Case Study:  Student Retention at TAMU
In 1993, Texas A&M University (TAMU) initiated engineering curricular reform as a member of the FC. FC efforts were joined with those of the Texas Alliance for Minority Participation (TXAMP) to retain the talented freshmen that entered the engineering program. The project director for TXAMP, a leading member of the FC team, and the data assessment teams for the two programs united and explored the impact of the new FC curriculum in conjunction with the TXAMP program's intervention strategies, bridge programs, clustering, mentoring efforts, and other retention strategies. The results shown in the accompanying figures indicate that the best practices from both of these programs resulted in better retention of all students in engineering and less time required for students to complete key freshman and sophomore level courses. Results of this investigation led to adoption of these programs for all engineering students starting in 1998.