Cultural Centers on College Campuses: Understanding Marginalized Students' Perceptions of Community Centers

Cultural centers are spaces at colleges and universities that provide resources, programming, community, and more for marginalized students. While some universities have a multicultural center aimed to serve students of many identities, many universities have centers that cater to a specific identity of students, including racial/ethnic backgrounds, gender, sexuality, and more. Cultural centers play a crucial role in fostering a sense of belonging and support for marginalized student populations in higher education, however, there is still little research that understands the diverse range of feelings and experiences that students have about these spaces. This thesis aims to bridge this knowledge gap by using a survey-based approach to explore the perceptions and emotions of marginalized students towards cultural centers.

A mixed-methods research design was utilized to collect and analyze data from marginalized students at Stanford University. The survey consisted of both quantitative Likert-scale questions and qualitative open-ended prompts, allowing for the analysis based on marginalized identities, cultural centers, frequency with the centers, and other specific methods. The survey focused on understanding frequency and reasoning behind students’ participation within cultural centers, how students view the cultural centers in terms of the main goals of the centers, and how these cultural centers affect students in terms of their perceptions of their identities, as well as their sense of belonging and sense of self.

Results from this survey indicated a wide range of experiences, with a substantial number of students holding positive opinions. Many students expressed a strong sense of belonging, community, and cultural pride, and prioritized interacting with cultural centers within their regular schedules. However, others felt there was a need for more programming surrounding intersectionality, more diverse representation within identities, more opportunities for first-time students to interact, and routine assessment of these spaces. Overall, this study showed more about how different communities on campus view and value cultural centers, as well as how having these spaces within a prestigious and elite university such as Stanford extremely influence student life.