Assessment of faculty mentoring strategies of student learning communities at Western Michigan University College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Learning Communities involving 263 first-year students were created at Western Michigan University College of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Fall Semester 2005 to enhance student learning and improve first-year retention. Placing groups of students in the same 2-to-4 classes did achieve the program's goals of creating connection among students and forming student study groups. There do not appear to be any major differences in student satisfaction among Learning Communities with regular "face-to-face" contact with a faculty mentor and those without regular "face-to-face" contact. However, it appears that it is important to students' satisfaction with the first semester, and perhaps to their more promptly "testing" their fit in the field, to enroll them in an engineering course early in their academic career.