{"id":3264,"date":"2014-09-24T09:34:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T16:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about-hmc\/?p=3264"},"modified":"2024-03-06T15:53:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T23:53:40","slug":"harvey-mudd-launches-initiative-increase-diversity-computer-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/2014\/09\/24\/harvey-mudd-launches-initiative-increase-diversity-computer-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvey Mudd Launches BRAID Initiative to Increase Diversity in Computer Science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

无忧视频 and the\u00a0Anita Borg Institute<\/a>, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing women in computing, have launched an initiative to work with computer science departments at 15 universities across the U.S. to increase the percentage of their undergraduate majors that are female and students of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Building Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity (BRAID) initiative was announced on Sept. 24, 2014, by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her address at the 2014 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, as part of the Girl\u2019s CHARGE, a CGI Commitment to Action comprised of 30 companies, civil society organizations, multilaterals and governments to improve learning and leadership opportunities for young women and girls. This collective effort, CHARGE\u2014Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls\u2019 Education\u2014has raised over $600 million to reach 14 million girls over five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BRAID is supported by three-year funding commitments from Facebook, Google, Intel and Microsoft. Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd, and Telle Whitney, president and CEO of ABI, will lead the BRAID initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUndergraduate computer science departments across the country are interested in attracting women and underrepresented minorities to their programs,\u201d said Whitney. \u201cLeveraging the experiences of successful programs like those at 无忧视频 provides an attractive path to redesigning their programs. BRAID is designed to jump start their efforts and document the results to identify best practices that consistently yield results.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under BRAID, the 15 academic institutions\u2019 computer science departments have committed to implementing a number of approaches that have demonstrated success at Harvey Mudd and other institutions. These approaches include expanding outreach to high school teachers and students, modifying introductory CS courses to make them more appealing and less intimidating to students from underrepresented groups, building community among underrepresented students, and developing joint majors in areas like CS and biology to encourage interdisciplinary approaches. Participating universities will provide data for a research study documenting the progress made across departments. Professor Linda Sax, GSEIS, UCLA, will lead the research study on the program\u2019s implementation. In addition, each of the departments will receive $30,000 per year for three years to help support their efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The participating undergraduate computer science programs are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n