2012 Academic Careers Workshop for Underrepresented Participants

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Texas A&M proposes to run career mentoring workshops and assess their impact. Mentoring activities are critical for successful promotions in the professoriate, and they are particularly needed for underrepresented faculty in the field of computing. The number of minority faculty or faculty with disabilities at most institutions is very small, making it difficult to find role models and mentors with similar experiences and backgrounds. To address this problem, the PI has developed a series of Academic Career Mentoring Workshops for Underrepresented Participants. The series started in 2005 and has been funded by an NSF BPC grant from 2007 through 2011. The Academic Career Mentoring Workshop series targets junior faculty and senior graduate students from the following underrepresented groups: African American, Hispanic, Native American, and people with disabilities. The Workshops will include senior faculty from these groups that can serve as role models and present proven strategies for academic careers in computing. With this proposal, the PI requests funding to continue and to assess these workshops.The Workshops will cover cultural issues and their influence on topics such as starting a research program, networking, and navigating the tenure process. Panelists will be asked to address issues such as "Maintaining One's Identity" and "Overcoming Misconceptions," that address frustrations unique to underrepresented faculty and potential faculty (or senior graduate students). For example, ethnic minority faculty often struggle with the dilemma of maintaining one's culture given the significant time necessary to launch a research program. Further, underrepresented faculty must make a concerted effort, well beyond the norm, to find outlets and support communities of similar ethnicity. These problems can result in disillusionment that may result in young faculty choosing other career opportunities outside of academia. The proposed workshop complement the existing CRA-W Workshops, which focus on gender, and CRA Workshops, which do not target issues faced by women or ethnic minorities.