2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper reports on early evidence from a replicable model for enhancing retention in chemical and biomedical engineering. The project’s core innovation is a direct response to a critical shift in the post-COVID educational landscape: the disruption of established norms for academic help-seeking (i.e., engaging faculty office hours and learning assistants, vs. generative AI tools). This appears especially key from our findings to date on guiding students through concepts that have served as obstacles for their progression through chemical engineering, despite their interest in the science and its applications, such as with advanced mathematical concepts like differential equation modeling that are foundational to engineering. Increased reliance on remote instruction and the advent of AI-driven tools have cultivated a student mindset of isolated learning, where many now fend for themselves through solitary online searches rather than engaging with human-centered supports like faculty, office hours, and peer tutors. This challenge is particularly acute for community college transfer students, who often arrive with less preparation in advanced mathematics and limited experience navigating the complex, resource-rich environment of a large university campus.

This team’s intervention leverages strategic investment in structured, in-person tutoring for these gateway courses, designing it not merely as academic support, but as a deliberate intervention to rebuild a campus-based learning community. This approach is instrumental in cultivating students' social capital—the resources embedded in social networks that provide the academic and emotional support key for navigating a rigorous engineering curriculum. These targeted tutoring efforts are complemented by collaborative, active-learning laboratory units and independent projects. In turn, these efforts can directly engage engineering students by fostering a robust, human-centered ecosystem.

The project leverages this foundational support to build professional opportunity. A summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) immerses students in the norms and networks of the scientific community, a practice shown to be highly effective in developing students' engineering identity and resilience through mentorship, fostering pathways to professional careers . This model has been effective for integrating community college transfer students—a key demographic for broadening participation that requires intentional support to thrive. By focusing on human-centered interventions in foundational courses, this initiative demonstrates a potentially successful and scalable strategy for addressing contemporary challenges in student engagement, forging a resilient engineering pipeline, and cultivating the essential capital required for student success.