Decades of research indicates that close interaction between faculty and students is one of the most important factors in student learning, development, engagement, and satisfaction in college (Astin, 1993; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, and Whitt, 2005). Indeed, frequent and meaningful student-faculty contact is a central characteristic of all high-impact educational practices (Kuh, 2008).

Emerging scholarship highlights the power of approaching this interaction as a form of partnership. Such an orientation often is unusual in higher education because of the real (and important) distance between the roles of faculty and of students. However, partnership does not require participants to be the same; instead, it is a reciprocal relationship where partners each make significant contributions toward a common aim. Continue Reading →