Dr Croucher-Wright's PhD thesis is available to view here on the St Mary's University Open Research Archive.  It is titled 'Student-Institution Fit Adopting a Faith-Based University Case Study' and relates to organisational values and belonging in Higher Education. ​University students in the UK invest a great deal of time, money and effort in the pursuit of a degree.  Their experience at university would be more positive if they were in an environment where they felt a sense of belonging, acceptance and community whilst they were there.  This sense of belonging, acceptance and community could be described as fitting in or belonging.  Pervin and Rubin (1967) stated the elements of fitting in are comparable institution and student values, social opportunities and quality of staff. ​Conversely, when students do not fit with an institution they are more likely to be unhappy, stressed, unsuccessful or dissatisfied, particularly if there is a misfit of core values.  Most universities in the UK have similar physical and academic environments.  They have lecture rooms, libraries and sports halls and offer similar courses like business management, sport science or English literature.  The area were universities are different are their social environments which includes opportunities to join in and make friends, for example in Halls of Residence, sports teams, social events and societies.  It also relates to the support available for students such as relationships with tutors, professional staff such as student services, librarians, administrators, the careers service and security staff.  When considering which university to apply to, prospective students need to think about their personal values and whether these match the universities values, such as diversity - how diverse are the staff, especially in leadership positions and other students.  Diversity includes amongst other things: ethnicity, age, religion, gender, age, socioeconomic background, education and experience, physical or mental health or neurodiversity and sexuality.  Will there be people like you there?  Maybe you value excellence - how many hours will you be in lectures and who will be teaching you?.  You need to check that university values are lived and not just rhetoric in the prospectus.  Can you see examples of their claims.  You should not have to change to fit in, you should find somewhere where you will belong by being yourself.

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