Supporting chronically ill college student wellbeing through campus counterspaces

Abstract

The scarcity of literature in the field of chronically-ill college student development makes it difficult to determine what factors may contribute to greater levels of wellbeing for this unique group of students. Among other groups of marginalized college students, campus counterspaces have been explored and, in many cases, successfully implemented as part of university efforts to foster student wellbeing. Drawing from literature on campus counterspaces and a series of interviews with chronically-ill college students, this paper explores potential uses of campus counterspaces as a means for facilitating wellbeing among chronically-ill college students. We consider potential advantages and disadvantages when determining whether counterspaces may be useful in various higher education contexts and provide recommendations for implementation at individual institutions.

Points of interest

• This article considers potential advantages and disadvantages of using campus identity-based student advocacy groups in institutional efforts to support the development of chronically-ill college students’ wellbeing.

• No studies to date have considered how institutions might facilitate the development of wellbeing among chronically-ill students.

• We introduced the idea of identity-based student advocacy groups to chronically-ill college students and asked about their opinions of these groups, including whether they would be interested in joining and their justification for their answers.

• Students’ expressed insights, alongside our review of the literature on identity-based student advocacy groups, suggest that there are several potential advantages and disadvantages to consider when developing and implementing these types of groups for chronically-ill students in higher education.

Keywords:

• Campus counterspaces
• identity-based advocacy
• chronic illness
• wellbeing, college student experiences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).