“…While research suggests that students' contact with faculty out of class is minimal (Abu, Adera, Kamsani, & Ametepee, 2012), our descriptive results show that students interact more with faculty about academic matters outside of the classroom and have very little informal interactions with faculty. Students seeking support on academic matters outside of the classroom is an indicator of students' engagement and sense of belonging (Barnett, 2011;Dayton, Gonzalez-Vasquez, Martinez, & Plum, 2004;Tovar, 2014). Yet, higher frequencies of student-faculty interaction about personal and family issues is linked to persistence in community college students (Bharath, 2009); therefore, informal or social contacts are important to foster mentoring relationships between faculty and students (Crisp & Cruz, 2009).…”