PI: Bev Watford, Associate Dean - Academic Affairs

Project Goals or Needs Addressed: "The retention of African American students…in engineering, is about…half that of majority students. Studies have shown that the first semester performance of a first-year student basically predicts the probability that they will remain… if you are over a 3.5 GPA, it’s like 95%; if you are between 2.5 and 3.0, it drops down to 50%; and if you are below a 2.5 or 2.0, it drops down to nothing."
Project Grants and Expenditures:
$5000 (year 7), $15,000 (year 9), faculty wages, graduate assistnats, textbooks, room & board for participants



The Office of Minority Engineering Programs maintains a listing of its current pre-college and freshemen programs (Web site)
 


At-risk students are housed on campus for five weeks and attend pre-college classes in "chemistry, chemistry lab, calculus, and … engineering problem solving." Project staff obtain and track grade and retention data to compare at-risk students who attend Bridge classes against at-risk students who do not. Project staff also maintain a Web site describing the program with downloadable application forms. Approximately 35-40 students are served per summer program.