The Coalition to Diversify Computing

By Andrew Bernat
and Sandra Johnson Baylor, Co-Chairs

The continuing low percentage of minorities in computer science and engineering at all stages of the educational pipeline is an untenable situation. CRA has joined with the Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE Computer Society and ADMI (the Association of Computer Science and Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions) to create the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) to develop programs to directly increase this too-low percentage. CDC has as its charge to take positive action to increase the numbers of minority computing students and professionals at all levels. It is particularly noteworthy that all of the major computing organizations are working together to solve a pervasive and persistent societal problem.

How Bad is the Underrepresentation of Minorities?

According to the most recent CRA Taulbee Survey, 1 percent of graduating Ph.D.s in Computer Science and Engineering in the last year were African-American, 3 percent were Hispanic, and 0.5 percent were Native American. These figures have remained static since CRA started compiling minority graduation figures. At the same time, the percentage of minorities in the general population is growing — in Texas, for example, the average high school senior class is now more than 50 percent minority.

Why should these figures and this situation matter to you?

Consider the wealth of ideas that students of varying cultures and backgrounds could have generated to further your research or to develop new products. Consider that there are far fewer faculty, staff, or students to choose from when you have open positions. And consider the tremendous impact on our society if significant portions of the population are left out in this technology-driven economy — the development of a permanent economic underclass?

Solving the underrepresentation problem is not possible without concerted efforts by many stakeholders throughout our society — to think that CDC can do it alone is foolish. But it is equally foolish to use the enormous scale of the problem to countenance inaction.

In this article, we present an overview of CDC's activities. Initial funding for these activities has been provided by EOT-PACI, which is a joint national educational program led by the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance) and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI). We particularly solicit additional participation and ideas; please feel free to contact either of the co-chairs or project lead members. Further details may be found on the CDC webpage: www.npaci.edu/Outreach/CDC.

Global Activities

• Develop a CDC website to serve as a repository of information on programs of value to minority researchers. It will also serve as a focal point for CDC activities, and allow the sharing of relevant ideas and resources. Lead member: Charles Isbell
• Host a "Workshop on Best Practices in Minority Student Recruiting and Retention" in computing research careers. Bring together individuals who have demonstrated successful programs and distill what is known to work in a form that is accessible and valuable to the entire community. Lead member: Andrew Bernat
• Conduct a study of why minorities are not going into research careers and/or academia. Is it as simple as the fact that the money in industry is so much better? For example, according to the Taulbee Survey there were forty-one new African-American Ph.D.s in CS between 1991 and 1996, but only one went into academia. As well, conduct a study of tenure decisions for those minorities who did go into academic CS/CE positions. Lead member: Bryant York

Activities for High School Students

Similar to the successful CRA-W "Women in Computer Science" brochure, the CDC "Faces of Computer Science" brochure will feature the successes of from twelve to twenty minority scientists who have insightful, interesting personal histories — histories that serve to inspire high school students as they are considering their future careers. This brochure will be available in print and on the Web, and widely advertised and distributed. Lead member: Jesse Bemley

Activities for Undergraduate Students

Develop materials for encouraging minority students to continue with graduate education and assemble a team of four to five members to visit schools with large populations of Native Americans, Hispanics, and African-Americans. Lead members: Forbes Lewis and Ramon Vasquez Espinoza

Activities for Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Provide regular support for minority students and faculty to participate in the annual ADMI and biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird. The participants will be selected based on their achievements, and will be encouraged to take full advantage of the conferences, including making contacts, learning about research and funding opportunities, and possibly presenting the results of their work. Lead member: Ramon Vasquez Espinoza

Activities for Graduate Students and Faculty

• Develop a database of minority graduate students and faculty to be used as a resource for the dissemination of information about CDC activities and NPACI and Alliance programs and activities. The database will serve as an excellent resource to increase the participation of minorities in the various NPACI and Alliance Programs.
• Develop a database of contacts who have an interest in helping minorities pursue careers in computing, in addition to information on minorities themselves. This will help build an information infrastructure to be used by CDC to initiate projects, inform people about CDC activities, and build a network of individuals with common goals. The database will be incorporated into the CDC Website, and will help those supportive of CDC's goals to stay informed. Lead member: Valerie Taylor

Important websites:

CDC: www.npaci.edu/Outreach/CDC

EOT-PACI: www.eot.org

Alliance: www.ncsa.edu

NPACI: www.npaci.edu

For further information, feel free to contact Sandra Johnson Baylor, E-mail: sandrajb@us.ibm.com, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Andrew Bernat, E-mail: abernat@cs.utep.edu, University of Texas at El Paso