Cultivating Resonance in Indigenous Students’ Experiences of University

This paper reframes Indigenous students’ university experience through the concept of resonance, examining how students navigate institutional alignment through strategic identity positioning and how Indigenous Centres support this navigation in ways that exceed service utilisation metrics. Resonance refers to Indigenous students’ experience of institutional attunement, recognition, and responsiveness. Resonance is Indigenous students’ capacity to find themselves reflected and affirmed within university structures and relations. Drawing on mixed-methods data from two universities, the study first reveals that many Indigenous students strategically foreground professional identity over cultural identity in everyday university contexts. This pattern reflects adaptive navigation seeking resonance with dominant institutional norms. The second key finding challenges conventional assumptions: Indigenous Centres are highly valued by low-use Indigenous students. Thus, Indigenous Centres provide ambient institutional resonance, signalling recognition and responsiveness even without active service engagement by some Indigenous students. These findings reframe understandings of the Indigenous student experience in Australian universities.