Using a First-Year Learning Community to Help Meet Departmental Program Objectives in Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering

A current trend on many college campuses is the implementation of student learning communities. At Iowa State University, we have found that our first-year learning community has provided an opportunity for agricultural engineering students to become involved in the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABE) department from the moment they arrive on campus. Not only has the learning community helped us increase our retention from 47.6 percent for the 1997/1998 academic year to 86.2% for the 1999/2000 academic year, it has helped us to address many of our program objectives including: an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams, an ability to communicate effectively, and knowledge of important contemporary issues. Our formal assessment of the initiative reveals that students are overwhelmingly satisfied with the program