The Department of Computer Science and the Department of Education have been jointly awarded a five-year $1 million grant to address the shortage of labor, women, and underrepresented groups as well as the high attrition rate in the field of computer science. The grant will support 32 four-year scholarships to help undergraduate students complete their degrees through broadened curricula, academic support, professional development, and cohort activities. Additionally, we seek to gather fine-grained qualitative data, to which we intend to apply natural language processing, machine learning, and traditional tools to help us identify the nature of persistence and causes of attrition across social economic backgrounds. Professor Andy Wang is the PI on this grant, and Professors David Whalley, Sonia Haiduc, Xiuwen Liu, and Lara Perez-Felkner are the co-PIs.
