Identifying the support needs of parenting post-secondary students at a small undergraduate university

This thesis / dissertation was completed and submitted at Nipissing University, and is made freely accessible through the University of Toronto’s TSpace repositoryIn this qualitative study, the needs of parenting students at Nipissing University were investigated. Because, internationally, the population of mature students attending postsecondary institutions is expected to grow (Taylor & House, 2010; Randall, 2012), this could be a growth area for Nipissing University. The researcher interviewed six parenting students and found that Nipissing University is not perceived to be a family-friendly institution. The data further indicated that many factors contribute to a family-friendly environment including childcare, communication, flexibility, and awareness. A family-friendly campus enables the parenting student to become more involved in academics and campus culture while such involvement has been shown to hold the potential to increase retention. The child of the parenting student was found to be a part of the student. If the child of the parenting student is not supported, then the population of parenting students is not supported.M.Ed