Ac 2011-2404: a Drop-in Tutoring Program to Support First- Year Engineering

In spring 2008 the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder established an inclusive excellence program with a focus on increasing the academic performance and retention through graduation of students who are underrepresented in engineering — including women, minorities, low-income and first-generation college students. The Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity Center (BOLD) Center hosts the Student Success Center (SSC), a drop-in tutoring initiative that is available for all engineering students, with an eye towards building inclusion. Launched in fall 2008, the SSC’s primary goals are to foster student learning, maximize academic performance in math and science foundation courses and ultimately curtail the loss of students during the first, second and third years of engineering study. This paper presents the motivations behind hosting a college-wide tutoring center through the diversity-serving program in the college, the role of the SSC in improving the retention and success of firstand secondyear engineering students and a comparison of SSC users with the firstand second-year engineering non-user student population. Our primary research focus is to assess the factors associated with the use of facilitated informal learning environments, such as the SSC, that can impact student self-efficacy, identity and retention. Research includes probing the reasons behind the increased success we observe in SSC users, the impact of tutoring practices on student retention (especially those underrepresented in engineering), and examining the interest and academic performance of firstand second-year men and women who both persisted in or left engineering. This paper focuses on the results for 220 unique students who used the SSC more than 1050 times during the 2009-2010 academic year, with most seeking support for Calculus I-III, Chemistry and Physics. Staffed by two tutors at all times, the SSC provided approximately 2000 hours of SSC support during the year—approximately 35-40 hours per week. Highlights of the results include very low numbers of SSC users who go on probation and suspension, and an average GPA that is on par, to slightly higher than, the college average. Numerous repeating students who come as a group to work with the same tutors each week lead us to conclude that the SSC plays a strong role in guiding student study groups that are facilitated in a positive and safe learning environment.