Mentoring

CAHSI is building a comprehensive framework for mentorship throughout the pipeline that began in the first phase of the project. This extension enhances those efforts by focusing on student development and advocacy via peer-to-peer and faculty interactions. The proposed efforts, i.e., Paper-Net, Fellow-Net, Advocates, and the CAHSI portal.

FemProf

FemProf is paving the road to professorship for female students. It is a collaborative initiative between the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM) and the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD). It aims at establishing a model for significantly increasing the number of undergraduate female students that pursue a professorship career in computing. The short-term objective of the project is to significantly increase the number of female students that continue doctoral studies in computing. The long-term objective is to significantly increase the number of female faculty in computing.

The project focuses on female computer engineering and computer science students at UPRM and UHD. The project is expected to impact at least 36 female students (mostly Hispanic) during the demonstration period. Eight students from UPRM and four from UHD will be recruited each year. They will undergo a two- year program in which they will participate in research, career path mentoring and empowerment activities.

FemProf is a demonstration project of CAHSI , the NSF supported Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (http://cahsi.fiu.edu/main.html) , and is supported through the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program of the National Science Foundation (Grants # CNS 0739249 and CNS 0739213). The experiences and results accomplished with the project as well as the instruments, seminars, and workshops' contents, and procedures developed will be shared with CAHSI members as well as any other institution willing to replicate the model. Click here to learn more...

Mentor-Grad

The NSF BPC program recently funded FemProf, a CAHSI demonstration project. FemProf is a collaborative initiative between UPRM and UHD. It is working to establish a model for significantly increasing the number of undergraduate female students that pursue a career in the computing professoriate. Although FemProf’s focus is on undergraduate female students, its research mentoring and career development activities are genderless with slight adjustments and broad enough to apply to undergraduate male students. Following the FemProf model, we created Mentor-Grad to advance Hispanic male and female undergraduates into graduate school. Mentor-Grad adopts the main FemProf strategies:

student recruitment
research mentoring
career mentoring
empowerment.

Although Mentor-Grad focuses on advancing students to graduate school, the research, career, and empowerment activities also benefit students who decide to pursue a professional career. Course materials, workshops, and documents developed by FemProf have become Mentor-Grad resources. From its institutions, Mentor-Grad involves students who:

Enroll in an undergraduate research course in the first year of the program and work on a research project for at least one academic year; or join an Affinity Research group for at least one academic year;
Are encouraged to spend at least one summer in research internships at other institutions of higher education;
Attend a research or career development conference at least once a year;

Mentor-Grad students attend seminars and workshops on:

research skills development (if not in an ARG),
career development to prepare for graduate school and onto the professoriate,
empowerment to help overcome ethnic or gender bias that can preclude students from following a career in academia.

Paper-Net

Paper-Net is being created to provide external feedback to students involved in research through critique of their research papers. CAHSI anticipates that this will provide an opportunity to enhance research quality. CAHSI will create two databases. The first database, CAHSI-CR (Computing Reviewers), will consist of computing researchers, mainly faculty members and industry professionals, who agree to review papers and provide constructive feedback for improvement towards publication in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Reviewers will be identified from established collaborations and new collaborations and partnerships. A second data base, CAHSI-CSR (Computing Student Researchers), will consist of research students. Information from the CSR database can potentially be available to others as a resource for establishing collaborations. All CR members who are Paper-Net reviewers will be asked to ascertain their research areas for reviewing draft papers. Paper-Net will permit a CSR member to submit a paper for review and select the main research areas associated with the paper. TAMU-CC will lead the effort with support from UTEP. Investigators will pilot Paper-Net to a small community and evaluate the approach prior to expanding participation. The effort will entail building a database system and identifying an appropriate review system. Initially, matches will be done manually. If the effort is successful, CAHSI will pursue discussions with MentorNet to sustain the approach. CAHSI has engaged in initial discussions with MentorNet regarding feasibility.

Fellow-Net

CAHSI views the opportunity for student fellowships and scholarships as a powerful resource in attracting quality students into graduate studies toward a doctorate. As awardees of highly competitive fellowships and scholarships, students have the advantage to be introduced to research early in their career and to become valued graduates for faculty positions once they obtain their Ph.D. CAHSI has outlined an initiative that builds from our past experience with several successful applicants. Our strategy is to make students aware early in their studies about the essential elements of a successful packet for a competitive fellowship and to ensure that students engage in activities that ultimately improve the prospects of a successful outcome. The Fellow-Net initiative is strategic in that it begins at least a year prior to the student applying for a fellowship program. Its goal is to have each participating institution help a minimum of two students apply per year to prized fellowships and have at least one funded per institution, resulting on an average of at least 8 successfully funded each year. To reach this lofty goal, strategic steps are considered:

Attract well-qualified junior and senior students to work in research labs with both a faculty mentor and a graduate student as a peer leader selected to guide and oversee progress of the student.
Ensure that a research topic with societal impact is identified in order to secure from the onset the desire and the drive of the student to succeed.
Work with the student to publish at least two conference papers and submit one journal paper prior to the student submitting the fellowship application.
Use Paper-Net to obtain preliminary reviews from faculty reviewers.• Use CAHSI portal to identify available fellowships (e.g., NSF, NASA, DOD, DHS) and obtain samples of successful applications.
Provide faculty review and final feedback on fellowship applications (prior to submission) from a preliminary panel of faculty members.

Advocates

The literature on peer mentoring, peer-led team learning and other student-led interventions is clear in its description of the benefits of such programs [AS02, BC97, B89a, B89b, T02, PL05, TM06].One example of student-led efforts is the PLTL intervention implemented by CAHSI institutions. It has been successful, uniquely because it is led by students who as leaders also serve as advocates for the success of their peers. Given this achievement within PLTL, CAHSI has engaged Student Advocates in increasing involvement in CAHSI activities and opportunities through face-to-face promotive-interaction. Advocates encourage and facilitate student participation in REU opportunities, seminars, workshops, and internships and increase the number of applications to competitive local and external programs and scholarships. Advocates host informational meetings and help students complete applications. The role of CAHSI Advocates is to promote Hispanic faculty and young professionals into leadership roles. This includes award nominations and making recommendations for key committee positions, panels, and other opportunities that build leadership. CAHSI advocates attend an orientation workshop in which they learn about CAHSI goals and strategies as well as the expectations as an Advocate.