When higher education leaders talk about student belonging, the conversation tends to center on programs, offices, and peer communities. But mounting evidence points to a different, often overlooked factor: the relationship between a student and their instructor.
A sense that at least one faculty member knows a student by name, circumstance, or ambition is consistently linked to a stronger sense of belonging, higher persistence rates, and better academic outcomes—particularly for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students. Yet faculty are rarely central to institutional belonging strategies, and infrequently trained in the classroom practices that research shows can make or break a student’s sense of fitting in.
Researchers studying STEM education describe faculty as playing an outsized role in shaping whether campuses feel exclusionary or welcoming. Tess Killpack and colleagues, writing in CBE—Life Sciences Education, argue that instructors function like “foundation species” in a campus ecosystem. Due to their influence over curriculum, classroom culture, and mentorship, their impact is disproportionate to their numbers. The researchers point to concrete practices—identity-safety cues, equity-minded syllabi, and connecting coursework to students’ lived experiences—as tools faculty can use to support what they call “niche-building” on campus.
The data back this up. EAB, a higher-education research firm, has reported that close faculty relationships are among the strongest known predictors of student belonging, alongside active learning and extracurricular engagement. The firm also notes that belonging gaps are not evenly distributed. First-generation students, international and LGBTQIA+ students, and those facing financial insecurity, are all less likely to report feeling like they belong. Faculty who share students’ backgrounds also matter—students are more likely to feel a sense of fit when they can see themselves reflected among their instructors.
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), who often have more direct contact with undergraduates than professors, are an especially underused lever. Programs piloted by the Student Experience Project (SEP) at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) and the University of New Mexico (UNM) trained GTAs in evidence-based practices—among them, soliciting anonymous formative feedback from students and delivering “wise feedback” that pairs high expectations with reassurance.
The results were notable. Across 17 such practices, the share of GTAs using a given technique for the first time rose between 24 and 61 percentage points over a single semester. GTAs in the programs also reported feeling less isolated and more confident in the classroom.
One CU Denver participant, quoted in SEP’s toolkit, described how the training changed the way they thought about their role. “Over time, as I have gained more experience as a teacher, my perspective has shifted from ‘managing the classroom’ to building classroom community and helping students connect with each other and with me as the instructor,” the respondent said.
SEP’s guidance for the training programs is notably low-tech. Facilitators encourage GTAs to ask students directly what would help them feel like they belong, rather than posing vague questions about how a course is going—specific prompts, the toolkit notes, generate feedback GTAs can actually act on.
The research suggests that belonging isn’t primarily built through banners or mission statements. It’s built, or eroded, in thousands of small classroom interactions—making faculty and the graduate students who teach alongside them the belonging infrastructure most campuses have yet to measure.
Sidebar: What the Practices Actually Look Like
SEP’s GTA training centers on a handful of specific, low-lift practices instructors can layer into existing courses:
- Ask a specific question, not a vague one. Instead of “How’s the course going?” SEP recommends: “What is something that has helped you feel that you belong in this course? If not, what’s one thing that could help?” Specific prompts generate feedback GTAs can actually act on.
- Collect feedback two or three times a semester, early enough to make adjustments before the course ends.
- Use “wise feedback.” Pair high standards with an explicit statement of belief in the student’s ability to meet them. This approach has been shown to help students take in criticism without disengaging.
- Look for patterns, not one-off complaints. Focus on two or three recurring themes; treat outlier comments as a clue about that student’s circumstances, not something to dismiss.
- Reframe small things. At UNM, renaming “office hours” as “drop-in hours” boosted attendance with no new resources required.
- Give GTAs a peer community. Both pilot programs found GTAs implemented practices more successfully with regular peer debriefs, whether through a course, workshops, or lab meetings.
- Revisit the syllabus. Both pilots had GTAs revise their syllabi at semester’s end based on what they’d learned.
Embedding training into existing coursework, rather than offering it as optional, drove far higher participation in both pilots.
