BPC-A: Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computing Sciences (iAAMCS)

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The University of Florida will document and demonstrate the impact of the Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computing Sciences (iAAMCS, pronounced ‘I am CS’) on broadening participation in computing. iAAMCS is intended to serve as a national resource to students, faculty, and industry professionals. A major goal of iAAMCS is to significantly increase the number of Black/African Americans pursuing and completing the Ph.D. in computing fields through a national mentoring model. The programs and activities implemented as a part of this model focus on leveraging and developing evidence-based strategies to encourage African American’s participation in computing, specifically at the Ph.D. level and beyond. Although representation in attainment of computer science degrees at the bachelor's level is on par with representation in the country (African Americans represent 13.4% of the U.S. population), African Americans represent approximately 0.8% and 1.2% of the master's and Ph.D. recipients, respectively. Furthermore, African Americans represent 1.4% of the tenure-track faculty at Ph.D. granting institutions. The fact that there is a larger number of African Americans at the bachelor's degree level provides evidence that there is a sufficient pool of talent to pursue graduate education in computing. This project involves the extensive assessment and dissemination of new and existing iAAMCS data, while continuing key programmatic interventions that support student mentoring. Over this award period, the collective impact of iAAMCS on the field and profession of computing will be documented, along with the experiences and impact of iAAMCS on its participants. This effort involves re-analyzing existing qualitative and quantitative longitudinal data, in addition to collecting new survey responses and interview data. Further documentation of the impact and usefulness of iAAMCS resources will be provided. New educational research will be pursued related to the concepts of cascade mentoring, self-efficacy, intersectionality, and computer science identity development. The results of this comprehensive analysis of iAAMCS will address several gaps in the literature related to African Americans in Computing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.