The College of Engineering and Science at Louisiana TechUniversity piloted an integrated freshman-engineering program with 40students for the 1997-98 academic year. The pilot program was continuedfor these students with an integrated sophomore curriculum in 1998-99while the freshman program was expanded to 120 students. Fullimplementation of the integrated freshman and sophomore curricula isplanned for the 1999-2000 academic year. The new curriculum integratesengineering, math, chemistry, and physics and incorporates anengineering design project during the freshman year. Engineering, math,and physics are integrated in the sophomore year. All classes relyheavily on cooperative learning techniques. Assessment of the program todate indicates significant improvement in student performance over thetraditional program, as measured by grades in all courses and byretention. This paper addresses the issues and challenges related tomaking such a dramatic curriculum change in three years and ourapproaches to resolving these challenges
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