Women In Engineering Learning Community: What We Learned The First Year

The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech reflects national trends with respect to women in engineering. With first year enrollments hovering around 17%, the retention through graduation of these women is critical to increasing the number of women in the engineering profession. When examining year to year retention rates, it is observed that the largest percentage of women drop out of engineering during or immediately following their first year. It is therefore believed that efforts to increase the first to second year retention rate would have the greatest impact on graduation rates. The Office of Minority Engineering Programs conducts mentoring and other programs for underrepresented students. Hypatia, a residentially based learning community, was created to help foster success for first year women in the College of Engineering and to complement existing programs. Index Terms – adjustment, learning communities, women. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Over the last decade, learning communities have become common in United States higher education. Although learning communities have existed since the 1940s, colleges have only recently begun implementing them nationwide (Shapiro & Levine, 1999). Researchers believe this is primarily because of the challenges associated with meeting the needs of the current student population (Shapiro & Levine, 1999). Students attending colleges in the 21 Century possess a more sophisticated understanding of diversity and technology. Therefore, today’s consumers of higher education tend to have greater expectations for college than students only five years ago. Colleges and universities mu st offer multiple programs to meet the needs of today’s students. One way this need is met is through learning communities. Defining Learning Communities There is no universally accepted definition of a learning community. One definition commonly used when describing learning communities was proposed by Gabelnick, MacGregor, Matthews, and Smith (1990): Any one of a variety of curricular structures that link together several existing courses – or actually restructure the material entirely – so that students have opportunities for deeper understanding and integration of the material they are learning, and more interaction with one another and their teachers as fellow participants in the learning enterprise (p.19). Another perspective from Astin (1985) states: Such communities can be organized along curricular lines, common career interests, avocational interests, residential living area, and so on. These can be used to build a sense of group identity, cohesiveness, and uniqueness; to encourage community and the integration of diverse curricular and co-curricular experiences; and to counteract the isolation that many students feel (p. 161). Shapiro & Levine (1999) have described learning communities as models that allow learning to occur in a variety of settings. Similarly, Wenger (1998) views learning as “a process of becoming” (p. 215). The learning community, then, provides the context for developing new understandings of self or a place for individuals to develop identity. Although these definitions reflect student learning, there are few similarities. However, learning communities typically have several features in common (Joyce & Weil, 1996). For example, many institutions define learning communities structurally. These structures include three models described by early writers: paired or clustered courses, cohorts or Freshmen Interest Groups (FIGs), and team-taught programs (Shapiro & Levine, 1999). In addition to the original three models Shapiro and Levine (1999) have added a fourth: residence-based learning communities. Rather than defining learning communities according to a specific structure, Virginia Tech administrators have chosen to allow a broad definition of learning communities (Wildman, 1999). For that reason, Virginia Tech decided to focus on distinguishing characteristics of potential learning ______________ 1 Kimberly LaBoone, Virginia Tech, Office of Minority Engineering Programs, 215 Hancock Hall (0275) Blacksburg, VA 24061, (540) 231-3973, klaboone@vt.edu 2 Maureen Lazar, Virginia Tech, Office of Minority Engineering Programs, 215 Hancock Hall (0275) Blacksburg, VA 24061, (540) 231-6869, maureen@vt.edu 3 Bevlee Watford, Virginia Tech, Office of Minority Engineering Programs, 215 Hancock Hall (0275) Blacksburg, VA 24061, (540) 231-7403, deuce@vt.edu communities. These characteristics include: (a) a group of purposes, and values; (b) members of the community working together to accomplish tasks that require many talents, skills, and values; and (c) communities that feel a sense of place that can support and nurture the group’s activities (Wildman,