Common read: A shared experience, a sense of belonging

The connection between mental health and a sense of inclusion is raised in “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,” the current book selection for Cardinal Reads, North Idaho College’s common read program.

While author Sebastian Junger shares his thoughts on how the lack of a feeling of belonging may affect veterans returning from serving overseas, it’s not a foreign idea on college campuses.

College students may appear to be gliding along effortlessly as they make their way around campuses throughout the nation, but how many are faking it until they make it, feeling out of place, alone, and anxious? Probably more than you’d imagine.

Over 50 percent of students surveyed in 2016 by the American College Health Association reported feelings of hopelessness and nearly 39 percent reported depression that made it difficult for them to function. They are part of a campus community, but do they feel connected, like they belong?

“A growing body of research has linked students’ sense of belonging on their campuses to a number of important outcomes, including their persistence in college and even their well-being,” wrote Beckie Supiano, in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Tribe” author Sebastian Junger, a journalist who was a war reporter embedded with a unit in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, proposes that the loss of tribal structure in modern society has come at a great psychological cost to humans.

Junger describes the real and ancient meaning of “tribe” as a community of people who share resources, and who would risk their lives to defend their community.

He was puzzled while in Afghanistan to find that men and women serving there often didn’t want to return home to the States when their deployments ended. He notes that about 40 percent of people who serve in the military overseas are not traumatized while deployed, but return home with PTSD.

“Maybe they had an experience of tribal closeness when they were eating together, sleeping together, defending each other with their lives,” Junger said, during a 2015 TED talk. “We keep focusing on trauma, but maybe what’s bothering them is actually a kind of alienation?”

NIC is among roughly 300 colleges nationwide that offer common read programs, which aim to connect people through a shared experience.

NIC’s Cardinal Reads is part of the college’s diversity program, with book selections designed to encourage diversity awareness on campus. The diversity theme for 2018-2020 is cultural identity. The common read is one of the ways the college strives to encourage that cultural awareness.

“The NIC student population and larger community of North Idaho benefit from understanding a variety of cultural perspectives of underrepresented populations,” says the college’s Diversity Council’s Project Statement.

Common reads also encourage critical thinking and courteous, thoughtful discourse, even when opposing opinions emerge. The common read helps create some of those human connections that can foster a sense of community and yes, a feeling of belonging.

Copies of “Tribe” are available in the North Idaho College library.

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For more information, visit nic.edu.