Preparing the Next Generation of African American Computing Science Faculty: A Response to the Obama Administration’s Scientific Workforce Priorities

Recent educational initiatives by the Obama Administration have highlighted the need for more racial and ethnic diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields (The White House, 2011). While African Americans are underrepresented in faculty positions nationally, accounting for only 5.2% of all academic faculty across all disciplines (Harvey, W. B., & Anderson, E. L. (2005). Minorities in higher education: Twenty-first annual status report. Washington, DC: American Council on Education), the underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM fields such as computing science is even more severe. According to a recent Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey, African Americans represent just 1.3% of all computing sciences faculty (CRA, 2006).

This paper examines the benefits of one program that specifically seeks to fulfill the Obama Administration’s initiatives by addressing this disparity in higher education.

The program helps prepare doctoral students for the academic job search process in an effort to increase the ranks of African American faculty in computing sciences.