The ATLAS Institute's Assessment and Research Center at the University of Colorado at 麻豆影院 is a lead institution in a newly formed national alliance that will engage underrepresented minority students in computing.
The Empowering Leadership Alliance is supported by a $2 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
Lecia Barker and Timothy Weston of the Assessment and Research Center will provide research-based consultation and evaluation to the project. The center has been at the forefront in researching issues of gender and minority participation in information technology fields. The center also evaluates programs in education and the workforce, including an alliance to bring African-American students into doctoral study and an alliance to increase the participation of Hispanic students.
The new alliance comprises dozens of leading universities, professional societies, laboratories, research centers and corporations, and will involve students in research opportunities, mentoring programs and other activities designed to keep students excited and motivated as they pursue computing careers. Barker and Weston will support alliance leaders through their knowledge of underrepresented students as well as their experience in evaluating programs designed to help them.
The Empowering Leadership Alliance is led by Rice University and includes CU-麻豆影院; Boston University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Texas, Austin; and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Each institution will have its own role and resources in the endeavor.
The alliance will focus on scholars who are scattered so sparsely across the country that they may be the only one, or one of very few, minority students in their classes. Their network of formal and informal resources, support and encouragement, so critical to all students, is significantly smaller, and less robust, than more established networks of student support.
"At universities across the country, we are seeing what I call the 'loss of the precious few,' " said Richard A. Tapia, University Professor at Rice University and director of the Empowering Leadership Alliance. "Research shows that isolated, unsupported students of all kinds will leave an environment that does not meet their needs."
Tapia said those who complete bachelor's degrees in computing disciplines may have had such a painful journey that they are unlikely to consider graduate school, resulting in another lost opportunity for diversifying national leadership in computing and advanced technology.
According to a report from the Computing Research Association, the 2004-05 Taulbee Study, there were just 38 minority (African-American, Native American or Hispanic) Ph.D. graduates in computer science or computer engineering, out of 1,189 total graduates. Total enrollment of all new students entering Ph.D. programs in these disciplines also is down.
Recognizing that the country is at a critical juncture to retain every student in the computing disciplines, the National Science Foundation started a program in 2005 called Broadening Participation in Computing that now has nine alliances, including the Empowering Leadership Alliance.
The Empowering Leadership Alliance will provide students with summer research opportunities with some of the most experienced and successful computing researchers in the country; mentoring; in-person meetings with national leaders; an online speaker series and meetings to encourage students, discuss challenges and engage minority role models; professional development programs; and personal, tailored career support as they pursue their degrees.
ATLAS, the Alliance for Teaching, Learning and Society, is a campuswide institute that integrates information technology with multidisciplinary curricular, research and outreach programs. ATLAS' vision is to provide information technology for all students, not just those in technology fields, as well as to diverse communities at the university and K-12 levels.
For more information on the Empowering Leadership Alliance visit .