The goal of the Computer Science Leadership and Practice (CS-LEAP) Scholarship Program is to provide opportunities for community college students who attend public institutions in New York State to complete a baccalaureate computer science (CS) degree at the university.
Intellectual Merit: The project focuses on recruitment of students from community colleges into the CS baccalaureate degree program at the university, leveraging articulation agreements recently in place and building an active recruitment process that involves partnerships between community colleges and the university. The specific objectives of the project are to: (a) provide scholarships to needy and academically qualified students entering and seeking a baccalaureate degree in CS, primarily to students who transfer from community colleges with an Associate of Science degree in CS; (b) recruit students into the CS program by building and maintaining articulation agreements and personal contacts with community colleges that feed into the CS baccalaureate degree program and by working closely with the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP) at the university that addresses the shortage of minority and low income students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields; (c) nurture students through their academic pursuits by helping them be successful in their coursework, meet the CS major requirements, and graduate with a baccalaureate degree; (d) integrate students into a culture of professional practice through internship and other project-based opportunities; (e) help students build a sense of community in which they develop personally and socially; and (f) give students training and opportunities in leadership that help them be valued as professionals and as citizens of their communities.
Broader Impacts: This project is potentially transformative as it serves as a model for building successful transfer articulation agreements on a large scale and for establishing active and productive partnerships between community colleges and four-year institutions. By partnering with the CSTEP program, this project actively seeks to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the CS program at the university. By offering scholarships to students seeking a CS degree who would otherwise find it difficult to attend college and to engage in a computing-related career, this project specifically addresses state and national needs in computer science-related fields such as software engineering, programming, and network systems analysis. Graduates in these fields are expected to be in high demand well into the next decade.
