Procedures and Outcomes of an Engineering Living - Learning Community

At a university serving around 21,000 undergraduate students, a first-year engineering program partnered with the campus residence life to create an Engineering Living – Learning Community. The goal of this program is to allow students in a certain major to live and learn with their peers. Learning opportunities come from common curriculum and strategic programming, which is developed in tandem by the Residence Hall Coordinator for the building and the engineering faculty partner in the first-year engineering program. The Engineering Living-Learning Community serves around 250 students each year (5 floors of 50 students) out of around 900 first time freshman engineering students. This program is now in its third year of implementation and some of the outcomes include: waiting lists for participation in Living- Learning Community(LLC), increased student involvement in LLC, and noted higher overall GPA data when compared to other first-year engineering students. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the organization of the engineering Living-Learning Community and programs (House Cup / Running of the Bulls, tutoring opportunities, etc.) that have contributed to recent results.