Back to the early 1980s, the concept of "mattering" was introduced by Nancy Schlossberg while she served on the faculty at the University of Maryland. Nancy was prolific in her writing and influenced higher education and adult development.
I new version of mattering is ascribed by Jennifer Breheny Wallace in Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. She says:
What I've learned in my research is that most people don't disengage because they're lazy. They disengage when they stop believing that they - or their efforts - matter. Pulling back becomes a form of self-protection, a coping strategy. Think of it this way - it hurts less to withdraw your effort than to keep giving your energy to a place that makes you feel invisible.
But I've also seen workplaces that lean into building cultures of mattering - educators, tech entrepreneurs, finance executives and more. Different industries, different kinds of pressure. But these organizations had arrived at the same fundamental truth: When employees know they are valued, they work harder, stay loyal and bring more energy to their work.
I haven't read Wallace's book but her commentary in promoting the book appears to be more focused on employee engagement rather than young or older adult development. I hope that she cited Schlossberg somewhere in her new book.
The concept of mattering is applicable across environments from business, community development, education, and beyond. Having used the concept numerous times throughout my career and first incorporating it in my writing in 1989 (Designing Campus Activities to Foster a Sense of Community, Roberts (ed), I've idealized mattering as a broad community or cultural context. Doing so advocated that somehow entire organizations, with all their complexities and growing diversity, could somehow achieve a state where everyone felt valued and affirmed.
Now I find myself thinking of the path to making those around me believe they matter as more about cultivating refugium in groups where I live and work. A refugium (plural = refugia) comes from population biology is an environment that is resilient in supporting a threatened group - one few in number or threatened in some other way. This concept is important because, while there may be an effort to create settings that welcome all, attention to those who are in a minority or are threatened requires special attention. It's not just about making a place welcoming and inclusive, it's protecting those who are somehow left behind in the idealistic embrace of community.
Today's extremes of disrespect and partisanship have resulted in many students, faculty, and staff feeling isolated and hopeless. Schlossberg and Wallace's advocacy for focusing on mattering is important, and, we need to carefully examine how to engage those who are at the margins. Refugium have resulted in miraculous restoration and healing in nature and perhaps a similar miracle can happen in students' experiences.
