Students' sense of belonging has been described as a feeling of community acceptance, respect, inclusion, and membership. In computing, student belonging is shaped by psychological, social, academic, and environmental factors, including their relationships with instructors. However, despite prior work emphasizing instructors' influence on student belonging, limited research has examined how computing instructors perceive, understand, and attempt to support belonging. Through nine semi-structured qualitative interviews with introductory computing instructors at large public universities in the United States, we investigated how instructors define, measure, and conceptualize belonging; what interventions they use to support student belonging; and what barriers limit the efficacy of these interventions. Our findings show that instructors defined belonging through value and identity representation, self-efficacy, and community; relied on surveys, observations, and student performance to measure belonging; saw belonging to be influenced by prior experience, major, student and institutional culture, and representation; implemented student-oriented interventions and designed courses around belonging; and identified multi-level challenges to supporting belonging. These results highlight opportunities to design belonging interventions that attend to both prior work and instructor conceptualizations, while also considering tensions in utilizing teaching assistants, balancing students' expectations, and adapting to broader societal trends affecting belonging.

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