Facing problems that stemmed from isolation as the lone African-American student, Dr. Juan E. Gilbert was near the end of his Ph.D. program in computer science at the University of Cincinnati and on the verge of quitting.
But then he met Dr. Andrea Lawrence, chair of the computer science department at Spelman College, who introduced him to a community of other Black computer science Ph.D. students. That motivated him to stay in the program and finish, and as an academic he’s been committed to helping others facing similar struggles.
As the principal investigator for a National Science Foundation-funded program called “Broadening Participation in Computing,” Gilbert is part of a large-scale project, the Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computer Science (iAAMCS), which has developed a document to help schools recruit and retain African-American doctoral students in computer science.
The document– “The iAAMCS Guidelines for Successfully Mentoring Black/African-American Computing Sciences PhD Students” – is grounded in research and practice and addresses strategic recruitment, establishing community, fostering a research culture, providing holistic advising, providing funding and promoting professional development. It’s designed to help the students and their faculty and mentors.
“The reception has been very positive,” said Gilbert, the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor at the University of Florida, where he also is chair of the computer and information science and engineering department in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.
“All the research we have done and findings clearly show that if you want to be effective in recruitment, retention and matriculation of those students, you have got to provide mentoring. If you want them to fail, you isolate them and give them no mentoring,” said Gilbert.
With assistance from the Computing Research Association (CRA) based in Washington, D.C., the guidelines will be distributed to more than 200 universities that have Ph.D. programs in computer sciences and computer-related organizations and professional societies. There also will be an article in an upcoming issue of the association’s online publication, Computing Research News, said Erik Russell, CRA’s director of programs.
