Moving toward belonging in a physics department: What changes are possible with and without a paradigm shift?

Belonging in a discipline or department is an important aspect of people’s persistence in that discipline or department, especially for undergraduate students. Previous research has shown that increasing student feelings of belonging in a department benefits all students and is even more valuable for women, racialized people, and other underrepresented groups. However, helping students to develop feelings of belonging can be difficult and complex. This article presents data from a larger, primarily qualitative case study that was conducted at a research-based university in Canada. It examines how a group of faculty, staff, and students worked toward building community and cultivating belonging in their physics department. The aspects of this process that the professor and student participants experienced, and the challenges and rewards encountered, are described and explained here. Some of the strategies that professor participants undertook were relatively easily accomplished using what we describe here as a “classical” paradigm; the analogy is to the traditional physics culture. One example of a strategy employed under the classical paradigm is hosting a mentoring program for physics majors. Other strategies were quite challenging for many professor participants and required a paradigm shift toward more progressive views, which, following the analogy, we call a “quantum” paradigm. An example is believing and behaving as though students with B grades belong and can succeed in physics. We suggest that the paradigm shift from classical (traditional thinking) to quantum (progressive) is an important barrier that members of the physics community must recognize and overcome to fully address student participation and experiences in physics, although some changes were still possible without making the paradigm shift. The study found a new difference between feeling welcome and feeling a sense of belonging among students, as well as a similar difference among faculty members. We present possible steps that physics faculty and staff may consider along the road to recruitment and retention in physics, which are notable for departments and instructors interested in improving student outcomes, departmental sustainability, and equity, diversity, and inclusion.