Faculty Directory
Jessica Belue Buckley
Associate Professor
Jessica Belue Buckley
Ph.D.
Contact
Email: belue@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0003-3496-4724
Education
- Ph.D., University of Maryland
- M.Ed., University of Vermont
- B.A., University of Virginia
Courses
Foundations of Social Justice in Higher Education
College Student Experience
Qualitative Methods
Expertise
- Equity and Social Justice
- Higher Education
Department
Profile
Dr. Jessica Belue Buckley is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs. Buckley studies the ways students experience and educators facilitate learning environments to promote equitable learning, belonging, and well-being. Currently, she is exploring the relationship of students’ belonging to their performance, especially in engineering, to support students’ healthy meaning-making of grades. She serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
She has authored over 30 publications in journals such as the Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, and Race Ethnicity and Education. She currently serves as chair-elect for the Grants Committee for the Association for the Study of Higher Education.
Prior to arriving at Boston College, she served as Assistant Clinical Professor, Associate Clinical Professor, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor at the University of Louisville. Her leadership roles included serving as Assistant Chair, Assistant Project Director for the Master Educator Course (a partnership with the U.S. Army Cadet Command), Program Director for the Organizational Leadership and Learning Program, and Program Director for the Higher Education Administration program.
Select Publications
Buckley, J. B., Thompson, A. K., Ebrahimi Lialekol, S., Tretter, T. R., Robinson, B. S., & Sattar-Shamsabadi, G. (2026). Belonging as infrastructure for academic self-efficacy: Students’ perceptions on the interdependence of belonging and belief. Belonging. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/30290805261458609
Buckley, J. B., Oliner, N., Didelot, T., Banawa, J. (2026). “Each little pocket of support:” Factors that influence master’s student sense of belonging in academic programs. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-08-2025-0118
Buckley, J. B., & Michel, J. O. (2025). From sociocultural concept to academic major: The role of institutional characteristics and disciplines in institutionalizing learning for sustainability in American higher education. Environmental Education Research, 32(8), 2503–2532. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2025.2527891
Buckley, J. B., Biesecker, C. L., Tretter, T. R., Robinson B. S., & Thompson, A. K. (2025). Narratives informing student sense of belonging as a developmental process: Meaning-making systems, intersectionality, and navigational pathways. Journal of College Student Development, 66(2), 191-208. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2025.a958766
Buckley J. B., Thompson, A., K., Tretter, T. R., Biesecker, C., Robinson, B., & Hammond, A. H. (2024). “Where I feel the most connected:” Community of Inquiry supporting sense of belonging in a HyFlex engineering course. Internet and Higher Education, 60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2023.100930
Buckley J. B., Robinson B. S., Tretter, T. R., Biesecker, C.*, Hammond, A. H.*, & Thompson, A. K. (2023). Belonging as a gateway for learning: First year engineering students’ characterizations of factors that promote and detract from sense of belonging in a pandemic. Journal of Engineering Education, 112(3), 816-839. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20529
Buckley, J. B. (2023). From “cliques” to “common ground”: Social class and the perceptions of symbolic boundaries in the transition from high school to a regional university. Journal of Higher Education, 94(1), 8-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2022.2131963
Buckley, J. B., & Park, J. J. (2021). “Hard to tell”: Students making assumptions about compositional socioeconomic diversity on campus. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(1), 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000159
Buckley, J. B., & Park, J. (2019). “When you don’t really focus on it”: Campus climate for social class diversity and identity awareness. Journal of College Student Development, 60(3), p. 271-289. https://doi:10.1353/csd.2019.0026
Buckley, J. B. (2019). A grounded theory of education for sustainability in the postsecondary classroom. The Review of Higher Education, 42(3), 965-989. https://doi:10.1353/rhe.2019.0026
Honors and Awards
University of Louisville, Cardinal Principles Champion for Integrity and Transparency (2024)
Grants & Fellowships
Evaluator. National Science Foundation (Principal Investigators: Mahoney, D., Garnder, Ghasemi-Fare, O., Brydon-Miller, M., & Prost, S. G.) The Flooding in Appalachian Streams and Headwaters Initiative: Mitigating impacts of climate change and flash flooding in Appalachia ($857,280) (September 2024–August 2028)
Principal Investigator. College of Education and Human Development Research and Professional Development Grant. Antecedents, Experience, and Outcomes of Belonging in Engineering Across Five Years for Students with Diverse Backgrounds ($5,000) (April 2024–June 2025)
Principal Investigator. College of Education and Human Development Research and Professional Development Grant. Exploring Belonging for Graduate Students ($4,500) (2023)
Co-Principal Investigator. National Science Foundation. RAPID: Mitigating the Potential Negative Impacts of Involuntary Online Engineering Courses to Diverse Students’ Sense of Belonging ($118,000) (August 2020–July 2023)
Co-Principal Investigator & Assistant Project Director. U.S. Department of Defense/U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. (Principal Investigator: Jeffrey C. Sun, J.D., Ph.D.) Cadre and Faculty Development Course: Pilot Study - Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment ($2,880,405; Year 1: 25%; Year 2: 50%) (October 2015–September 2016)
Principal Investigator. ACPA Foundation Research Grant. Cross-Class Interaction and Social Class Expectations in the Transition to College. ($2,000) (2017)
Principal Investigator. UofL College of Education and Human Development Research and Faculty Development Grant. Cross-Class Interaction and Social Class Expectations in the Transition to College ($1,000) (2017)