The Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is hosting REUMass: A Summer Computing Research Experience for Undergraduates under the direction of Professor W. Richards (Rick) Adrion and Project Manager Wendy Cooper. This Program is cooperating with the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE) - a CISE Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance based at UMass Amherst - and other partners, including other NSF BPC Alliances, such as ACCESS, CRA/CDC, CCCE, NCWIT, ELA and Georgia Computes; NSF Broadening Participation Programs, including NE-LSAMP, UM-LSAMP, and NEAGEP; and other UMass Amherst REU Sites. The REUMass partners provide an opportunity to cast a wide net and bring a diverse set of students into positive research experiences that we hope will increase the number of students entering graduate programs and research careers, particularly those who previously would not have had that opportunity.
REUMass students will have the opportunity to work with leading UMass Amherst researchers on important scientific problems. Our selected projects emphasize how fundamental computer science enables a broad set of IT applications. They show the breadth of opportunities in CS and have proved to be attractive to our target audience. Each spring 9 students will be invited for a 10-week summer program. They will be assigned in pairs or triples to a range of research projects within a number of disciplines - health, government, biosciences, transportation, society, education, etc. Students will participate in a number of technical activities including workshops, seminars, and field trips, and social activities that have proved successful in creating a close and sustained relationship among the participants in each year's cohort. Our commitment to continuously improving the Site programs helps REU students achieve success in their research and obtain a broader view of the challenges and rewards of computing research.
The REUMass REU Site program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst made a strong and successful effort to recruit students who would not otherwise have had the chance to participate in research and/or are from underrepresented groups. Our recruiting strategy reached out to students in many institutions, with an emphasis on colleges where research is not a primary focus. With our partner, the Commonwealth Alliance for IT Education (CAITE), we actively recruited students in community colleges (and those who have transferred from community colleges) in the New England region. Students from underrepresented groups earn a higher proportion of associate degrees than they do of BA/BS or advanced computing degrees. Also since many community colleges are located cities and towns with high-poverty rates and low educational attainment, we used this strategy to develop a diverse pool of applicants. Reaching out to this diverse student population to attract, retain and nurture them in upper division programs is a key focus of our REUMass program. The REUMass goals are: Expose students to research; Enhance their ability to thrive in a competitive research-oriented UG program by building supporting communities, providing mentoring and addressing weaknesses in their preparation1; Provide them an opportunity to participate in leading-edge research with an emphasis on computer-science-based interdisciplinary IT activities; Create excitement about the possibility for pursuing graduate studies and research careers; Serve as a magnet for students at institutions where opportunities for UG research are limited and for community college students to encourage them to consider transfer to research-oriented 4-year programs; and Establish measurable outcomes and an evaluation plan that will allow us to continuously improve our program. Intellectual Merit REUMass students had an opportunity to work with leading UMass Amherst researchers on important scientific problems. Our technical and application areas emphasized how fundamental computer science enables a broad set of IT applications as well as showing the breadth of opportunities in CS. We developed an effective strategy for uniting students assigned to a broad set of projects into a coherent cohort that retain relationships after they left UMass. Our commitment to continuously improving the REUMass program helped the REU students achieve success in their research and obtain a broader view of the challenges and rewards of computing research. Broader Impacts Over six summers working with leading researchers and on interesting problems, 108 Site, partner and supplement REU students from 61 institutions increased their interest in graduate programs dramatically. In addition, these students conducted a large variety of fundamental computing research, and they were exposed to a diversity of computing technologies and application areas. The success of REUMass was enhanced by our collaboration with the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE), the Northeast and UMass NSF Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation programs (NE-LSAMP and UM-LSAMP) and the National Center for Women in Technology. Outcomes The REUMass Site and our previous REU Site program have tracked a variety of outcomes both in individual years and across years. Outcomes include: Very high overall satisfaction — Participating students rate the program highly. On a scale of 0 to 4, the average student rating for each of the five years for which we have satisfaction data has never been below 3.5. Except for the first year (2008), the average satisfaction rating has never been below 3.7. Increased confidence — Similarly, before attending our program, only 60% of participants were confident that they could succeed in graduate school in a STEM discipline. At the conclusion of the program, 80% expressed confidence that they could succeed in a STEM graduate program. Intention to apply to graduate school — Survey results indicate that 66% of participants intended to apply to graduate school prior to completing our program. At the conclusion of the program, 96% of participants intended to apply to graduate school, a highly significant increase. Positive placement outcomes — We have followed our past REU students to the greatest extent possible. The results of the 2012 longitudinal survey of 2008-2010 participants showed that 44% of respondents were enrolled in graduate programs and 56% held jobs in industry, although responses were not obtained from a number of participants. The 2013 longitudinal survey of 2011-2013 participants showed that many participants were still completing their undergraduate degrees, as expected, but a significant number were beginning graduate programs.
