Krylow, R. (2024, July), WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience  Paper presented at 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts. 10.18260/1-2--48636

\bibitem{asee_peer_48636}
  Krylow, R. (2024, July), \emph{WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience}
  Paper presented at 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts.
  10.18260/1-2--48636

Rebecca Krylow.  "WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience".  15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts, 2024, July.  ASEE Conferences, 2024.  https://peer.asee.org/48636 Internet.  23 Jan, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_48636}
  Rebecca Krylow.
  "WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience".
  \emph{15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts, 2024, July}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2024.
  https://peer.asee.org/48636 Internet.  23 Jan, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_48636
author = "Rebecca Krylow"
title = "WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience"
booktitle = "15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE)"
year = "2024"
month = "July"
address = "Boston, Massachusetts"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/48636}
number = {10.18260/1-2--48636}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Although there may be an interest in developing partnerships with community-based clients, the “how” can feel obscure, cumbersome, and a bit overwhelming.  “How would we identify the gains for the client? For our students?”; “We are a small staff and don’t have the time to set up meetings to explain our course”; or “First-year engineering students don’t have the skills yet to build something useful for a client” are a few examples of concerns that faculty and administration might have.  Moreover, it may be assumed that community partners would be uninterested in working with first-year engineering students.  In contrast, our team has found the community to be very interested in partnering with our first-year engineering design course to bring authentic projects to our first-year students.

At Duke University, Introduction to Engineering Design and Communication (EGR 101) hosts approximately 70 client-based projects each fall semester.  To meet this need, our team approaches identifying clients and the subsequent communication as a year-round process.  With this approach, we identify projects from a wide range of partners such as: Chapel Hill Public Library; Duke Cancer Center; Garmin; Durham Public Schools; and the North Carolina Zoo.

Tips, tricks, and lessons learned from building client relationships in the Durham, NC and Duke University communities will be shared. Data from three years of a focused effort to build a wide-ranging client database will be shared. For example, >70% of clients who responded to our survey said they would like to return as clients the following fall semester. And >90% of clients were satisfied with the frequency of communication with their assigned student team(s). The value of audience-centered speaking will be detailed, and examples of multiples modes of communication (emails, surveys, recruitment flyers, etc.) will also be referenced. This presentation will share how the infusion of client-based projects into EGR 101 has enhanced the student experience, the needs for the clients, and the learning outcomes for the course.

AU  - Rebecca Krylow
CY  - Boston, Massachusetts
DA  - 2024/07/28
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - WIP: Cultivating Relationships with Clients in the Community:  Enhancing the First-Year Student Experience
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/48636
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--48636
ER  -