Living, Learning & Growing Together: Engineering Your World

The Women in Engineering Program (WEP) (now Women in STEM) at the University of Texas at Austin, Living Learning Community (LLC) provides first-year engineering women with the opportunity to live together in a supportive, residential community. This presentation will outline the full program including weekly seminar content and curriculum, staffing structure, social programming, and other administrative aspects related to recruitment, application, selection, placement, communication, and scholarship awards. The intent of this presentation is to provide an overview of the program to provide best practices, lessons learned and to inspire others to replicate a sustainable program on their campus. The mission of the WiSTEM LLC is to recruit, support, and retain a diverse population of students in engineering; to link students with resources and opportunities that will support their academic and personal pursuits, and to develop relationships among students with similar interests while building a community based on mutual respect and affirmation of diversity. LLC students make new friends quickly, form study groups, and have special programming and academic support from the WiSTEM staff with further their connection to WiSTEM, their college/school, and to the University as well. Due to restrictive admissions policies at our institution, the target population to recruit into the LLC is the pool of admitted engineering women. The time frame for recruitment is generally January through April and the ideal candidate will have already submitted a University Housing application. Targeted messages via emails, newsletters, phone calls, and postcards are used to excite students and families about this opportunity. An online application is collected and admitted students applying for the LLC are asked to respond to the following questions: 1) Tell us why you feel you are a good candidate for membership in the LLC next year 2) Talk about your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and what you can bring to the community 3) Describe your current academic interests and how you plan to explore those interests at the university next year. Applicants may elect to respond in written format but are encouraged to submit a video response to the questions. While there have been learning communities for over 20 years, growing from 15 students when founded, to 76 students today in partnership with University Housing & Dining (UHD). Through this partnership and with the advancement of UHD's LLC program, WiSTEM was able to expand the LLC from 40 students spread over two residence hall floors to 76 students on one floor with a paid support team of eight Peer Coaches and two Resident Assistants. The 76 first-year students occupy one entire floor of the residence hall along with two live-in Resident Assistants. The 2 Resident Assistants are typically former members of the LLC who are employed and managed by University Housing & Dining. The 8 Peer Coaches are not live-in residents but are all former participants/members of the community who are employed and managed by WiSTEM. The staff team meets weekly to communicate about programming needs/plans, upcoming seminar topics, and resident concerns. Communicating weekly to coordinate allows for early intervention regarding roommate issues, homesickness, or other student difficulties. One of the program requirements for residents/participants/members is to enroll in a one-hour weekly seminar for both the fall and spring semesters. This seminar course was created with a curriculum designed to advance student success, support community building, and create engineering identity. For the fall semester, the seminar focus is on the transition from high school, creating sustainable study habits conducive to success in engineering and community building. Mixed into the weekly seminar, are hands-on engineering projects to build teamwork skills as well as to introduce the Engineering Design Process. The textbook used for the seminar is How to College and is provided to all students by WiSTEM. This text has proven to be an easy-to-read resource with several activities and discussion prompts allowing for easy adoption. Additionally, there are several sections focused on family/parent relationships to ease the transition from high school to college. Finally, drawing upon engineering education research, a partnership with Texas InventionWorks, the engineering maker studio, was created so LLC students can gain training on maker studio equipment and use the facility for a semester-long, hands-on engineering design challenge. During the spring semester, students are organized into small project teams, based on interest, to research one of the Engineering Grand Challenges. These challenges provide a real-life problem in order to inspire students and to connect the theoretical learning from their engineering coursework. Working in teams with an end goal and deadline also provides students with real-life skills of project management, teamwork, and communication skills necessary for career development. To conclude the semester, a poster-style presentation is held to showcase all the work of the project teams to the larger engineering community.