Move Over,   DeVry…HBCUs make advances in awarding technology degrees

ALLAHASSEE, Fla.  — Last January, Ogor Onuorah's computer science education took an interesting twist when she signed up as a researcher for the Advanced Distributed Simulation Research Consortium at Florida A&M University here.
The Nigerian native says the research, which focuses on the U.S. Army's priority to develop computerized battlefield simulation systems, has stimulated her teamwork skills and exposed her to computing environments far more advanced than what she experienced in the classroom.
"The research has helped broaden my horizons. It's gotten me experience into the team building that's necessary in industry and research," says Onuorah, who expects to graduate at the end of the summer.
Onuorah is one of several dozen undergraduate computer science majors at Florida A&M University's computer information systems department who have experienced graduate-level research with senior faculty members at the school. Though Onuorah plans to work a few years before going to graduate school in business, she considers herself fortunate for taking advantage of an opportunity that is normally reserved at other universities for graduate students and undergraduates who intend to pursue advanced degrees in computer science.
It should come as no surprise that the popularity of computers and the Internet is helping to draw increasing numbers of students, such as Onuorah and her schoolmates, into computer and information science programs at American colleges and universities.
What is a surprise, is that Black colleges — for the first time in the last several years that Black Issues has run the degree-recipient numbers — are topping the list in the first- and second-place slots. In fact, for computer and information science baccalaureate degrees awarded to African Americans in the 1997-98 school year, historically Black colleges have claimed five of the top 10 spots.
During much of the 1990s, proprietary institutions, such as the DeVry Institute of Technology, had held the distinction of being the top producers of African American computer scientists with bachelor's degrees.
But a few years of grant-snagging, corporate partnerships and sound planning have led to Black colleges being at the forefront in preparing African American students for the millennium's IT explosion.