Bringing About Marked Increases in Freshman Engineering Retention

During the past ten years, The Ohio State University's College of Engineering has moved from a series of separate freshman courses for engineering orientation, engineering graphics, and engineering problem solving with computer programming to a dual offering of integrated course sequences in the Introduction to Engineering Program (IEP) and the Freshman Engineering Honors (FEH) Program. These new programs retain part of the traditional material but add in hands-on laboratory experiences that lead to reverse engineering and design/build projects. The relational practices – teamwork and project management, along with report writing and oral presentations and ethics have assumed important roles in this program. The programs are designed to have faculty from all of the degree granting departments teach freshmen. These programs were developed to improve the retention and early decision to stay or leave for new freshmen and to lay a foundation to better address some of the ABET 2000 accreditation criteria. Retention has improved markedly. This paper provides a brief description of the freshman programs, a summary of changes accomplished, and the retention statistics for the College of