RAPID: Understanding the Impact of The Alliance for the Advancement of African-American Researchers in Computing (A4RC)

The Alliance for the Advancement of African-American Researchers in Computing (A4RC), a Broadening Participation in Computing alliance, is committed to increasing the number of African Americans attaining advanced degrees in computing, particularly at the PhD level.

A4RC’s approach to bring about this change is to establish and develop student pipelines from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to universities offering advanced degrees in computing. A4RC collaborations are centered around research pods that link students and faculty from HBCUs with faculty from research institutions on a particular area of computer science research.

The A4RC Evaluation Team at the University of Wisconsin will examine the five years of A4RC evaluation data to determine what program attributes are best suited to serve as national models for creating a computing education pathway for African Americans.

The project staff will utilize existing data and original data collection to assess the effectiveness of past and current A4RC initiatives. The PI will disseminate best practices and research results on increasing the participation of African Americans in computing. Accordingly, one would expect to see rising enrollments of African American students in graduate computing programs as a result of more programs like A4RC emerging across the U. S.

The dissemination of best practices obtained from the assistance of RAPID funding has the potential to significantly impact and enhance broadening participation in computing efforts nationwide.
Funded by an NSF RAPID grant.