LSC Campus Calendar
Belonging as Fiscal Strategy presentation
Administrators and staff don’t need convincing that belonging matters. They need it to survive a budget meeting. This session translates belonging into retention math: the cost of turnover, the impact of enrollment decline, and the gaps that show up for specific student populations. It also provides high-impact interventions that can be built into existing student support initiatives. Participants leave with a framework for prioritizing belonging-centered initiatives as fiscal strategy, not just culture work.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to
- Explain the relationship between belonging and retention, including why its impact varies across student populations.
- Identify practices that increase belonging and apply them within existing student support structures.
- Recognize how shifting enrollment patterns require evolving institutional practices that account for students’ social identities, cultures, and lived experience.
- Apply a belonging framework to connect high impact practices to measurable retention outcomes.
Dr. Alexis J. Stokes-Burks is an equity and inclusion strategist and international speaker whose work centers community, belonging-centered leadership, and sustainable impact. Her career has spanned mental health, workforce development, and education, including leadership roles supporting reentry programs, homeless outreach, and career and college advising. That foundation shaped her work overseeing belonging and inclusion initiatives at Harvard University. Today she leads Stokes Strategy & Consulting, helping institutions build measurable systems of belonging.
