The Coalition of Minority Engineering Societies and The Society of Women Engineers (CEMSWE): collaborative retention efforts with INTEL

The Coalition of Engineering Minority Societies and the Society of Women Engineers (CEMSWE) was created in 1998 and operates out of Center for Engineering Diversity and Retention (CEDAR). In the fall of 2003, CEMSWE collaborated with INTEL to provide a more comprehensive retention program geared at improving student GPA's. The program, known as the CEMSWE 3.0 Program, has an academic excellence component, weekly monitoring and peer cluster meetings. Those students enrolled in the program that shows the largest increase in GPA over the period of fall 2003 semester and spring 2004 semester will receive a $1000 scholarship. To date, over 60 students are enrolled in the program. This paper further details the program, analyze its success and make recommendations on how universities and corporations can use this model to strengthen their own retention efforts for underrepresented populations in engineering.