The University of Texas at El Paso NSF Grant No. No. 0080940

1. Graduate Education for Minority Students in Computer Science and Engineering:Extending the Pipeline For more information: http://www.cs.utep.edu/DeptCS/mii/ The University of Texas at El Paso NSF Grant No. No. 0080940 David G. Novick, Patricia Teller, Ann Gates Department of Computer Science Sergio Cabrera Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Project Activity Example Partner Ph.D. Initiative The project is creating educational opportunities for faculty at our Texas partner institutions who hold an MS degree in Computer Science or a related field, are teaching Computer Science at their institution, and wish to pursue a PhD in Computer Engineering. This special program is designed to provide graduate faculty for minority-serving institutions. We now have three faculty from UT-Pan Am enrolled in the program. We are addressing these problems: The relatively small numbers of scientific leaders within the Hispanic community The isolation of minority students in non-minority community settings The isolation of minority institutions A small and “leaky” pipeline of students from high-school to graduate school. • Project Impacts • Significant increases in Ph.D. enrollments • Support for separate Ph.D. programs in CS and ECE • From the fall 2000 to fall 2004, the CS branch of the Ph.D. program has grown from zero to five Hispanic students and will have transitioned two Hispanic CS master’s graduates to doctoral programs at Rice University and Virginia Tech. • Given that recruitment and production of Ph.D. students is a six- or seven-year process and that growth of Ph.D. program requires ramping up, some major impacts of UTEP’s MII project will not accrue until 2007 and beyond. We have these project goals: Build community among relatively isolated majority-Hispanic institutions, so that students early in the pipeline have access to role models Build a strong graduate program in a majority-Hispanic community, so that students and the program can take advantage of existing community and university support structures Build communities of interest among the four-year colleges, an M.S.- and Ph.D.-granting university with the experience and capabilities to support Hispanic students, and Ph.D.-granting research universities so that students late in the pipeline engage with excellent research programs. Start of Award