1. FORTE Program External/Internal Board Meeting September 28, 2012 College of Engineering & Applied Science

2. Re-Introductions John Reisel – PI Ethan Munson – mentoring / LLC George Hanson – Bridge Program Ed Beimborn – Bridge Program Hossein Hosseini – Faculty Mentors Marissa Jablonski – Coordinator

3. Project Summary Improve CEAS retention and graduation –Summer Bridge Program –Living Learning Community (LLC) –Peer Mentoring / Study Groups –Faculty Mentoring Evaluation – Assessment

4. Summer Bridge Program Year# Students% Improve% up two levels 2009376822 2010478317 2011648811 2012428829 - Program format is working to improve math placement - Number of students down (campus trend)

5. Summer Bridge Program Revised Engineering Activities: –Week 1 – Bridge Building –Week 2 – RC Car Modification –Week 3 – Micro Hydro Power –Week 4 – Distortion Circuit Design Offered scholarship money for participation level and contest winners. –Contingent on getting a C or better in Fall math class Evening Math tutoring available – used by few Teaming of mentors with students

6. Living-Learning Community Fourth year of “Innovation House” is just beginning. students are participating. 68 Engineering / CS students signed up for 2012-13. (4 others as well.) Each student had at least one course in common with others in the course. Fall – Robotics / Media creation program with Discovery World Spring – Engineering Olympics

7. Study Groups Designed as study groups for math and introductory engineering and CS courses. 2011 Fall participation increased to 82% of incoming CEAS freshmen participated to some extent, and 95% of those attended 9 or more sessions. Working best at Calculus level (2.62 GPA compared to 2.04 GPA for participants/non- participants). Improvement not as great at Pre-Calc levels.

8. Program Evaluation Worked with Consulting Office of Research and Evaluation (CORE) to set up and maintain tracking database. Most procedures for data collection have been ironed out, and a database for each of the last three years’ freshmen has been established. The 2007-08 and 2008-09 cohorts act as baselines, and the 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011- 12 cohorts are being used to monitor the effectiveness of the interventions.

9. Other Papers were presented on the study groups and the preliminary effectiveness of the summer bridge program at the 2012 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (June, San Antonio, TX) Journal article appeared in the International Journal of Mathematics in Science and Technology (43:421-433)

10. Plans for 2012-2013 Maintain Basic Program Format Continue Evaluation Need to Continue Transition to Post-Grant Period No-Cost Extension Request Future STEP Grant? –Type 1B grants are not easy to get (so far). –Cooperate on a larger scale with rest of campus?

11. Questions?