Project: Diversity@CS (Archived)
Increase gender and racial diversity in the Berkeley Computer Science Graduate Program
Background: I strongly believe that a more diverse research group produces better quality research, because the varied backgrounds of the members add to the collective perspective and creativity of the group. Unfortunately, achieving diversity is a problem that affects almost all top science and engineering departments in the United States. It is especially acute in computer science; and with Prop 209, it's even harder to fix here at Berkeley.
There are really two separate tasks that are commonly mistakenly merged into one: 1) increasing the number of women in a tech program, and 2) increasing the number of underrepresented racial minorities. Progress on the first can be made, to a significant extent, within universities. Unfortunately, progress on the second, for the most part, is contingent on significant efforts in K-12 programs, making it difficult to have an impact at the university level. Due to this problem, my main interest is increasing gender diversity. I believe significant positive results can be achieved through changes in admissions policy, culture, and support at both the graduate and undergraduate level, here at Berkeley and in cooperation with other leading universities.
Status: Tabled.
I dove into this problem in the summer of 2004 and then had to put it aside due to other commitments.
Get involved: This is a very important project that I would love to see someone take on as her/his own. I have done a large amount of preliminary research on this problem and mapped out a strategy to develop a proposal to fix it. I would be glad to hand off what I have done to people interested in taking a lead in the project.
I am also open to hearing from people at other CS schools interested in collaborating, especially people from departments whose undergrads feed into Berkeley's grad program. In the end, there needs to be a coordinated change in undergraduate policies to increase the number of women feeding into grad school.
Related Projects:
Communication - like any policy issue, it's mostly about marketing
Background: I strongly believe that a more diverse research group produces better quality research, because the varied backgrounds of the members add to the collective perspective and creativity of the group. Unfortunately, achieving diversity is a problem that affects almost all top science and engineering departments in the United States. It is especially acute in computer science; and with Prop 209, it's even harder to fix here at Berkeley.
There are really two separate tasks that are commonly mistakenly merged into one: 1) increasing the number of women in a tech program, and 2) increasing the number of underrepresented racial minorities. Progress on the first can be made, to a significant extent, within universities. Unfortunately, progress on the second, for the most part, is contingent on significant efforts in K-12 programs, making it difficult to have an impact at the university level. Due to this problem, my main interest is increasing gender diversity. I believe significant positive results can be achieved through changes in admissions policy, culture, and support at both the graduate and undergraduate level, here at Berkeley and in cooperation with other leading universities.
Status: Tabled.
I dove into this problem in the summer of 2004 and then had to put it aside due to other commitments.
Get involved: This is a very important project that I would love to see someone take on as her/his own. I have done a large amount of preliminary research on this problem and mapped out a strategy to develop a proposal to fix it. I would be glad to hand off what I have done to people interested in taking a lead in the project.
I am also open to hearing from people at other CS schools interested in collaborating, especially people from departments whose undergrads feed into Berkeley's grad program. In the end, there needs to be a coordinated change in undergraduate policies to increase the number of women feeding into grad school.
Related Projects:
Communication - like any policy issue, it's mostly about marketing
First Published: 8/1/2005; Archived: 1/1/2009