Student Travel Support for ACM SIGSOFT 2006/FSE 14 INSPIRATIONS: A Ph.D. Orientation for Undergraduate and M.S. Students

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ABSTRACT0630455Adriaan W. Van Der HoekUniversity of California - IrvineToday more than ever a need exists to encourage American students matriculating in computer science topursue doctorate degrees. According to the 2003-2004 Taulbee Survey published in May 2005, there wasan 8% decrease in the number of students enrolling in U.S. computer science doctoral programs and theprevious year there was a 5% decrease. In addition to this decrease in new enrollments, the Taulbee Surveyindicates that only a very small number of the underrepresented population are pursuing doctorates incomputer science (African-American 1.6%, Native American 0.2%, Hispanic 1.2%, with Asian leading at11%). The survey furthermore indicates that 30% of the enrollment is white and over 50% of the enrollment is nonresident alien. Finally, the gender gap still remains and, in fact, has worsened in recent years. This trend is as equally visible in Software Engineering as it is in other subdomains of computer science. Combining this serious decline in applications from abroad with an ever-strong demand for computer science technologists trained with advanced degrees, it is critical that a racially and gender diverse group of bright undergraduate and M.S. students in the United States be encouraged to pursue doctoral degrees.The inaugural Inspirations Ph.D. orientation will be held at the ACM SIGSOFT 2006/FSE 14 conference,which will take place November 5-11, 2006. This orientation aims to increase the number of students interested in pursuing doctorates in software engineering. Inspirations will be a three-day event intending togive the student a taste of active research in the area of software engineering, consisting of interactivesessions with established researchers and current Ph.D. students, audit of the doctoral symposium andposter session, and attendance of the first day of the conference.To help support our effort, we request NSF funding to provide travel grants for the participants, who otherwise will not have sufficient institutional funding to attend.