Establishing productive research collaborations can be complex. As all universities and colleges are unique, the context in which potential collaborators work must be understood. Collaborations between MSI and non-MSI institutions are particularly challenging due to the diversity of MSI institutions, their missions, and the context in which MSI faculty work.

The Institute for African American Mentoring in Computing Sciences leverages social media platforms to share information, offer mentorship, and connect Black computing students with vital resources. Through platforms : YouTube, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn, iAAMCS provides insights into graduate programs, application strategies, and funding opportunities. These efforts are part of a broader initiative aimed at increasing the recruitment and retention of Black students in computing by fostering niche online communities and providing culturally relevant mentorship. IAAMCS plays a crucial role in empowering African American students to navigate the challenges of graduate school and succeed in the field of computing. Through this poster, we explore IAAMCS's social media strategies and their impact on increasing Black student participation and retention in computing disciplines.

This innovative practice WIP paper describes an initiative that seeks to promote faculty awareness and interventions towards student-based technical interview preparations. In the field of Computing, there is a trend for having a high demand of jobs in industry and a low supply of candidates to fill them. Literature indicates notable challenges that could pose as influential factors for this job/candidate ratio discrepancy in the field: 1) student retention challenges in computing areas at the collegiate level; 2) fostering stronger K-12 student interests and engagement towards computing fields as a career choice; and 3) representation barriers that exist within marginalized groups in computing. Yet, computing majors' inability to showcase their developed computational skills as prospective candidates to tech employers and hiring managers can persist as another barrier. Candidates are typically expected to demonstrate their computational skills and abilities practically. A candidate's inability to demonstrate such skills and abilities effectively could lead to missed job opportunities and even lucrative career pursuits in tech. One notable approach used by tech industry companies to examine the skillset compositions of their candidates is through technical interviews. This interview-based examination allows a hiring manager(s) to observe a candidate's ability to solve problems computationally in a think-aloud format, which also enables these professionals to gauge the candidate's verbal and communication skills during this interaction. When cross referencing the practice of technical interview examination in industry with the styles of learning and application fostered in computing classrooms in the academy, there exists a potential contrast between this expectation imposed by tech industry companies and professional preparation protocols fostered at academic institutions. There are computing-focused departments/schools and institutions at large that have identified the need to educate and prepare their computing majors for technical interviews. Yet, there still exists a greater disparity for institutional awareness and effective preparation when observing academia altogether. Such a disparity presents an opportunity to promote the importance and need for effective technical interview preparation strategies and enhanced awareness in the academy on a larger scale. In partnership with the STARS Computing Corps and KARAT, the authors of this manuscript created a faculty-targeted workshop in such efforts to increase academic awareness to the technical interview process. Faculty from a variety of institutions across the U.S. are participating in this workshop with the sole purpose of: 1) gaining first-hand exposure to the technical interview process, and 2) developing initiatives that can be implemented back at their home institutions to better prepare their students for the technical interview process. Pre and post surveys have been administered to the participating faculty to gather feedback about their experiences while matriculating through this workshop. Notable outcomes indicate that the participating faculty value this workshop and its intended impact to promote effective technical interview preparation practices. Likewise, these faculty are developing and adopting applicable initiatives to be employed back at their home institutions to better prepare their students for technical interviews. Overall, these faculty feel more equipped with preparing their students to successfully conduct technical interviews.

Internship experiences allow students to authentically participate in industry while still obtaining mentorship and development opportunities. The Morehouse Center for Broadening Participation in Computing, in collaboration with the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative, Lockheed Martin, and Amazon Photos joined forces to expand a PreFreshmen eXperience (PFX) program that supports student exposure to programming and interviewing skills. Specifically, incoming Computer Science and Software Engineering freshmen at Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University were eligible to apply to the program. The goal of this program was to not only prepare students for courses but also expose them to technical interviewing skills, resources, tools, and experiences in hopes that they will use this information to apply to an internship following their freshman year.

Lack of diversity and high dropout rates among underrepresented students plague the CS discipline. We developed, administered, and validated survey scales measuring social factors that impact the retention and graduation of under-represented CS undergrads at two institutions. Results revealed significant differences between students who identify as men vs. women in terms of computing identity and confidence, and between black and non-black students in terms of familiarity with future opportunities.

One of SIGCSE's missions is to provide occasion for K-12 teachers and college/university professors to network, developing understanding of each other's roles as educators and generating ideas for collaborations for the sake of broadening participation in computing. We aim to promote opportunities for researchers and K-12 practitioners to work together in a BoF in order to participate in discussion regarding a)K-12 members' interests regarding CS education research; b) strategies for increasing opportunities for K-12 membersc) researcher/K12 collaborations d) ideas for future grants and/or collaborations The expected audience are the college/university faculty interested in K-12 education, as well as K-12 teachers or administrators interested in college/university CS education research. Regarding K-12/University collaborations, one might only think of the benefits to students. Yet, opportunities for learning and growth on the part of teachers and university faculty as work partners fosters motivation on both sides. This unexpected, valuable outcome has been documented in the literature as well [1,2,3]. The organizers of this BoF each have valued the learning from such collaborations and represent various roles as collaborative researchers from both sides.

A Historically Black College or University (HBCU) hosted a virtual supplemental learning program to expose underrepresented minority and low-income youth to game development via Construct 3: Game Making Software. The program implemented a hybrid need-based admissions model that compared paid, subsidized, and free virtual outreach participation among underrepresented minority (URM) and low-income adolescents. Due to the program's unique distinctions: a virtual learning environment amid COVID-19, African American undergraduate instructors, and its need-based admissions model, it is unclear which factors directly affected student participation. Future directions include investigating what factors contributed to participation rates, obtaining student and parent feedback, and comparing this program to summer programs for underrepresented students.

This Research Full Paper presents a qualitative interview and descriptive study on computing resilient identity development of African Americans who have earned a Ph.D. in a computing field. Low sense of belonging and self-efficacy contributes to low participation and performance of African Americans have lower participation and performance in computing as compared to their White and Asian counterparts. Computing identity including sense of belonging and self-efficacy contributes to this deficit. To increase African American successful representation in computing, resilience is explored to identify the support systems, challenges, and coping processes of African Americans who have earned a Ph.D. in computing. In depth, semi-structured interviews of African American post-docs, faculty, and industry researchers in computing fields were implemented. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions were analyzed with a hybrid inductive-deductive qualitative content analysis. Surveys were employed to document participants' work resilience and personality to supplement the qualitative data. Results include the resilient identity development of participants by reciting background information, challenges and support systems in their respective employment, and how they react to such stressors and supports, and the productive they are while persevering. Findings from this work can be used to improve academia and industry conditions for African American professionals and to identify resources that were suggested to be pivotal in participants' resilient identity development within the computing field. This paper is in conjunction with other papers in an extended case study on resilient identity development in African American computer scientists.

This Research Full Paper presents a qualitative interview study on the effectiveness of a computing identity development listserv. The demand for diverse computing careers increases, yet African Americans continue to participate and succeed in computing fields proportionately less than their White and Asian counterparts. An individual's computing identity can influence their performance and willingness to participate. The African American PhDs in Computer Science Listserv is an email listserv created to increase and maintain members' sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and resilience in computing. Semi-structured interviews of graduate student, faculty, and industry professional members were conducted to investigate how effective the listserv was at increasing and maintaining computing identity. Findings include decision making processes for joining, duration and dosage of interaction members partake, maintenance of computing resilience, members' self-reflection, willingness to seek help, and attitudes towards computing. Recommendations were made about the listserv and if other African Americans in computing should join. Findings can be used to develop new approaches to supporting the computing identities of underrepresented groups. This paper is in conjunction with other papers in an extended case study on resilient identity development in African American computer scientists.

Computing is not only a fundamental part of our daily lives - our national security depends on it. It is essential that members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) be well-versed in computing techniques designed to combat cyber-attacks that continually improve in sophistication and frequency levels. Through computer science education, prospective military leaders are being taught the critical and analytical thinking skills necessary to address these threats. This paper outlines and discusses how underrepresented minority Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen, with the majority having little-to-no programming skills or background, were taught the foundational aspects of computer science and exposed to specific cybersecurity concepts in a 15-week program. The program produced many insightful outcomes, one being the development of a tool that collected and analyzed publicly available social media data through the application of data mining algorithms and techniques. Additionally, interviews, which were conducted upon the completion of the program, documented notable findings on the program's effectiveness and on key concepts for teaching computer science to minority beginners.

Underrepresented students and the institutions that serve these students need to recognize and address the unique challenges that impact their career pathways and successes. This special session will discuss challenges facing Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and how industry-academia partnerships can be a force in mitigating some of these challenges. We will explore how we as a community can work together to develop holistic programs to support student development and excellence. We will highlight the shortcomings, strengths and future of the Googler In Residence (GIR) program from the perspective of select participating colleges, as well as other successful initiatives in motion. It is also essential that promising interventions be shared and scaled across institutions that play an essential role in educating and preparing these students. We are still learning as we go, but this is an opportune time to come together as a community to share our challenges and solutions, to determine how we can move together and how we can all be involved as change advocates. It is meant to be interactive, create shared knowledge and help identify ways of moving forward serving MSIs.

Research suggests that the African American population is continuously growing in America, yet African Americans are disproportionately represented when it comes to undergraduate and graduate degrees and careers in computing. Embodied conversational agents (ECAs) have been developed as tools to disseminate information about various jobs in computing. The ECAs used in this study are African American men and women in those fields. This paper is about a pilot study conducted at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia to assess user satisfaction and effectiveness of the website which houses those ECAs. Twenty-two male undergraduates who were pursuing a degree in computer science participated in a study where they engaged the ECAs to learn more about various computing careers. Those individuals who participated in the study said that the tool was easy to use and that they will consider a career in computing in the future. This pilot study will be used to conduct another study that will focus on African American, male and female high school students and individuals interested in obtaining a graduate degree and/or career in computing. The study's limitation is that there is no control group to compare the results with. Future work will include groups who will either interact with disembodied agents, agents that are presented as Caucasian, or a collection of agents who are more demographically diverse instead of trying to match the demographics of the target audience.

This paper compares social service selection techniques and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of several approaches. We support our analysis with recent social service studies as well as exploring studies of commercial usage such as eBay, Amazon, etc. The three traditional areas of social service selection-reputation, recommender, and referral-will be the areas compared in detail. Service selection techniques often return a single value representing the rank of a service. Users of the service, however, may not always have identical needs and may be interested in ratings based on multiple categories. We feel this is an important aspect when comparing social service selection techniques. To address this, our investigation will also include examining the issues of adding quality of service (QoS) factors with social service selection.