Tag Archive: CRA-WP
Articles relevant to the CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Career Mentoring Workshops are designed to support individuals in early and mid-career stages. Evaluation results indicate that after the workshop, as compared to before the workshop, participants were more likely to report they knew people to whom they could go to for guidance on how to advance their career.
The Distributed REsearch Apprenticeships for Master’s (DREAM) is a pilot NSF program being offered by a nationwide consortium of colleges and universities that have created “bridge to MS in CS” programs for students with non-CS bachelor’s degrees. Schools in the MSCS Pathways to Computing Consortium provide a new pathway for people who studied something other than CS as undergraduates to enter the tech field. The strong emphasis of this effort is to provide a new pathway into computing for individuals from populations historically minoritized in tech (women, LGBQTIA, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American/Hawaiian/Alaskan/Asian Pacific Islander students, and students with disabilities). Consortium members sign a membership agreement that, among other things, confirms their commitment to increasing the diversity of their graduate programs. Students in these Consortium pathways come from a wide array of undergraduate backgrounds that span the STEM disciplines, humanities, social sciences, business, and the arts.
The National Science Foundation recently selected sixty-nine recipients of the 2022 CSGrad4US Fellowship Program. The objective of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US) is to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields: computer science, computer engineering, or information science. CSGrad4US recipients will participate in the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program organized by the Computing Research Association with funding provided by the National Science Foundation through award #2231962.
The Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP) is proud to announce the recipients of the 2022 Early Career Awards.
Maya Cakmak of the University of Washington has been selected as the 2022 Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
Christina Harrington of Carnegie Mellon University has been selected as the 2022 Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipient.
Are you interested in mentoring prospective graduate students through the application and reentry process?
The coach application is now available on the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program webpage. The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:
Access the coach application here. Applications received by July 1st will be given preference.
Imagine you walk into Japanese 101 and on the first day the professor asks, “Has anyone taken Japanese before?” and everyone raises their hand but you and a handful of other students. Imagine then that your classmates not only raise their hands but respond to the professor in Japanese! At age 18, I would have been intimidated and likely would have dropped the class. This is how many of our students feel in the first course for computing majors – overwhelmed by the sense that they are already behind when in theory they have only just begun.
The trouble is that prior experience in CS is not uniformly distributed across all genders, races and ethnicities, and further CS is only offered in approximately half of U.S. high schools (with more of those high schools in regions of economic privilege). Thus, the individuals experiencing the first course required for a computing major (CS1) in this way are more likely to be from less privileged geographies and from genders and races/ethnicities historically marginalized in tech.
It is imperative that computing departments address the distribution of prior experience in coding, but how they respond will depend on the context of the department and the university. In this article, we outline five of the more popular approaches, illustrating the contexts in which they work best, and possible pitfalls.
A short video from CRA’s Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP) is featured in the 2022 STEM for All Video Showcase May 10-17. CRA-WP’s video is entitled “Broadening Participation in Computing Research with CRA-WP” and highlights programs funded through National Science Foundation award #1840724. CRA-WP is a Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance that focuses on community building, career mentoring, information sharing, and effecting systemic change for undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty, and industry and government researchers.
When asked about their biggest motivations to apply to graduate school, participants in the first CSGrad4US cohort most often indicated that they wanted to make an impact on society with an advanced degree. Few participants cited reasons related to their current work situations.
In an era of rapidly evolving technology and increasing interconnectedness, full participation in society depends on the successful use of technology. Thus, to ensure equity and participation for people with disabilities, technology must be accessible—we must create and adapt interactive systems to improve access to technology and to the world at large. The University of Washington Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE) is dedicated to propelling accessible technology research and education from incremental improvements to paradigm-shifting breakthroughs that enable greater inclusion and participation for people of all abilities. This article briefly introduces CREATE’s mission and then highlights some of its recent research into the impact of the pandemic on students and best practices for hybrid meetings.
In 2011, my team of six instructors led a yearlong CS course for 120 Black/Latinx middle-school students in Washington, DC. After first-day introductions, we asked them to name a computer scientist. Despite six Black men/women in front of them, we heard only three names: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. It was then that I realized if they didn’t see us as computer scientists, then how would they ever be able to see themselves as one? We knew we had work to do.
We spent the entire year dismantling the narrative that CS was restricted to White and Asian men and reinforcing how not only were they computer scientists, but also change agents. Students learned much more than what CS was, but also whom it should represent and why these identities mattered.
We were fortunate to have a team that didn’t fit the “traditional” narrative leading that effort. However, this won’t always be the case. As we continue to make strides in CS education, the following strategies can help to ensure that the who and why are prioritized, regardless of the student or instructor.
CRA-WP welcomes your nominations for the Early Career Awards honoring Anita Borg and Clarence “Skip” Ellis. Nominations are due February 15, 2022, at 11:59 PM ET.
Anita Borg Early Career Award (BECA)
The Anita Borg Early Career Award (BECA) is named in honor of Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-WP and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.
Skip Ellis Early Career Award (SEECA)
The Skip Ellis Early Career Award is in honor of Clarence “Skip” Ellis; he was the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in computer science and the first African-American to be elected a Fellow of the ACM.
