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