How Do the Grad Cohort Workshops Measure Up? Past attendees of both Grad Cohort for URMD and Grad Cohort for Women weigh in.
Twenty-one graduate students who were past attendees of both the Grad Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities & Persons with Disabilities (URMD) workshop and the Grad Cohort for Women workshop in either or both of the 2018 and 2019 program years completed a follow-up survey to discuss their experience attending both events. The graphic above displays the percentage of past participants who thought a particular workshop provided a series of benefits that are related to the goals of the programs.
As displayed above, 100% of respondents selected both Grad Cohort for URMD and Grad Cohort for Women as providing participants with a positive, welcoming environment and personal and career development-related topics important for current graduate students in computing. The majority of respondents also selected both workshops as providing participants with a safe space to discuss matters related to personal identity and intersectionality and have frank conversations about issues that individuals and groups in computing face. Finally, a large portion of respondents also selected both workshops as providing participants with the ability to build lasting relationships with peers and mentors, with only 14% of respondents indicating neither workshop provided participants with the ability to sustain mentorship relationships.
The Grad Cohort for URMD 2020 and Grad Cohort for Women 2020 applications are now open. The deadline for submission is November 15, 2019 at 11:59 PM, EST.
Notes:
During the spring of 2019, the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) sent an online survey to past participants of both the Grad Cohort for URMD and Grad Cohort for Women workshops; past participants included those who had attended both Grad Cohort for URMD and Grad Cohort for Women workshops in either or both of the 2018 and 2019 program years. Of the 32 past participants contacted, 23 responded to CERP’s follow up survey (72% response rate) and 21 provided complete responses (91% completion rate).
The survey included a number of questions about workshop participants’ experience attending both of the Grad Cohort workshops. The survey question used for this analysis was as follows: “Please select which workshop provides the following for participants. You may select one, both, or neither workshop.” Choice option “Neither workshop” was exclusive, such that no other option could be selected when that choice was also selected.
This analysis is brought to you by the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Subscribe to the CERP newsletter here. Volunteer for Data Buddies by signing-up here.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers CNS-1246649 and CNS-1840724. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
