The Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Pomona College has long worked to create an inclusive and welcoming space for all individuals to study mathematics. Many years ago, our approach to the lack of diversity we saw in our majors was remediation through programming, which sought to ameliorate student deficits. More recently, however, we…

In this article we discuss an approach to the critical problem of student retention and the high school-college transition. The context of the discussion is centered on science and engineering students for whom calculus in the first year in college is an essential requirement for on-time graduation. This transition/retention problem has become…