Commuting students before and during COVID-19: academic identity across home and campus spaces

Abstract

Commuter students are believed to lack academic engagement because they do not `stick around´ on campus, but narratives of student belonging as tied to campus presence were challenged by emergency remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reports on a longitudinal project on geographical, cultural and emotional dimensions of student practices of learning in an English widening participation university. We use theories of student belonging and mobilities as thinking tools to understand the relationships between students, spaces and learning practices in constructing fluid understandings of academic identity for commuting and residential students. Between 2016 and 2021, 28 students were interviewed. Geographical and cultural distance from university, but closeness to family or the domestic duties of home, affected commuter student practices of learning differently before and during emergency remote learning. When distance was enforced, remote learning was not necessarily easier for commuters, who had complex responses to losing social interaction. By rethinking how the benefits of being physically on campus are conceptualised and communicated, and how commuter identity is shaped by continuing interactions across home, digital, travel and campus spaces, we argue that commuter students′ multiple experiences should inform the post-pandemic university.