you.” “When people are being more vulnerable,” admitting that they do not know something, “it creates a sub-space for others to be more vulnerable.” So the tool built social relationships as well as helping students to learn the material and to be more motivated and hopeful. “My idea of college,” he concludes “is that’s where you make your connections.”

Indeed, it is ironic that so many students spoke about creating apart from or even in spite of their professors the sort of collaborative learning communities that so many reform-minded leaders in higher education urge faculty to facilitate.

Friendship Networks

Paola Vargas, an extroverted Latina who returned to PSU after having two children, is frustrated when professors eliminate the breaks in long classes, as she loves to use that time to connect with shyer students. “Thank you for making me into a social butterfly,” one recently told her. She and another withdrawn student are now “besties,” and that woman now follows Paola’s example. Both of them “try to initiate conversations with peers.” Likewise, Aqdas Juya found it hard to make connections in large lecture classes, but “I usually target people” to talk to and “look to make friends.” That way, “I don’t feel like the only one going through it.” More socially confident students need only small opportunities to strengthen classroom cultures.

Other students rely on previous friendships. Noemi Cruz Garcia cites “my friend group” from high school as “the main reason I feel like I belong at Portland State,” as “they make me feel a sense of community.” Stacy Martinez Arroyo felt “completely lost” her first year, living in the dorms with largely white art majors, but then she met someone with “the exact same experience” as her, someone she had in fact gone to elementary school and middle school with. “Once I found my person,” she recalls, “I found my community” and “established a nice little circle.”

Anonymous 18’s “only friend” at PSU was from high school but in a different major, and she never connected with any classmates in her major. Now, in her professional program at another college, after just four weeks “we’re already meeting up outside of class.” Htoo Say came to PSU with several close friends he had made in middle and high school, in fact they had played a crucial role in getting him to go to college. Once at PSU, “my personal community . . . of Karen” students, people with whom he shared a common culture and first language, became very important, and he would attend their sporting events, and “we just talk.”

Many New Majority students create friendship networks in their majors, especially the smaller, more specialized ones. Lily Hathaway’s Environmental Studies classes often have about ten students in them, so “everyone is chatting with one another,” making it easy to connect. “We are a major emotional support for each other,” she says of one classmate. Ximena Rivas Quiroz Bejar has “good memories of classmates” in architecture. Some were also immigrants, or the children of immigrants, so “I felt that connection,” that “you’re not the only one,” as she would say to herself. She then “started to relax, . . . and that helped me.”

Vinuar Gardi, now a graduate student in Architecture after getting her bachelor’s in that field in 2024, jokes that the architecture students “trauma bond a lot,” and that the professors encourage that–the bonding, not the trauma–and often respond to questions by urging them to “ask your peers.” “It often feels like one big family,” she remarks. During an intense lecture in graduate school, there was a sense that “we’re in it together,” that they would help each other understand the content. Anonymous 22 has found a community in the basement of the Engineering Building: “a lot of students hang around there.” “It’s a nice thing to feel,” the every-day presence of “people I know.” Anonymous 20 has “built a really strong community” in the engineering building, also, aided by a professor who has been “very supportive.”

Anonymous 14 found himself surprised by the strong social network he helped to create in the School of Business’s Honors Program, which has since been discontinued. The classes were small, so he thought, “I could make a few friends.” He is Latino, and “there were a lot of white kids,” but “what helped early on is that I actually knew slightly one student from high school” and “once I had a good connection, that spiraled into having more connections.” Some of the “perfect, ideal students, the A+ white students” put him off at first, “because I didn’t like that personality,” but “once I sat down and got to know them, . . . . I saw they wanted to succeed, and to see others succeed, too.Some of the “perfect, ideal students, the A+ white students” put him off at first, “because I didn’t like that personality,” but “once I sat down and got to know them, . . . . I saw they wanted to succeed, and to see others succeed, too.”

He found that some of the students with a lot of privilege “could recognize that privilege and could see” others “for who they were.” And he enjoyed connecting with students in their late twenties, who had a lot of life experience. Many of the friendships he made in that program have continued, more than a year after graduation.

FRINQ Classes

Many of our interviewees recalled their FRINQ class, which lasted an entire year and included small peer mentor sessions dominated by New Majority classmates, as an ideal place for forming close friendships. FRINQ “definitely healed parts of me,” remarks Gabriela Cano-Hernandez, “being able to talk about . . . stories, . . . families . . . identities.” Taiye Timothy remarks that because most of the students in a course about immigration were from immigrant families, we were “learning about and experiencing it at the same time,” that it was “almost like therapy.” Anonymous 26 especially enjoyed the day she invited her father, also an immigrant, to class. Watching his daughter speak eloquently in a college classroom brought him to tears: “you are actually doing this. . . . this education I wanted, you are having.”

Lyudmila did not come to PSU “to find community.” “I already have that,” in her family and her church, and she can see that “my views are really contradictory to the majority of people” at PSU. But she enjoyed making connections in FRINQ, like the time when “we went to an art gallery” for class, and that she and “some guys from similar backgrounds” were “laughing” about the same exhibit, and for the same reason, namely their shared experience of having immigrant parents. She would sometimes make eye contact with a Latino student in class and knew “we were thinking the same thing.”

Lily Hathaway, who was one of the few white students in her FRINQ, came to the class with different expectations than most. She hoped to “build up a broader world view.” “I don’t necessarily have a lot of experience with this,” with immigration, “but I want to,” was how she looked at it. In fact she recalled having gone to an elementary school in Colorado where a large majority of the students were from immigrant families, and “I really loved it. There were so many stories and experiences, . . . it was really a good community.” That school had been followed by a much whiter middle school, where “I got bullied a lot more,” and then high school, with just one friend. So FRINQ recalled a happier time in life, it felt “very familiar and welcoming.” FRINQ “was such a powerful space where everyone could express their stories,” which “fostered a lot of connections. . . . we could learn from each other.”

Peer Mentors

FRINQ peer mentors played a crucial role in many students’ lives. Ximena Rivas Quiroz Bejar remembered Christina Mai as “really nice” and that “I felt represented” by her, as she shared similar experiences of struggling to adjust to the U.S. and with English. Peter Nguyen credits Maleya Luis with aspiring to make mentor sessions a third space, “a place where you can open yourself.” “She was such a wonderful and caring person” who “always had that door open. . . . to make sure you were OK.” Anonymous 28 remarks that her mentor, Olivia Monestime, asked about Ramadan and other aspects of people’s culture, and “who is stressed out, and who can help this person out?” “She had us do these breath exercises to re-center,” she remembers, and “I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop.” Mentor sessions were “like meeting with family.” She graduated three years later, but never again felt that strong sense of belonging at PSU.

Anonymous 27, who is white and non-binary, served as a peer mentor in a class dominated by students from immigrant families. Their, the peer mentor’s, approach was “to share some of that social capital” they had collected from being from a “more privileged background.” Having grown up in a very white environment, “I did feel a little nervous at first,” but “I just saw it as an opportunity to shut up and listen and to go out of my way to learn more” about different cultures. And “getting to know people . . . to encourage people” brings “a lot of joy and satisfaction.”

Likewise, Olivia Monestime tried to create a sort of “home room” experience, to make peer mentor sessions “their one safe place.” “I’m going to be there for these students,” she resolved. She was particularly determined to help those who felt lonely to make connections, and “I think I did influence a few of them to take a leap” socially.” The experience “instilled in me that I need to be doing something like this for the rest of my life.”

Jennifer Lopez-Garrido “didn’t really have anyone” at PSU, and “did feel pretty lost.” FRINQ was the place where “I had strong connections . . . and held on to these people for as long as possible because they made me feel safe, understood and heard.” “When I would see a classmate” on campus outside of class, “I’d feel relief.” But after her first year “I shut down because I didn’t have the same support that I had while I was in my FRINQ class.” “College was built for people who are able to afford to live on campus,” she concludes.” “I didn’t get the ‘full’ experience, . . . . I had to work, I couldn’t stay.” Likewise, Anonymous 17 graduated without having “made a permanent friend” at PSU. “After class, everyone just goes their separate ways.” She has fond memories of her mentor sessions, where “we would not just do assignments, but catch up with each other . . . and it didn’t feel forced,” she thinks in part because “the professor and the peer mentor had a strong bond . . . and the students could see that.”

A much more extroverted former student, Axel Lozano-Ortiz, recalls “finding community” as his biggest challenge at PSU. FRINQ helped him with that, but “after that, we were kind of on our own,” and “I felt like I was walking in the dark.” He felt engaged with people when he became a Peer Mentor himself, and he made connections at the gym and playing soccer, but after his first year, classes “just felt like a job,” a sort of “let’s just get this over with” arrangement with the university.

Finding Your People

New Majority students seem happiest when they are able to experience and re-create at PSU elements of the warm, sociable environments they grew up in. When you see your people, “explains Lizeth, it is “kind of like your family . . . you are able to joke . . . and be yourself.” Elizabeth Rodriguez recalls walking with her sister across campus and running across a big Latino event. “We were kind of surprised,” she remarks, and wondered “where did all these Hispanics come from”?

Naomi Morales Rodriguez remembers a class in which she was “resonating” with a group of other Latinas, who then walked together from class to the MAX together, all of them headed off to some sort of responsibility, knowing they shared the same struggle, the same life. “People of color,” remarks Diana Melgar Ruano, “know how to hustle and strive.” “We all relate to having Hispanic parents who push us” and to not having much money. She enjoys being on a campus where so many of her classmates “understand the hustle, to strive for a better future because our parents brought us here for a better future.” “The people who don’t care are the white kids,” who are “usually on their phones or talking or leave class early.”

Anonymous 4’s friend group in the U.S. has always been “women of color” because they are the ones who understand her. Her Middle Eastern culture “is not individualistic at all.” “I live in two worlds,” she explains, and “there are things about myself I can’t express” when she’s in the individualistic world. “It’s just like they get it,” adds Maria Castro-Mendoza, of people of color. Anonymous 19 felt like Smith Hall was her safe place, the place where “I could see diversity, I could be myself” and “feel that safety” rather than “people walking around and looking at you weird.” Anonymous 19 felt like Smith Hall was her safe place, the place where “I could see diversity, I could be myself” and “feel that safety” rather than “people walking around and looking at you weird.” Lisa, who got a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from PSU after arriving as a foreign student, formed a tight group of friends, mostly from outside the U.S. and mostly students of color. “You don’t have to have the same beliefs, but you can appreciate each others’ opinions and each others’ company,” she remarks.

Blending Cultures

Many students remarked on how much they appreciated PSU’s diversity. “It’s like a huge melting pot,” remarked Anonymous 9, adding that this diversity played a big role in why “I spent a lot of time on campus.” Being in class with so many students of color and first-generation students meant that there was “a community we already have,” explains Anonymous 2. “I felt like everyone was there,” at PSU, remarks Amer Bonie.

Several students reflected on how they had succeeded in blending cultures, or creating collaborative cultures among a mix of diverse students. Daniel Duarte was struck by the “systematic individualism” of the U.S. when he arrived as a teen, and he realized that at PSU, “I had to act,” to “get through it” and cope with the “keep your distance from other students” ethos or vibe that permeates the campus. But, “at the end of the day, collaboration breaks down individualism.” So he developed ways of quickly forming mutually beneficial relationships with other students, such as joking about a professor’s shortcomings. If the students responded in a friendly way, they were usually willing to work with him and others, and the major variable for him was more often personality than ethnicity.

Gio Garcia, who also arrived in the U.S. from Latin America as a teen, notes that “some students like to work more alone,” and that such students tend to be white, but he also found exceptions. He appreciated it when white students spoke more slowly so that he could understand them more clearly, and some even worked on their Spanish with him. A white student who seemed “cold at first” was by the end of the term using Ecuadorian phrases and had become a friend.

Jayden Martin at first felt out of place in his FRINQ on immigration, as he was one of the few people in the class not from an immigrant family, so he “didn’t have any stories about overcoming incredible hardships, and ”no one else was talking about” being queer. But his instructor, Nathan Gies, who was also queer and white, “talked a lot about queer stories and queer migration.” Nathan encouraged him to share with the class “my story about finding my identity,” and “I did end up sharing. . . . coming out as transgender and the challenges I faced,” and the class received it well. In fact a classmate who became a friend shared that “I really wanted to talk about my sexuality,” as well, “and you made me feel safe.”

The Potential of Student Groups at PSU

Many of PSU’s New Majority students have helped to create the sort of warm, collaborative learning and social environments that they crave. Many of these environments exist outside of classrooms, in programs such as GANAS, and many of the ones in classrooms operate in a sort of underground manner, are student initiated. The difficulty with relying on this arrangement is that many PSU students lack the flexibility or capacity to join a scholarship organization or club, and not every class has a critical mass of students who have the skills to organize a sort of parallel class. We also know that a big part of what makes the scholarship programs so powerful are the presence of dedicated mentors and permanent staff whose job it is to support particular students, to listen to them closely. Faculty are really the only staff at PSU with guaranteed access to every student, so imagine how transformative it would be for every class to have a professor who took a close interest in as many students as possible and created environments in which students could care for and assist each other meaningfully.

Of course the classic argument of traditional faculty to this sort of arrangement is that it has nothing to do with learning. But the research on learning has shown for many years that students learn best from each other, and if faculty feel unqualified with how to facilitate learning communities, well, there are thousands of experts on collaboration among PSU’s students to learn from.