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HAMPTON UNIVERSITY, Hampton, Va. — Four years ago,
the National Research Council reported that only 2.9 percent of engineering and
computer science doctorates were awarded to Hispanics. Another 2.2 percent were
received by African-Americans, while a mere 0.4 percent went to American
Indians. The Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) aims to increase those
numbers, and Forbes Lewis is on the forefront of making sure that this goal
becomes reality.
Professor Lewis, who teaches at both the University of Kentucky and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, recently organized a series of graduate school workshops designed to provide minority students with an honest picture of the value, and downsides, of enrolling in computer science and engineering graduate programs. The most recent workshop took place last month at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, and was held in conjunction with the Symposium on Computing at Minority Institutions, which was hosted by the Association of Departments of Computer/Information Sciences and Engineering at Minority Institutions (ADMI).
With more than 35 undergraduate minority students in attendance, Lewis and CDC colleagues discussed a wide array of graduate school topics such as university selection, academic preparation, the admissions process, and financial aid opportunities. Another workshop panel consisted of graduate students whose undergraduate training took place at minority serving schools; these panelists explained student life at a research university from the minority graduate student's point of view.
Rachel Bonas, a computer science graduate student at Howard University in Washington, D.C., presented a talk entitled "The Use of WWW for the Collection and Presentation of Data" during the symposium and also served on the CDC workshop's graduate student panel. "I believe that the graduate student panel discussion was a success as the undergraduates were extremely open and had a great deal of questions to ask us," Bonas said. "There were additional seminars and panel discussions that were also very informative. Overall the conference was a great success and very informative."
CDC participants serving on Lewis' graduate opportunities workshop
committee include Andrea Lawrence (Spelman College), John Trimble (Howard
University), Jorge Velez Arocho (University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez), and
Deidre Williams (Florida A&M University). Each of the committee
members discussed a variety of topics regarding graduate programs during
the recent workshop.
(l-r:)
Jorge Velez Arocho, Deidre Williams, and Andrea Lawrence served as
panelists at the CDC graduate school workshop held in June at Hampton
University.
"Because major research programs are found at institutions very different from the typical minority serving college or university, it is important that students understand the context they will be entering. This is stressed throughout the presentations," Lewis said. "Further, a graduate school fair was part of the overall symposium and played another important role in connecting students with possible institutions for further study."
Student attendance at the ADMI symposium represented several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including Bowie State University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T, and Winston Salem State University. In addition to attending the graduate school workshop and the graduate school fair, the students also participated in a poster session describing their undergraduate research projects.
In addition to the Hampton workshop, Forbes Lewis also discussed
graduate student opportunities at the 1999 IEEE Frontiers in Education
conference, which was held last November in San Juan, Puerto
Rico.
The CDC's primary goal is to increase the participation of minorities in graduate computer science, computer engineering, and computational science programs. The organization is currently focusing on three primary areas: (1) recruitment of minority undergraduates to M.S./Ph.D. programs, (2) retention of minority graduate students enrolled in M.S./Ph.D. programs, and (3) transition of minority M.S./Ph.D. graduates into academia and industry.
The CDC is a committee of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the ADMI, the Computer Research Association (CRA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) Computer Society, sponsored by the NSF's Education, Outreach, and Training Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (EOT-PACI) program. —KMB