Our goals to increase diversity in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences will follow our college’s goals as indicated below.
Using the above goals in the FCSM plan for diversity as a guideline, the COSC plan will initially focus on the following two areas:
Increase efforts to improve undergraduate student diversity with respect to minorities/underrepresented groups. Our ongoing recruitment effort focuses on women, low income, and African-American/Hispanic/Native American populations. This is accomplished through the department website, K-12 initiatives and open house events. We will also continue current efforts for improving diversity in these areas.
Department recruitment efforts to increase underrepresented populations in the computing majors (ongoing):
Department Recruitment efforts to increase underrepresented populations in the Computing Majors (in progress):
The department has obtained baseline data on current enrollments for these groups. It will monitor these enrollments on an annual basis to determine the effectiveness of our activities.
The data for our current students (on the FCSM website) and the CoSMIC Scholars program (given below) will be used as a starting point to identify areas in which improvements can be made.
Gender | African American | Asian | White |
---|---|---|---|
Male | 2 | 3 | 20 |
Female | 13 | 1 | 13 |
*NOTE: Not reported male = 5, female = 10; Total male = 29, total female = 37
Gender | Science | Mathematics | Computer Sciences |
---|---|---|---|
Male | 5 | 8.5 | 17.5 |
Female | 17 | 13 | 5 |
Note: Differences in the totals above may be due to listing of double majors.
Following the annual and third-year evaluations, the department chair, P&T chair and the faculty mentor will meet with the faculty member to convey the results of the evaluation and discuss strengths and weaknesses. The goal is to provide an appreciation of the faculty member’s contributions and to help identify areas (if any) that need to be improved. The participation of the department and P&T chairs and the mentor will provide better feedback concerning the evaluation to the faculty member. While the above measures apply to COSC faculty, they will also help provide a better environment for feedback and open discussion. This will enable the department to more closely address and meet the individual needs of its diverse faculty members.
The COSC department has successfully followed equal opportunity policies and procedures as evidenced by the diversity of its faculty members. Search committees assisted by other faculty make special efforts to ensure that advertisements also reach potential candidates that are members of underrepresented groups and minorities. The department will continue to follow and evaluate the success of its current approach in recruiting faculty.