Faculty-Student Interactions

Recommendations about classroom practice, office hours, individual advising and mentoring, directing project teams, or organizational advising. Click on the links below to see the full contents of the recommendations and publications that support these recommendations.

Educate faculty, staff, and students for cultural competency, awareness of stereotypes and unconscious biases.

Faculty and staff advisors must take an active role in over-sight of student organization leadership and activities and develop understanding of the cultural issues and tensions inherent in the organizations.

Departments need to employ personable, caring faculty as well as satisfied, influential student ambassadors to effectively promote the department and recruit prospective students.

Foster a collegial and inclusive department culture of faculty who demonstrate a genuine interest in students’ academic futures and provide encouragement.Encourage students to adopt mastery oriented goals instead of performance oriented goals.

Faculty need to recognize the value of and incorporate appropriate challenges for students in their classes.

Faculty must be available by appointment for students with conflicts during office hours.

Faculty must be cognizant of inadvertently supporting an insider vs. outsider dynamic and the presence of cliques in their classrooms.

Engineering student advisors need to be aware of and often mediate students’ perceptions of required outside-of-major courses (e.g. calculus and physics) and faculty that can undermine student confidence and their commitment to an engineering degree.