African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS)
Our Mission
Auburn University proposes African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS), a program that aims to broaden the participation of African-Americans at the levels of tenure track faculty and research scientist in the computing sciences.
African-Americans represent 5.2% of all university faculties in the United States of America. In Computer Science, African-Americans represent 1.1% of the faculty, 0.88% of tenure track faculty. The African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS) program will address this significant representation gap in the computing sciences. This program is designed to broaden African-American participation at the tenure track faculty and research scientist levels of the education pipeline in the form of a demonstration project. The basis for this demonstration project is founded on empirical research conducted by social scientists that reinforce the program’s goals.
Although African-Americans are the target group for this program, the AARCS program will serve as a model that can be used to target other underrepresented groups. The AARCS program will serve as an empirically evaluated model that can be incorporated into larger Alliance projects.
Our Strategy
African-American students across the Southeast will be exposed to role models, research, and graduate school opportunities, as well as mentoring. All activities will be specifically designed to address the barriers and disbeliefs, concerns, and misunderstandings about computing sciences faculty and research. The activities will include a series of targeted presentations by African-American computing sciences faulty and graduate students at HBCUs, a Future Faculty Mentoring Program, and an annual AARCS mini-conference hosted at Auburn University. The presentations at HBCUs will provide undergraduates with mentoring, and information on research careers. The Future Faculty Mentoring Program will provide advanced graduate students with e-mentoring on academic careers, and the AARCS mini-conference will be a research and skill building conference for undergraduates and graduate students.
Why AARCS?
The AARCS program will increase the number of African-Americans seeking faculty and research appointments in the computing sciences. African-American undergraduate students across the Southeast will be exposed to role models, research and graduate school opportunities that are specifically designed to address disbeliefs, concerns and misunderstandings about computing sciences faculty and research. This will be accomplished through targeted presentations by African-American computing sciences faculty and graduate students, a Future Faculty Mentoring program and an annual AARCS mini-conference hosted at Auburn University. The AARCS program will also include a comprehensive evaluation component that will be conducted by a social science researcher that specializes in higher education.
Our Impacts
The AARCS program will broaden the participation of African-Americans in the computing sciences at the tenure track faculty and research scientist levels. The AARCS program will serve as a successful model that can be incorporated into larger Alliance projects and replicated at other institutions to target African-Americans and other underrepresented groups. Behavioral changes reflect actual change in participant behavior, such as enrolling in a computing degree program. Affective changes reflect changes in attitude or perception, such as expressing an increased interest in majoring in a computing discipline. Cognitive changes reflect change in knowledge, such as becoming aware of previously unknown programs or fellowships for computing students. This model will be empirically evaluated to illustrate the effects it has on creating behavior, affective and cognitive changes in the minds and actions of African-American undergraduate students. The specific nature of these changes will eliminate disbeliefs, concerns and misunderstandings about graduate school, research and computing sciences faculty. As a result, these students will gain a greater understanding of the benefits of graduate school and faculty positions. Therefore, a larger number of these students will pursue graduate school with an ultimate goal of obtaining an academic faculty or research scientist position. Ultimately, this will broaden African-American participation in the computing sciences.
