This project is being supported under a special funding focus for STEP, "Graduate 10K+," an activity of the National Science Foundation, supported in part by donations from the Intel Foundation and the GE Foundation, to stimulate comprehensive action at universities and colleges to help increase the annual number of new B.S. graduates in engineering and computer science by 10,000 over the next decade. In particular, this project team is focusing on improving retention and graduation of students in its School of Engineering, with a particular emphasis on providing peer-led enrichment sessions and tutoring support for three mathematics courses (Pre-Calculus and Calculus I and II) identified as attrition points. Additional initiatives include enhanced mentoring by peers, faculty and practicing engineers, implementation of a student tracking program to allow early intervention for struggling students, and involving first-year students in design-team and professional activities to strengthen their connections to the engineering program. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its multi-pronged approach that leverages best practices from the STEM educational literature, as well as successful pilot studies of the mathematics interventions. The broader impacts comprise enhanced achievement, retention, and graduation of engineering students to enter the local and regional workforce, as well as assessment and dissemination of the approaches to serve as a model for other institutions of similar size and circumstances to adopt.
