Rice University leads a collaborative proposal to extend the impact of the Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance (ELA) through partnerships with new institutions and regional collaboratives that will adopt and expand ELA's successful models of engagement. The goal of ELA is to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who major in computing at the nation's research universities. Additionally, ELA supports these students in securing positions in computing following graduation. The premise of the ELA is that minority students at research universities face challenges that can be mitigated by a supportive community that provides academic, social, and personal support. National in scope, the ELA is developing a network of computing faculty and leaders dedicated to providing this support. In addition to Rice University, ELA originally included Boston University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Texas, Austin. With this proposal, the ELA will add the University of Georgia, Clemson University, Tufts University, and Stony Brook University as new lead institutions, along with several new partners including MentorNet, the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), and the New England Computer Science Chairs (NECSC). The ELA uses three intersecting models of engagement, including the National, Regional and Local Models. The National Model seeks out and supports individuals across the country, building a virtual (and sometimes in-person) network; the Regional Model builds a support network among multiple universities within a region; and the Local Model builds a local support community within a single university. These three models serve to connect ELA students with each other and with tailored opportunities including internships, mentoring, conference participation, and summer research programs. The proposed extension will strengthen the three models at their current sites and test their scalability and transfer to the new lead institutions. It will also add programs developed under BPC demonstration projects to the suite of ELA offerings and test their scalability.
The nation's research universities must assume major responsibility in broadening participation in computing in order to expand and diversify the scientific computing workforce by preparing outstanding underrepresented minority students to serve as future faculty, researchers, national leaders, and role models. Research has repeatedly shown that minority students at research universities face unique challenges that threaten their retention in the discipline, but that these challenges can be mitigated if a student belongs to a community that provides academic, social, and personal support. The Empowering Leadership Alliance undertook an ambitious national challenge to retain minority students in computing and associated disciplines in predominantly white universities across the United States. The Empowering Leadership Alliance was led by Richard Tapia of Rice University, and included leadership by Boston University, Clemson University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Consultant Cynthia Lanius, Stony Brook University, Tufts University, University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin. The Empowering Leadership Alliance built an ever-expanding national network that, at the end of the funding period, included over 150 computing professionals across the country and addressed the needs of over 500 students who were underrepresented in computing and related disciplines from more than 40 different universities. The Empowering Leadership Alliance supported retention and advancement of these at-risk students by offering extensive services that included mentoring, conferences and workshops, social and professional development events, research opportunities, and a host of other student activities. The role of the University of Texas at Austin was dual: to conduct overall external evaluation for the Alliance (led by Dr. Lecia Barker) and to found and support a local Empowering Leadership Alliance student group and student research activities (led by Dr. Clint Dawson and Ms. Tiffany Grady). Students who became involved in the Empowering Leadership Alliance and its local, regional, and national events were almost all retained in the field or advanced into graduate study.
