“Live and Learn” program for recruitment/retention

Recent trends in education have caused universities and colleges to invest considerable effort into recruitment and retention of students. This paper describes a pilot program at West Virginia University, USA, called “Live and Learn”. The essence of the program is to cluster beginning students with the same major (such as engineering) together in the residence hall and to schedule them into the same section of several of their freshman classes. Other measures are taken to provide academic support and foster a sense of community. After one year, the authors report that the program has been a great success in retaining freshman engineering students. It seems to have helped improve their recruiting record for next year as well