Oklahoma State University’s ENDEAVOR: Transformation of Undergraduate Engineering Education Through Experience-based Learning.

Previous studies show that ~50% of engineering students withdraw or change to other majors mainly due to the poor teaching and advising; the difficulty of the engineering curriculum; and more importantly the lack of “belonging” within engineering. Few studies link this problem to non-engineering courses since most of their first-year courses are demanding and focusing on topics other than engineering, such as chemistry, mathematics, and physics. To tackle such issues, the College of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology (CEAT) at Oklahoma State University (OSU) is in the process of a multiyear plan to transform undergraduate education. The ENDEAVOR is the centerpiece of a paradigm shift that expands the instruction beyond the classroom and increases undergraduate laboratory and exploratory time for interdisciplinary, hands-on and industry-aligned learning. Students (even in their freshman year) can experience hands-on interdisciplinary design, applied experiments and training/use of the 5 makerspace areas. ENDEAVOR is a college asset where all eight departments in the college may use this multidisciplinary laboratory for undergraduate experiments, design, and research. The new 72,000-square-foot facility opens the door in Fall 2018 contains state-of-the-art industry-relevant technology in an immersive glass environment that promotes undergraduate interdisciplinary teaching, research, and training. ENDEAVOR facilities include a thermodynamics lab, wind tunnel, 35ft flume, advanced data acquisition lab, mechatronics lab, 3D printing makerspaces (including polymers, metals, composites, ceramics, etc.), subtractive manufacturing shop, electronic makerspace facility, material testing, and characterization labs, etc. to name a few that are under the same roof. This paper will further discuss the role of ENDEAVOR regarding engineering pedagogy and its effectiveness in transforming the undergraduate engineering education through experience-based learning.