A Reflective Learning Journal

Hospitality Counts

Today, I read a great article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “How hospitality can be your college’s secret weapon: Prospective students aren’t just looking for academic fit or financial aid— they’re looking for human connection. They’re looking for home” (Pérez, 2025). In an age of automation and algorithmic efficiency, the most revolutionary act on a university campus might be to lean in and to really see one another. To be hyper-human. What a lofty aspiration! So, how do we get there? How can this be actioned?

Educational theorists like Parker Palmer and bell hooks have long called for teaching and learning spaces to centre the full humanity of both students, staff and faculty. Palmer (1997), in The Courage to Teach, urges us to teach from the heart, while hooks’ (1994)Teaching to Transgress asserts that classrooms must be sites of liberation, where care and justice meet.

More recently, researchers have explored the power of belonging and relational pedagogies in student success. It matters. A lot. A sense of belonging is one of the most significant predictors of student success (Strayhorn, 2018; Dost & Mazolli Smith, 2023). The Caring University (McClure, 2025) challenges campus leaders to create learning environments founded on care.

From the student lens, university can feel really BIG. You’re juggling classes, jobs, collaborative projects, trying to make friends, maintaining friendships, maybe missing home—all while navigating your degree journey.

So here’s an idea:
What if the most powerful thing you can do on campus isn’t to get it all right, but to show up as a fully, messily, and present human?

Being hyper-human means letting go of the pressure to perform and choosing connection instead. It means saying hi to the person next to you, asking the second question, “How are you really?”, and being brave enough to say “I’m not okay” when you’re not so that someone can show up with support.

Campus life isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being human—together.

Try this:

• Text someone you met once and ask if they want to grab coffee.
• Make eye contact when someone holds the door open. Side note: this happens a lot at Brock University! Folks wait to hold a door open in busy walkways, and it is amazing. Watch for this phenomenon when you are there and enjoy the moment!
• First-year Brock Student? Sign up for the Coffee With a Prof Program. This is an opportunity to invite your professor for a complimentary cup of coffee in a relaxed setting to get to know each other and share your experiences. Sound risky? Maybe. But it will be worth it, and it may become a core memory!
• Upper-Year Brock Student? Sign up to be a mentor in Brock’s new Mentor Link Program or Future Black Leaders Mentorship Initiative. With a small investment of time, you can be the person you may have needed in your first year as a new Badger.

Small things. And Big impact.
That’s hyper-human. That’s radical hospitality. And it’s one way we make this campus feel a little more like home.

Want to read more?

• The Caring University by Kevin R. McClure
• College Students’ Sense of Belonging by Terrell Strayhorn
• Understanding higher education students’ sense of belonging: a qualitative meta-ethnographic analysis by Gulsah Dost and Laura Mazzoli Smith