Seeds of Connection, Roots of Engagement, Branches of Character: How Student-Professor Relationships Drive Character Education
Lily brings together theory, research, and her own data collection efforts on faculty-student relationships. While the vast majority of students recognized the value of strong relationships with both their peers and professors, many reported not experiencing these connections in real life. Drawing from these findings and the current literature around student-faculty relationships, Lily provides a set of recommendations describing how and why to enhance relationships with students.
A sense of safety in the learning environment is crucial for students to have a firm foundation to take intellectual risks and to engage effectively with the material, their classmates, and professors. Research has suggested that students’ perceptions of professor warmth and psychological safety in their learning environment are more predictive of engagement than teaching style alone (Tormey, 2021). This means that going beyond a change in instruction style is necessary for student engagement—an instrumental factor in effectively intertwining character education into the curriculum. How a student feels in the classroom is important for their engagement and learning, much of which is influenced by their relationships with their professors and with their peers, as facilitated by their professors. Professors tend the soil of the classroom and plant seeds of character through relationships that can be continually nurtured throughout the course.