Conference Session

FPD9 -- Teaching Methods & Technology

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Anthony Dean, Old Dominion University; Bonita Anthony, Old Dominion University; Linda Vahala, Old Dominion University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

career in Engineering and Engineering Technology. Theshort time available to each program presents unique challenges in giving the students ameaningful experience in each discipline represented in the program. This paper presents thesechallenges and how the program has addressed them, as well as the continual processimprovement being undertaken by the faculty to keep the program engaging for the students.Additionally this paper highlights the retention rate changes in the college as a result of thisprogram.IntroductionRetention of engineering students has become a major undertaking for most institutions withengineering programs. Much of this retention effort is taking place at the freshmen level, wheredropout rates have been the highest

Conference Session

FPD6 -- Early Intervention & Retention Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ken Yasuhara, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

place, this is an assumption worth examining. Ourstudy aims to address this need by investigating pre-major undergraduates’ perceptions ofmajoring in CSE and of the career paths they associate with it.This paper presents a selection of findings from an interview-based, qualitative study ofprospective CSE majors at a large research university. This research primarily aims to detail therange of student perceptions about CSE, rather than to make broadly generalizable claims.However, the responses exhibit some patterns in beliefs about and interest in majoring in CSE.We focus here on findings most likely to inform efforts to recruit, support, and retain CSEmajors into and through their first year of undergraduate study. Many of the

Conference Session

FPD4 -- Hands-on & Real-World Studies

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Larry Bland, John Brown University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

andhow their personal career may be impacted.The above course adaptations are changes that could be made within the original course structurewithout adding work or changing the classroom time. Original discussions are now simplyreframed to consider global and cultural issues.One change that did add content is a discussion on appropriate technology. The new coursesyllabus takes a week to discuss the issues of appropriate technology and how engineers need toadapt designs for integration into needy societies. Over the two years that this new course hasbeen in place, guest lecturers have proven to be very effective in stimulating discussion andcritical thinking in this class segment.During the first year, JBU had the opportunity to have artisans

Conference Session

FPD2 -- Highlighting First-Year Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jean Kampe, Virginia Tech; Whitney Edmister, Virginia Tech; Matthew Stimpson, Virginia Tech; Brad Matanin, Virginia Tech; Amanda Martin, Virginia Tech; Cory Brozina, Virginia Tech; Bevlee Watford, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

M.S. in Counselor Education, Student Affairs Administration from Radford University, and M.S. in Career and Technical Education and B.S. in Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise both from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Sate University.Matthew Stimpson, Virginia Tech MATTHEW STIMPSON is a doctoral student in the Higher Education program in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Virginia Tech. He is also a graduate assistant in the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity, also at Virginia Tech. He holds a M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration and a B.A. in political science, both from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.Brad Matanin, Virginia

Conference Session

FPD5 -- Placement & Early Success

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Carol Gattis, University of Arkansas; Bryan Hill, University of Arkansas; Abraham Lachowsky, University of Arkansas

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

tour ◊ Go to mentoring events ◊ Meet over coffee, lunch, or dinner ◊ Go to educational events such as lectures, talks, documentaries ◊ Go to student organization meetings ◊ Other activities I want to do with my mentor: _________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________I hope my mentor and I will discuss: ◊ Academic subjects that will most benefit my future career ◊ Job opportunities, co-op opportunities, Career Development Center ◊ The realities of the university and

Conference Session

FPD3 -- Professional Issues for First-Year Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

James Mathias, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Lalit Gupta, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Jale Tezcan, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Ronald Caffey, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Bruce Chrisman, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Chris Pearson, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; John Nicklow, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Ernest Lewis, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Rhonda Kowalchuk, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Kathy Pericak-Spector, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; Hasan Sevim, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

, sophomore and junior engineeringstudents and faculty provide peer and faculty mentoring to freshman and sophomore engineeringstudents to encourage them to continue in the engineering program through the challenging firsttwo years. Practicing engineers are designated as industrial mentors and work with students toprovide career advice, clarify engineering jobs, and explain how curriculum in engineering isused in the workplace.It is projected that through the successful implementation of the innovative student-centeredacademic and non-academic programs, the overall five year retention and graduation rate in theSIUC College of Engineering will increase by 30%, from 37% to 67

Conference Session

FPD11 -- Multidisciplinary Experiences

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kauser Jahan, Rowan University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

teaching math and science. This eliminates manyof the best and brightest schoolchildren from the ranks of future scientists and engineers. Manystudents who do undertake science and engineering studies in college are unprepared and dropout in frustration, while other potentially capable students never consider these subjects in thefirst place. In both cases, precious human and institutional resources are squandered.Enhanced engineering education in our K-12 classrooms can provide students at an earlier agewith a more specific understanding of what a technical career entails. We must encourageteachers to assume a more active role not only in the implementation/delivery of the educationalexperience for the student, but also in the innovation and

Conference Session

FPD12 -- Novel Approaches to First Year Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Janet Meyer, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis; Nancy Lamm, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis; Joshua Smith, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

; 6. furthering an understanding of self and career goals; and 7.utilization of campus resources. Various schools within our university offer their own version ofthe learning community. Each, however, includes the template outcomes while at the same timeoffering students greater insight into particular fields of study offered by each school.Our freshman engineering program began offering learning community courses (ENGR 195) in1999. A few years later the learning community became a requirement for the engineeringdegree. During this same time, there was a rise in interest within the national engineeringcommunity about what curricular changes might improve recruitment and retention in thevarious fields of engineering. An assortment of textbooks

Conference Session

FPD12 -- Novel Approaches to First Year Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cecelia Wigal, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Ignatius Fomunung, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Edwin Foster, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Ronald Goulet, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

(ABET) identifies design as animportant element of the engineering curriculum. The faculty at the University of Tennessee atChattanooga (UTC) believes the concepts and principles of design are as fundamental toundergraduate engineering education as are those tools and topics traditionally thought asfundamental (such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, statics, and dynamics). The faculty alsobelieves, as supported in the literature, that getting engineering students involved in hands-onprojects early in their academic career motivates students and aids in retention. This paperdescribes the process and outcomes of using Project-Based Learning, specifically hands-ondesign projects supporting upper level course work, in the freshman design course

Conference Session

FPD2 -- Highlighting First-Year Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lynnane George, U.S. Air Force Academy; Robert Brown, U.S. Air Force Academy

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

Mechanical Engineering and MSME from Ga Tech in 1989. She began her Air Force career in the Defense Satellite Communication Program Office at Los Angeles AFB, California where she served in the Mechanical Engineering Branch. She was then selected for a one-year Education with Industry program with the Aerospace Corporation, where she performed launch vehicle vibrations and launch wind loads analyses. She then moved on to the Titan System Program Office where she was the Flight Loads and Dynamics Manager for two years before moving to a mission management position. As mission manager for the Titan IV/Centaur mission TIV-23, she was responsible for all integration, planning

Conference Session

FPD2 -- Highlighting First-Year Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joseph Schimmels, Marquette University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

course sequence was that it act as anabstract (or “roadmap”) of the engineering curriculum as well as an abstract for a generalengineering career. Other design objectives, related to the program-level objectives providedabove, are that the courses: 1) engage students in activities similar to those performed bypracticing engineers to allow them to make informed decisions regarding persistence inengineering, 2) motivate the need for the analysis skills that are the focus of subsequentcoursework; 3) motivate, define, and exercise the skills and characteristics of an experiencedengineer related to design, communication, and teamwork, 4) demonstrate the importance ofthese not-exclusively-analysis skills and characteristics to students, and 5) instill

Conference Session

FPD10 -- Pre-Engineering and Bridge Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Blair Rowley, Wright State University; Kumar Yelamarthi, Wright State University; Cory Miller, Wright State University; Thomas L. Bazzoli, Wright State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

THOMAS L. BAZZOLI is Assistant Dean for Fiscal Affairs and Research. He holds the MS in Nuclear Science and Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. During his Air Force career he directed diverse research programs in modeling and testing of system performance, compositional mapping of submicron materials and machine translation of text. He was instrumental in establishing the college’s freshman program. Page 12.764.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 Freshman Engineering Student Responses to a Pre-College Perception SurveyAbstractEngineering

Conference Session

FPD10 -- Pre-Engineering and Bridge Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michele Grimm, Wayne State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

two years, the effect of this program on retention is promising. The Fall 2006 program hasbeen enhanced and is anticipated to further increase continued enrollment. Assessment of theprogram will be ongoing, focusing on retention and academic performance.IntroductionAs the economy changes and more emphasis is placed on jobs in technology-related industries, itfalls to the higher education system to prepare students for careers in these fields. Many collegesof engineering, especially those with an urban mission, have recognized that a poor preparationin math and science reduces their students’ chance for success in an undergraduate engineeringprogram. However, for many students it is lack of opportunity – rather than lack of ability – thatis

Conference Session

FPD3 -- Professional Issues for First-Year Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Karen High, Oklahoma State University; Rebecca Damron, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

material, test-taking skills, and college survival skills. • Professional Success – career planning and effective presentations. • Engineering Information – career and advisement information and research presentations/laboratory tours. • Engineering Design and Problem Solving – creativity, effective teams, brainstorming, process design, and product design. • Societal Issues of Engineers – ethics, diversity/international issues, environmental issues/sustainability, medicine and bioengineering. • Personal Development – stress management and other wellness issues.This course is a particularly good class to do problem-based, cooperative activitiesbecause it addresses the goal of giving students engineering

Conference Session

FPD3 -- Professional Issues for First-Year Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Lau, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

author’s 23-year Page 12.614.2academic career, this course has been the most well-liked by students, who not only activelyengage in the discussions, but report actually enjoying reading the book. By basing anintroduction to ethics on popular culture, students seem more receptive to the relevance totheir own lives and careers.Moral ImaginationThe number one lesson in this course is that ethical issues pervade the practice of engineering.Furthermore, using Star Trek and other situations taken from everyday life teaches the largermessage that ethics pervades day-to-day life. Awareness of the pervasiveness of ethical issues isthe fundamental first step

Conference Session

FPD4 -- Hands-on & Real-World Studies

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joseph Menicucci, Montana State University; James Duffy, Montana State University; Betsy Palmer, Montana State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

student’s current base of knowledge andexperience. Through hands-on laboratories and follow-up seminars, the students werealso introduced to the breadth of traditional and non-traditional careers available tograduates in chemical engineering. A unique aspect of this laboratory based course isthat most concepts are taught in an inductive learning format. Students were asked to Page 12.796.2predict experimental outcomes, perform the experiments, plot and analyze the data, andcompare results to their predictions before being exposed to the underlying theory andpredictive calculations. By incorporating the concepts within innovative/hands-onactivities, it is

Conference Session

FPD6 -- Early Intervention & Retention Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Knight, University of Colorado at Boulder; Jacquelyn Sullivan, University of Colorado at Boulder; Beverly Louie, University of Colorado at Boulder

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

Amiable social style — perhaps the most people-oriented of ourstudents — were more likely to leave engineering after their first year. Perhaps the needs of theseshy, inquisitive, people-oriented individuals are unmet in the first year and in the FYEP courseand lead them to seek other options for their career goals.Students with lower versatility scores were more likely to be retained into their sophomore year.This may be good news from a numbers perspective, in that our students overwhelmingly werecharacterized as having low versatility. However, the loss of greater numbers of studentsexhibiting high communications versatility (already poorly-represented at 22%) is a disturbingfinding for engineering, as this would seemingly lead to a less

Conference Session

FPD7 -- Service Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Pagano, Western Michigan University; Amanda Rossman, Western Michigan University; Kendall Vasilnek, Western Michigan University; Betsy Aller, Western Michigan University; Edmund Tsang, Western Michigan University; Andrew Kline, Western Michigan University; Edward Brabandt, Western Michigan University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

interested in pursuing a career in structural engineering.Kendall Vasilnek, Western Michigan University Kendall Vasilnek is a second-year student in Civil and Construction Engineering at Western Michigan University. She is a teaching assistant for first-year, at-risk students, and hopes to go into environmental engineering upon graduation.Betsy Aller, Western Michigan University Betsy M. Aller received her PhD from Michigan Technological University and is assistant professor of Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering at Western Michigan University. She teaches her department's capstone design courses and the college-wide service learning engineering design sequence, and

Conference Session

FPD7 -- Service Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Bert Davy, Morgan State University; Indranil Goswami, Morgan State University; Jiang Li, Morgan State University; Gbekeloluwa Oguntimen, Morgan State University; Charles Oluokun, Morgan State University; Arcadio Sincero, Morgan State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

engineering education–a heavy dose of rigorousmath and science during freshman and sophomore years–does not engage students’ vision of anengineering career. Freshmen students are suddenly confronted with classes that seem to havelittle relevance to the discipline. Mathematics faculty members, rather than those in engineering,usually teach math classes (Nikias, 2005). The freshman year for an engineering student is verycritical to his or her retention in the in the engineering program. There are reports in literaturethat the introduction of design in the freshman engineering course has an impact on the retentionof students in engineering program , stimulated interest in engineering among freshmen, enhancesoft skills like communication, working in

Conference Session

FPD8 -- Introductory Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

George List, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

usethese tools might have a long-term value for their careers. The choice of VBA was driven by asense that it might be used in practice, since Excel is so common, it is very approachable andtransparent, as in the debugging features it affords; and MATLAB was deemed valuable forresearch. In civil engineering, a strong sentiment existed that if such programming skills werecommon among the undergraduates, there would be opportunities to do new and creative thingsin upper division classes insofar as lab assignments, homework exercises, and undergraduateresearch experiences were concerned.The particulars of the current course are as follows. It is a full semester in duration, with aboutfourteen lectures in programming concepts and fourteen labs

Conference Session

FPD3 -- Professional Issues for First-Year Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jennifer Light, University of Washington; Russell Korte, University Of Minnesota; Ken Yasuhara, University of Washington; Deborah Kilgore, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

Page 12.725.2confidence in their intellectual and technical abilities?In this paper, we will summarize the literature on confidence, persistence, and gender inengineering, describe our methods in greater detail, introduce our findings with respect to theseresearch questions, and discuss implications for research, theory and practice.Confidence, Persistence, Performance and GenderIt is generally believed that self-confidence and persistence in higher education are positivelyrelated. For example, Burtner5 found that self-reported confidence in math and science abilityalong with the belief that an engineering degree enhances career security was a predictor of bothshort- and long-term persistence. Lack of confidence in math and science ability

Conference Session

FPD11 -- Multidisciplinary Experiences

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John-David Yoder, Ohio Northern University; Beverly Jaeger, Northeastern University; John K. Estell, Ohio Northern University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

world, (3) building a foundation to their technical presentation skills, (4) motivating them to be interested and inspired by engineering as a career, (5) making them feel part of the new academic world they are entering, and (6) allowing them to contribute to and participate in their own education1 .”As part of the implementation process, one of the Freshman Engineering 1 faculty memberscontacted the instructor who had originally developed the OME, who agreed to assist with thisprocess, provide copies of handouts, pursue cooperative research in this area, help with theassessment of the results, and to co-author this paper. This collaboration, which was one of theobjectives for presenting OME at ASEE, started a dialog on how

Conference Session

FPD7 -- Service Learning

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Promiti Dutta, Columbia University; Alexander Haubold, Columbia University

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

engineering careers in industry, government agencies and other organizations concerned with the environment and the provision of primary materials and secondary materials and energy, as well as graduate studies in related disciplines. • This course teaches the basic concepts and skills needed for the practice of Earth and Environmental Engineering, including measurement and control of material and contaminant flows through the environment, assessment of environmental impact of past, present and future industrial activities, and analysis and design of processes for remediation, recycling, and disposal of used materials. • This course ensures that the technical training of our students is based on a strong liberal arts

Conference Session

FPD10 -- Pre-Engineering and Bridge Programs

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cecelia Wigal, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Molly Littleton, Signal Centers

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

thelives of a particular child or a group of children. The customer supported projects are alsohelping them learn about the design process and engineering’s impact on society. Using thismodel with a freshman level course helps set the stage for a reality grounded, practicalcurriculum to begin the students’ engineering careers. Page 12.1432.12In addition, several local community organizations, through public relations activities andpresentations, have become more aware of the contributions and impact that engineers can haveon society. This has resulted in several local organizations requesting assistance from UTC’sengineering program for projects that

Conference Session

FPD8 -- Introductory Courses

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven Lehr, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Christopher Grant, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Prescott

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

capabilities. ….Andrew PTime, patience, and dedication are necessary for any programming project to be successful. Theymust be planned out over a period of time, rather than done the night before in order for theproject to have any possibility of being impressive. The project is only as good as the quality ofwork you put into it. Your attitude towards the project also affects the quality of its final outcome.This program is not just a final project, but a tool for me in the future. I have truly realized thepower, convenience, and usefulness of the C++ programming environment and will be using itthroughout my career. .. Matthew SIn conclusion, the horsepower calculator is a very handy piece of code that is of high interest tome, and some of my friends