ABSTRACT
The purpose of this work-in-progress paper is to describe the development and assessment of a new onboarding program designed for all incoming first-year and transfer engineering students at the A. James Clark School of Engineering (Clark School) at the University of Maryland. TerrapinSTRONG has the following overarching goals: Cultivate a sense of community, sense of belonging, and connectedness amongst students in the Clark School;and Develop an appreciation for and understanding of diversity and inclusion. There are several components and attributes of TerrapinSTRONG in which incoming engineering students participate prior to and during their first semester in the Clark School. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TerrapinSTRONG for fall 2020 was implemented virtually. The online nature of these programs and their various components will be outlined in the work-in-progress paper to provide the ASEE community with an example of recent and continuing developments in first-year and transfer student onboarding programming in an engineering school. We will also discuss past programmatic efforts that took place on-campus and outline promising practices for future cohorts of students. These initiatives, both in-person and online, were developed to promote an understanding of diversity and inclusivity in the engineering context. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021