Albuquerque, New Mexico
June 24, 2001
June 24, 2001
June 27, 2001
2153-5965
14
6.267.1 - 6.267.14
10.18260/1-2--8994
https://peer.asee.org/8994
457
Session 1237
CircLES: A Comprehensive First-Year Program for Entering Engineering and Science Students
Connie Kubo Della-Piana, Pablo Arenaz, Walter Fisher and Benjamin C. Flores
The CircLES Program and the Model Institutions for Excellence Program1, The University of Texas at El Paso, TX 79968
Abstract The current paper describes a comprehensive first-year program for all entering engineering and science students that has been implemented at The University of Texas at El Paso. Designed to meet the educational and developmental needs of entering students attending an urban commuter campus, CircLES links a mandatory summer orientation and advising with a required first year engineering or science oriented learning community for the purpose of increasing student success and persistence toward graduation. Emphasis is placed on developing an environment in the first year in which students learn to be successful college students and begin the development of lifelong learning habits. This paper describes the rational, goals, and the structure of the program, results of the pilot and institutional scale-up, lessons learned, and challenges facing the movement of students from an entering students program to departmental programs. Retention rates and student feedback indicate that the program is accomplishing the short-term outcomes of increasing retention rates and providing students with experiences designed to increase their success and progress into the major.
I. Introduction
Increasing the retention rates and the success of students in engineering and science have become growing concerns for engineering and science programs across the nation. Historically, students in the Colleges of Engineering and Science at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have returned after one year at a rate slightly above the institutional one-year retention rate (~66% regular admissions university-wide 1997 Student Cohort). However, the six-year graduation rate for students in the sciences and engineering is generally lower than the rest of the institution. In the past, pre-engineering and pre-science students, many who are not calculus-ready, have been over-looked by engineering and science programs. During their first year at UTEP, they have relied on university-wide advising and taken general education courses with no interaction with faculty and staff in the Colleges of Science and Engineering. In an effort to address these issues, the Colleges of Engineering and Science with the support of the National Science Foundation Model Institutions for Excellence Program have instituted an innovative
1 The Model Institutions for Excellence Program at The University of Texas at El Paso is supported by the National Science Foundation (HRD/EEC 9550502).
Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education
Flores, B., & Fisher, W., & Arenaz, P., & Della-Piana, C. (2001, June), Circ Les: A Comprehensive First Year Program For Entering Engineering And Science Students Paper presented at 2001 Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 10.18260/1-2--8994
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2001 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015