Engineering Living Learning Community Experience: A Model for Improving First-Year Retention and Academic Performance of Black Students

The Florida A&M University (FAMU) Engineering Living Learning Community (LLC) is a student support program for freshman enrolled in an engineering major offered at the FAMU‐FSU College of Engineering. The program is designed to: (1) foster a sense of community, (2) strengthen students' pathways from high school through the second year of college, and (3) provide academic support for pre-engineering courses. Research on LLCs indicate that they can help participants persist in their college majors through the support structure they create. However, the structure of LLCs impacts the level of support students receive. Little research has focused specifically on underrepresented minority students in LLCs or STEM LLCs. Engineering is a field where people of color are severely underrepresented. If engineering departments can create successful support systems through LLCs they can begin to address the underrepresentation. This case study of a successful Engineering LLC will provide a research-based structure for other colleges and departments to emulate. We will present data for first-time in college students entering the college between 2015-2019, taking into account students' academic preparedness (i.e. high school GPA and ACT/SAT math scores), gender, first generation, and financial status. This paper will report the results of five (5) different cohorts of Engineering LLC Scholars that completed an academic year in the freshman student support program. We compare the retention rates, persistence and academic performance (e.g. First Year Engineering Lab (FYEL), Calculus I, Calculus II, and Physics I course success rates) of Engineering LLC Scholars compared with students that did not participate in the student support program to highlight the success of the program. Then we describe the best practices of the FAMU Engineering Living Learning Community that led to the persistence of black students. This paper will assist other programs to promote equity and inclusion of engineering students to exist as a minority in a majority engineering program, whether they are deemed "engineering ready" or not.