What is the relationship between faculty interactions, sense of belonging and academic stress?
Academic Stress is a multifatorial condition. It includes academic and, at most of times, personal factors. As academic factors, there is a great amount of new university class content periodically apearing and extracurricular activities happening everytime, including personal and social expectations of what kind of professional you're constructing to one day be. As pesonal factors, there is familiar interaction, finantial factors, there is students that also have a workjob to conciliate with university issues... And in the mid of all this, the student stil is a social being that needs to have personal conections and to build bonds. All this pressure associated with comunicative problems, friendship disorders or difficulty to maintain relationships increase singficantly academic stress.
As an adjunct, having interactions - even online - helps to bridge the feeling of connectivity and belonging. I feel my university does this well. Having responsive colleagues helps to make sure I am providing a quality class and gives me a place to ask questions. Without these interactions, I would not enjoy the role as much.