Workshop: First-Year Engineering Forums: Planning & Organizing Idea-Sharing Sessions with Program Stakeholders to Increase Collaboration and Mutually Beneficial Relationships

First-Year Engineering (FYE) programs, courses, seminars, etc., come in all shapes and sizes across the United States, and all are uniquely situated within their departments, colleges, and/or universities. One thing many first-year engineering programs, courses, or experiences have in common, though, is their high level of administrative and collaborative complexity compared to the average calculus or circuits course. This is due to the multiple stakeholders directly or indirectly related to or reliant on these courses. Sometimes the needs and expectations of these stakeholders can be misaligned or have competing priorities and interests. FYE programs must strike a balance between introducing students to a broad range of engineering disciplines— sometimes spanning ten or more majors—while also providing enough content / knowledge depth to prepare students for future coursework. In some cases, a FYE course might also be considered an "intro to engineering" general elective, so the content must remain general and accessible enough for any students interested in engineering. Beyond the students themselves, key stakeholders of FYE programs may include degree-granting departments (which shape curriculum expectations), academic advisors, donors, and student support offices. Even housing and residence life programs may be involved in supporting first-year engineering students through living and learning programs, further adding to the program's complexity. Successfully navigating the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests of the many stakeholders of a FYE program requires careful coordination and intentional program design. Last academic year (24-25) the facilitators of this workshop—which includes instructors, academic advisors, and program administrators—planned, organized, and facilitated a "First-Year Forum" at their large public southeastern US university to engage in productive and collaborative conversations with the first-year engineering program's many degree-granting major stakeholders (14) that students matriculate into past their first-year engineering experience. The forum was strategically designed to identify preconceived notions other engineering faculty and administrators had about the FYE program, illustrate the complexity of the FYE program and our many stakeholders, provide a space for us to share what we do and prioritize in the FYE program, and give our stakeholders a platform to bring forward their thoughts and ideas in collaboration with other stakeholders rather than in competition with them and to initiate a collaborative working environment. or to serve as the first step towards regular communication between the stakeholders. While we plan to briefly share how our "first-year forum" was planned and developed, we primarily hope to guide workshop participants through the stages of thought and planning for their own collaborative stakeholder forums through the lens of literature related to Theory of Change and our own lessons learned. The purpose of this workshop is not only to encourage participants to open lines of communication with their FYE program stakeholders, but also to plant ideas for how engaging with those stakeholders could increase the quality of our FYE programs and the support, learning, and growth they provide for students. Workshop attendees will leave the workshop with not only ideas for the stakeholders they'd like to engage with in relation to their FYE program, but also strategies for how to engage with those stakeholders in ways that promote sustained cooperation and future collaboration.