A new study by psychology professors in California has found that students who spend more time with their professors during office hours outside of class tend to become more progressive over time.

Using research surveys collected from approximately 12,000 students at a variety of college campuses, Christos Korgan, a professor of psychology at the University of St. Katherine, found that students who utilize office hours to spend time with their professors outside of class tend to be significantly more liberal than their fellow peers who do not take advantage of office hours.

“The result that interactions with faculty were associated with students’ social progressivism…might be explained by the nuanced ways which faculty members engage students in and out of formal academic spaces,” writes Korgan, who was the lead author of the article.

Outside of spending excess time with professors, the only other indicator of progressivism among students was that those who spend a significant amount of time talking with other students while on campus also tend to have more progressive views than that of their peers.

Korgan also noted that the study showed progressive students tend to submit assignments later than conservative-minded students, though the authors did not make any attempt to further analyze this finding.

Korgan says he was inspired to take up this research topic because there is a lack of research looking into how students develop progressive values, which he says is of “unprecedented importance” for students to develop during their college years.

“Very little empirical work has delved into how students develop socially progressive values, despite their unprecedented importance to young people during their years in higher education,” said Korgan.

In a summary of his paper, Korgan took a jab at President Trump by stating that his research was conducted during a time of “undeniable national tumult on the degradation of our collective social fabric,” but praises millennials as a group who collectively fight for progressive social ideals.