INCREASING RETENTION IN ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE WITH A FOCUS ON AT-RISK FIRST YEAR AND SOPHOMORE STUDENTS

该项目得到STEP特别资助重点的支持，“毕业生10K+”是美国国家科学基金会的一项活动，部分由英特尔基金会和通用电气基金会的捐款支持，以刺激大学和学院的综合行动，帮助增加每年新的学士学位数量。在未来十年内，工程和计算机科学的毕业生将增加1万人。特别是，这个项目团队的重点是第一次，一年级的大学生谁是微积分不准备，和第一次大二的学生谁是错过了两个必要的课程被归类为他们的班级水平的队列的一部分。具有这些特征的学生有”离开工程和计算机科学课程的风险“，即使他们可能有良好的学术地位。该项目的智力价值在于它的一套最佳实践的协调适应：1）在整个学年关于实现和保持队列状态的专门咨询，2）非微积分准备好的一年级学生的学术夏桥计划，以及3）机构内的各种子群体的持续保留跟踪。一个专门的步骤辅导员正在协调每周的个人和小组计划会议，旨在指导学生整个学年，建议关键的夏季课程选择，如果需要重新获得队列状态，并使用可用的辅导和研讨会服务，以避免退出。该项目的更广泛的影响正在实现，通过该项目的框架作为一项研究，以调查保持班级一级的队列状态和保留之间的联系，并利用国家和区域会议上的专业机会，提请注意更广泛的努力，以促进STEM的保留，并建立一个从业者社区。

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 first-time, first-year college students who are not calculus ready, and first-time sophomore students who are missing up to two courses necessary to be classified as part of their class-level cohort. Students with these characteristics are "at risk" of leaving their engineering and computer science courses of study, even though they may be in good academic standing. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its coordinated adaptation of a set of best practices: 1) dedicated counseling throughout the academic year regarding attaining and keeping cohort status, 2) an academic Summer Bridge program for non-calculus ready first-year students, and 3) ongoing retention tracking for various sub-populations within the institution. A dedicated STEP counselor is coordinating weekly individual and group program meetings designed to guide students throughout the academic year, to advise on key summer course selections, if needed to regain cohort status, and to use available tutoring and workshop services to avoid withdrawals. The project's broader impacts are being realized through the framing of the project as a research study to investigate the connection between maintaining class-level cohort status and retention, and leveraging professional opportunities at national and regional conferences to draw attention to the broader set of efforts at boosting retention in STEM and build a community of practitioners.