North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, together with collaborating institutions Clemson University, Prairie View A&M University, the University of Colorado, the University of Wisconsin, Auburn University, the University of Indiana, Norfolk State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Fort Valley Sate University, and Jackson State University, proposes an extension of the successful Alliance for the Advancement of African-American Researchers in Computing (A4RC, pronounced "A-Force"). A4RC aims to increase the number of African-Americans obtaining advanced degrees in computing, particularly at the Ph.D. level. A4RC establishes and develops student pipelines from HBCUs to universities offering advanced degrees in Computing. A4RC has amassed a body of knowledge and experience with respect to what it takes to build effective HBCU/R1 faculty collaborations, develop productive HBCU/R1 research teams that include graduate and undergraduate students, and prepare undergraduate and master's students for research at the Ph.D. level. A4RC uses a "research pod" concept that is efficient, flexible, and effective in terms of HBCU/R1 research collaborations. With this extension, A4RC plans to expand the alliance to include a greater number of HBCU/R1 research collaborations, and to build new partnerships. A new category of partners -- Affiliate Partners -- will engage additional HBCUs and national labs and A4RC will become formal partners with the very effective BPC Demonstration Project, African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS). A4RC will build collaborations with the BPC STARS and Empowering Leadership Alliances, and ADMI: The Symposium on Computing at Minority Institutions.
Preliminary research shows that major influencers for African-American students pursuing PhDs in CS are faculty who chose them, believed in their potential, and encouraged them along the way. Yes, Our A4RC Research Pod Model works, but to have impact on a larger scale, we must influence beyond the capability of expensive pods (e.g. research stipends, research methods courses, conference travel support and REU support). Thus, our energetic discussion led to the recommendation to "Grow the Garden" with more intentionality and more accountability on the part of the Affiliate faculty members. We agreed to set a very clear set of expectations for the A4RC to utilize Departmental Champions as mentors for students and university advocates for the program. A4RC’s major programs were research pods, targeted presentation and the future faculty mentoring program. ARTSI’s major programs were robotics training for students and workshops for students and instructors. A4RC & ARTSI and our more than 30 partner institutions have the opportunity to continue to influence students in the future as a merged alliance of African American Computing Alliance (AACA) that has already organized as a national organization to promote and mentor African-American students and encourage them to remain active and vital computing scientists and increase representation of this population in future technology workforce. Some of our methods have been the following: 1) Identify students who have "high potential for the graduate school pathway"; 2) Develop a relationship with them and getting them to the guest lectures; 3) Encourage students to apply for summer REU and academic year CREU program; 4) Encouraging conference attendance; 5) Research presentations at conferences; and 6) Advise of the benefits and opportunities provided by attending graduate school through target presentation. National Conferences supported by A4RC 2011 ADMI Conference – Cosponsored by A4RC as our annual meeting. A4RC made it possible for students and faculty members to attend, present papers and posters, and network. We had 66 A4RC participants in our conference in 2011, including 6 staff, 16 faculty and 45 students, and one Fellow. This number represents an increase over ADMI 2010. A4RC Research Course Created We have created the A4RC course and accompanying materials repository making available a range of possibilities for instructors. Many of the resources from the course have been compiled for use by any instructor who is promoting graduate school and professional development to underrepresented students, and by underrepresented students who seek to learn about higher education on their own. The course materials are available in three interlinked online locations. www.a4rc.org, that contains short videos of 4-6 minutes, longer interviews up to 30 minutes, Lectures and reading recommendations for relevant books. Finally, we added a YouTube channel for shorter, more accessible videos. The course materials repository has been referenced, indexed, and catalogued in many ways, most notably through our Facebook page and a Google Groups site. Collaborations with NSF BPC Alliances We collaborated with the following Alliances: CAHSI: We continue to seek ways for A4RC to promote the use of the successful ARG model; STARS 2011: For the 4th year in a row and thanks to a supplement for NSF, several A4RC members attended and offered a thread of research themed sessions to STARS participants, students participated in the poster competition, and faculty served as poster judges. Future Faculty Mentoring Program (FFMP): The AARCS component of A4RC consists of the annual conference (which was co-located with ADMI and hosted by Clemson University) and the Future Faculty/Research Scientist Mentoring (FFRSM) Program. The FFRSM program had a successful year. We were able to place 10 new faculty members this year (1 Hispanic and 9 African-American). Mentoring was in the form of conference calls with a number of participants and 10 members were mentored into faculty or research positions. They were placed at Bosch Research Lab, Clemson University, U.S. Department of Defense, Booz-Allen Hamilton, Bowie State University, Elizabeth City State University, and others. During the course of the program, there were 7 A4RC students admitted to PhD. Programs, over 40 students involved in REUs, A4RC students presented more than 20 conference presentations and published more than 30 papers. Also with our targeted presentations (AA undergraduates) on the merits of graduate school, A4RC has made this presentation at over 25 different HBCU campuses and other venues with high numbers of underrepresented students. Our trend of getting students ready and matriculating in graduate school is very different from the national trend. The national trend for graduate school admittance trend over the last four years shows a 16.6% decline in CS graduate students enrollment and our partner institutional MS level of enrollment has grown by 15%. Our Efforts to transform this research project into now a national organization will serve to further the efforts of this group with the potential of growing into a national resource.
