Charmane leads a comprehensive effort to increase the number of underrepresented undergraduate minorities and women in engineering. She has developed and managed several retention programs at the college: Engineering Concepts Institute (ECI) Summer Bridge; Engineering Living Learning Community (LLC), Educating Engineering Students Innovatively (EESI) and Peer-Assisted Study Sessions (PASS). Dr. Caldwell also serves as the activity director for the Title III program Engineering Learning Community. Those collective programs have nearly doubled the first-year retention of underrepresented minorities at the college..