Targeted Infusion Grant: Developing a new Information Technology Curriculum at Virginia State University

Virginia State University, Petersburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

The Targeted Infusion project - Developing a new Information Technology Curriculum at Virginia State University - seeks to develop a new Information Technology (IT) curriculum within the Computer Science program at Virginia State University (VSU). The project is aimed at attracting more African American young men and women to pursue careers in information technology and become highly skilled IT professionals. The main goals of the project are: to establish a new IT curriculum within the CS program at VSU; to provide support to students who would like to pursue an IT related STEM field; to improve recruitment and retention in the IT related STEM fields at VSU; to provide support to faculty members at an HBCU to develop new research and education projects for career development and leadership in STEM related fields; to enhance teaching and research capacity in the IT area at VSU, and to attract more African American students into the IT field. Educational components of this project complement the research and teaching interests of the participating faculty members, hence the proposed activities will allow faculty members at VSU to bridge research and education in the classroom. Curriculum and lab experiments developed in this proposed project will be made freely available, which may benefit other educators.