Chaminade University of Honolulu proposes a collaboration with the University of Hawai'i campuses at Hilo and Manoa for the purpose of planning and developing the infrastructure for a BPC Pacific Alliance. That Alliance would serve higher education institutions with significant Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island student populations in the Pacific region. These students are a largely untapped resource, but they will be difficult to reach: they attend 20 undergraduate institutions located on ten islands, and they are a diverse population, scattered across thousands of miles in the Pacific Ocean, encompassing four distinct cultural traditions and speaking a dozen different Pacific Island languages. Existing programs aimed at improving STEM educational opportunities in the region have not had the resources needed to make a significant impact on students in the computing disciplines. This project takes the first steps in building a program specifically designed to meet the needs of students pursuing computing degrees. The Pacific BPC alliance will be built in stages starting with the three founding institutions. It will be modeled on two other Alliances: the Islands of Opportunity Alliance (IOA-LSAMP) will provide the foundation and basic structure, while the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) will provide best practices and successful interventions. Planning activities will center around preparations for a full proposal in the spring of 2011.
" planning project (NSF Award ID 0940578)" took place over a period from February 2010 to September 2012. This two year planning grant resulted in the formation of a coalition between Chaminade University of Honolulu, the University of Hawaii – Manoa, and the University of Hawaii – Hilo to encourage success amongst students from the Pacific islands in the discipline of computer science. This coalition was responsible for planning an effort for a broader grant in computer science education and was also successful in coordinating events across the three institutions. In addition to establishing a coalition between the three schools, this grant also engaged students in computational thinking through the animation of cultural stories and knowledge using computer programming and computer animation tools. Students, including those not majoring in computer science, were able to engage in computational thinking and were able to produce sophisticated computer animations that were showcased as part of a formal gathering of the three institutions in April 2011. The planning grant also enabled the grant personnel to attend meetings and workshops hosted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). As a result of these activities, project personnel were able to learn best practices for broadening participation in computer science. Ultimately, this resulted in the initiation of a process for developing a pipeline approach for student development in computer science that can be implemented across the participating institutions. Finally, the planning grant enabled a further collaboration whereby the University of Hawaii Manoa was able to partner with the University of Hawaii – Hilo in the submission of more formal grant to the CE21 program as was its intended purpose.
