BPC-AE: Collaborative: Evolution of the Institute for African Americans in Computing Sciences (IAAMCS)

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Morehouse College, University of Florida, Auburn University, and the American Institutes for Research will collaborate to extend the Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computing Sciences (iAAMCS, pronounced "i am cs"). iAAMCS serves as a national resource for the computing community and emphasizes mentoring as a primary strategy for increasing the participation of African-Americans in computing. iAAMCS seeks to build an ecosystem for African American researchers that have connected to each other through iAAMCS activities including: Fellowship Writing Bootcamp, Future Faculty and Research Scientist Mentoring Program, Annual Report on the State of Blacks in Computing in Higher Education, and the Black Student Matching Registry. iAAMCS will develop and disseminate mentoring content resources and guidelines for African American students in computing programs. The overarching goal of the iAAMCS is to increase the number of African-Americans obtaining graduate computing degrees leading to an increase in the number of African-American researchers in the academy, government, and industry. IAAMCS will further its role as a national resource for African Americans in computing and serve as an information, communication, networking, and evaluation community for African Americans who are either considering an advanced degree in computing or enrolled in a graduate computing program. As an alliance, iAAMCS will bring together mentors, advisors, and subject matter experts in an effort to provide support, mentoring, information, opportunities, and networking to its members. Those participants directly impacted by IAAMCS include African American computing undergraduates who are interested in graduate school, African American computing graduate students, CISE PIs, CS departments, BPC researchers, African American CS faculty, and HBCU CS faculty. The goals for this alliance extension include: 1) Increase in African American students in graduate computing programs; 2) Increase in African American recipients of graduate degrees in computing; 3) Increase the number of African Americans who enter the professoriate; 4) Increase the number of African Americans who enter careers that utilize an advanced degree in computing; 5) Longitudinal data collection and evaluation for national dissemination; 6) Support CISE PIs and CS Departments looking to support BPC efforts; and 7) Support HBCU and African American computer science faculty. iAAMCS activities will all fall in the categories of Original Programming, Core Research, Platform Management, and Event Participation. Through significant, creative integrations using YouTube and LinkedIn, IAAMCS plans to expand the reach of students who can benefit from its programming. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.