This project is providing financial, academic, and career-preparation assistance to twenty-nine economically disadvantaged, academically promising undergraduate and graduate students each year for four years. Located on Chicago's ethnically diverse south side, with a student body that reflects the demographics of the geographical location, the university targets first generation college students from populations that are under-represented in the computer science discipline: African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, women and students with disabilities.
The scholarship program serves to identify, attract, and recruit qualified undergraduate and graduate students. Computer Science faculty are promoting the program at Chicago-area high schools and community colleges whose demographics match the targeted populations. Scholarship awards can be made to community college graduates who have received prior CSEMS support, and also to other eligible SXU students. It also attracts deserving scholarship recipients into the professional graduate degree program. By creating financial aid packages with this and other scholarships, the project makes it feasible for eligible undergraduate students to pursue full-time majors in traditional computer science or applications-based computer studies programs; and for graduate students to pursue full-time study in the two-year professional degree program.
To meet the objectives of encouraging students' academic success, retaining them through graduation, and enabling them to find employment as computer professionals or placement in graduate schools, the project is extending and strengthening existing department-level and university-wide programs, and developing a broad network of support. Scholarship recipients have faculty and student service mentors throughout their affiliation with SXU. A rich array of opportunities are available to the scholarship recipients' cohort, including a monthly CSEMS seminar, a comprehensive career counseling plan, tutoring, internship and service learning positions, faculty-student collaborative research, support for attendance at computer science conferences, a laptop loaner program, and alumni mentoring. Three themes run throughout the support activities: sharpening students' problem-solving abilities; building students' confidence in their abilities to succeed in a challenging major; and exposing them to the breadth of the computer science discipline, the range of career opportunities that exist for them, and the variety of skills and strengths required in today's high tech workplace.
The project has significant intellectual merit and broad impact to society. The scarcity of minorities and women in the computer science discipline and high tech workforce is a well-documented problem. SXU's experience in an urban setting has shown that academic institutions must proactively attract and engage underserved students. By implementing these ideas and reflecting on and widely disseminating the results, the project can contribute significantly to the body of knowledge in this crucial area. Increased diversity of the student body enriches the experiences and perspectives of all faculty, students, and staff; upon graduation, scholarship recipients can enrich the entire computer profession.
