Dynamics Of Faculty-Student Interaction Beyond The Classroom: Insights From A Hispanic-Serving Community College

Retention and success rates remain critical concerns for colleges and universities, particularly for the Hispanic-Serving Community College. In their attempt to become "student-ready," colleges and universities have sought retention initiatives targeting students at academic risk. However, many of these initiatives overlook the less tangible underlying issues, such as fears, anxieties, inequity, lack of self-confidence, confusion, and uncertainty (Cox, 2009; Longwell-Grice and Longwell-Grice, 2008). Despite the benefits that faculty-student interactions outside the classroom bring students, literature shows that faculty-student interaction outside the classroom is generally absent (Smith et al., 2017; Thiele, 2016; Zeleden-Perez, 2019). This qualitative study explores the characteristics that encourage or discourage faculty-student interactions outside the classroom at a Hispanic-Serving Community College.