When mentors stay, students stay. On many campuses, leaders say they can feel the difference between a department where faculty are energized and one where office doors remain shut and hallway conversations are rare.

Research increasingly backs up that intuition. When faculty feel respected, supported, and connected to colleagues, students are more likely to be engaged, persist, and graduate.

Scholars have long linked student success to the quality of interactions with faculty. Studies using the National Survey of Student Engagement have found that frequent, meaningful student–faculty interaction is associated with higher satisfaction and stronger odds that students remain enrolled.

In a recent study of Generation Z students at a public land-grant institution, higher levels of faculty interaction predicted both overall student satisfaction and first-year retention.

Emerging evidence also suggests a direct connection between faculty morale and student outcomes. A review published in Human Kinetics Journals found that job satisfaction and morale influence teaching quality and student learning, which in turn shape program quality and institutional success.

Other scholars argue that faculty satisfaction and student outcomes are strongly related, particularly in online and blended environments where instructor engagement can determine whether students persist, according to the Online Learning Consortium.

Together, these findings point to a clear conclusion: institutions that want to improve student retention cannot ignore the working conditions, culture, and well-being of the people doing the teaching.

Faculty Satisfaction, Retention, and Student Success

Several empirical studies have begun to quantify the connection between faculty satisfaction and student persistence.

In a study of community college faculty published on Taylor & Francis Online, researcher Linda Miller found that higher levels of perceived decision-making power and influence were significantly associated with faculty satisfaction. Greater faculty satisfaction, in turn, correlated with higher student retention rates.

Other research has examined how faculty care and relationships with students affect engagement. A 2022 study in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education found that perceived faculty caring significantly predicted students’ academic engagement and motivation for lifelong learning.

Qualitative research echoes these findings. In interviews with undergraduates across disciplines, students consistently described positive relationships with faculty as central to their sense of belonging and academic confidence.

These studies do not suggest that any single faculty development initiative will guarantee higher graduation rates. But they reinforce a growing consensus: when faculty feel empowered to teach well and connect meaningfully with students, those students are more likely to stay.

Burnout, Workload, and the Risk of Losing Mentors

The inverse is also true. When faculty feel overwhelmed, isolated, or burned out, they are more likely to leave their institution—and sometimes the profession altogether.

Research in Frontiers in Education has documented how job demands and stress predict burnout and turnover intentions among higher education professionals.

In a 2023 case study of university teacher educators in Finland, increased stress during the COVID-19 pandemic and higher intention to leave teaching both significantly predicted burnout risk.

Burnout is rarely caused by a single factor. Studies drawing on the job demands–resources framework point to heavy workloads, administrative burden, and lack of control as key drivers, while social support and institutional connectedness can buffer against stress.

When those protective factors are missing, faculty can feel both exhausted and isolated—a combination that sharply increases the likelihood of attrition.

The consequences ripple outward. Departments with high turnover lose not only teaching capacity and research continuity, but also advising relationships and informal mentoring networks that are difficult to replace.

For students, the departure of a trusted mentor can disrupt a carefully built sense of belonging.

Columbia’s Framework for Faculty Belonging

Some institutions are responding by treating faculty belonging as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought.

At Columbia University, the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement frames its mission around inclusive excellence, emphasizing faculty development and community-building initiatives that help faculty thrive.

The office works with school leaders to evaluate and strengthen inclusion and belonging efforts across the institution.

Columbia’s Center for Teaching and Learning, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, has produced a Guide for Inclusive Teaching that distills research-based principles into practical strategies faculty can implement immediately.

The guide encourages instructors to create classrooms where students feel they matter, to structure participation so more voices are heard, and to clarify expectations that support both student belonging and instructor confidence.

Beyond the classroom, the Provost’s office has developed best-practice guides for mentoring and departmental climate.

Its Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring provides departments with a roadmap for building mentoring programs tailored to local needs, while a companion document on faculty retention and climate emphasizes transparency, shared norms, and mechanisms for addressing conflict.

Together, these efforts signal that faculty thriving is a core academic priority, not simply a human resources concern.

Peer Mentoring as a Retention Strategy

Mid-career faculty often present a particular retention challenge. Associate professors may face heavy service obligations, high teaching loads, and sustained pressure to maintain research productivity, even as informal mentoring and recognition shift to newer hires.

To address these pressures, some institutions have created structured peer mentoring networks.

At New York University, the Mid-Career Faculty Initiative offers tenured associate professors workshops, writing salons, and peer mentoring opportunities focused on promotion to full professor.

The University of Texas at San Antonio’s Mid-Career Faculty Mentoring Program similarly groups tenured faculty into mentoring pods that pair a senior mentor with several mid-career colleagues.

Medical schools and health sciences campuses have also invested in peer mentoring. The University of Arizona’s LIFT program connects early- and mid-career faculty in academic medicine with tools and networks designed to support long-term success.

A 2022 article in Academic Medicine notes that robust mid-career mentoring programs can strengthen faculty engagement and improve the diversity of leadership pipelines.

These networks do more than offer advice. They create communities where faculty can share strategies, normalize challenges, and avoid the isolation that often precedes burnout and departure.

Auditing Workload to Keep Mentors in Place

Alongside mentoring, institutions are beginning to confront workload—one of the most persistent sources of faculty stress.

National analyses show that invisible labor, including advising, committee work, and diversity efforts, is often distributed unevenly, with women and faculty of color carrying a disproportionate share.

The Equity-Minded Faculty Workload and Rewards Project, funded through a National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant, worked with 51 departments to make workload more transparent and equitable.

Departments that implemented workload dashboards, explicit norms, and regular conversations about service reported higher perceptions of equity and greater faculty satisfaction.

Building on that work, some campuses are now conducting formal workload audits.

At Lehigh University, departments complete workload audits, review dashboards showing teaching, research, and service assignments, and co-create internal plans to ensure accountability and balance.

The goal is not to micromanage faculty time, but to prevent cultures that unintentionally push some faculty toward burnout.

Designing Cultures Where Mentors Can Thrive

Taken together, the research and institutional examples suggest several lessons for leaders seeking to strengthen both faculty and student retention.

• Treat faculty belonging as a measurable outcome through climate surveys, focus groups, and structured feedback tools.
• Invest in mentoring across career stages, particularly for mid-career faculty.
• Make workload visible and adjustable through dashboards, audits, and shared norms.
• Connect faculty well-being directly to student success outcomes.

For institutions under pressure to improve graduation rates, it can be tempting to focus exclusively on student-facing initiatives such as first-year seminars, advising centers, or learning communities.

Those investments matter. But research increasingly shows that a parallel strategy is just as critical: building workplaces where faculty can imagine themselves staying, growing, and mentoring the next generation.

In short, students stay when mentors stay—and mentors stay when institutional culture, workload, and leadership make it possible for them to thrive.