ABSTRACT
Student-faculty interaction (SFI) is a crucial element of student success in higher education. Our chapter speaks to this volume’s focus on changing postsecondary environments, including current demographics and contexts. To explore contemporary students’ engagement with faculty, we consider the experiences of a growing population that is frequently neglected in research on SFIs in higher education: students from immigrant families. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 30 college seniors from immigrant families, this chapter asks how their SFIs are shaped by the contemporary college environment. Specifically, we situate our study in the organizational context of the new university, a growing sector of higher education comprised of public institutions that serve historically marginalized student populations and operate with limited financial resources. Our findings illuminate the ways students from immigrant families make meaning of SFIs in this context. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how scholars and practitioners can rethink student-faculty engagement in ways that foster success for students from immigrant families.
