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Engineering Center Residence Hall Program

David R. Thompson, Steven D. Langstraat, and Virgil Nichols

College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology Oklahoma State University

Introduction

Planning in the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology at Oklahoma State University throughout the decade of the 1990’s, called for increased student recruitment and retention. Engineering and Architectural programs in the College operate under the professional school concept. Students are admitted to the first two years of pre-professional study and then must be admitted to the professional school of their choice based on performance in their pre- professional work. Although most of the professional schools were at or near capacit y, there was a desire to recruit and retain more students and to improve the academic performance of students in the pre-professional courses. Improving these aspects should result in more capable students in the professional programs.

The College had in the 1980’s focused on attracting students with both excellent academic records and significant leadership potential. This had been accomplished with a series of scholars programs. These programs provide a rich menu of enrichment activities for students who were accepted into one of the programs. Because of cost, these programs could only accept a small number of (approximately 40) students per year. The college needed to add programs that would enhance the recruitment, retention and academic performance of a larger share of the student body. Three actions were taken. One action reoriented the Introduction to Engineering Course to address student characteristics that frequently lead to attrition. 1 The second action provided a substantial array of enrichment activities outside of the classroom. The third action was the creation of an Engineering Center in the residence halls. This paper focuses on the Engineering Center and the impact it had on engineering students in the College.

From both internal unpublished surveys and external sources 7,11 it was known that parents and teachers of science and mathematics courses have a significant impact on students’ selection of engineering as a major. Therefore, it was important to design the Engineering Center to be attractive to these influential people as well as effective with students and attractive to prospective students.

Surveys 3 of Oklahoma State University students have shown that engineering, architecture and engineering technology students must study substantially more hours per week than do students in any other discipline. Thus, it was considered important to have an environment to facilitate the longer study hours.

“Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineerign Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ã 2002, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Thompson, D. (2002, June), Engineering Center Residence Hall Program (Retention Program) Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10744