SCS DEI Update #3
Nov. 6, 2020
During a week where much of the country's focus has been on the election, we have continued to make progress on our efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion. We remain committed to providing periodic updates on this important work as well as to invite participation and collaboration. Along with this, I want to thank everyone: students, staff and faculty, for their hard work in our attempts to harmonize and synchronize our efforts to make the SCS community more welcoming, diverse and inclusive.
Approaching Deadlines
November 11 - Grace Hopper Career Fair Extension - Volunteer signup deadline
December 1 - President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Recruiting Events
Building Anti-Racist Futures @CMU HCII recruiting event – November 8-10
This event will feature student panels, BIPOC community hour, and post-event lab visits and application support. We’ve leaned in to the remote format to focus on things we couldn't do in person (e.g., events targeted at attendees in different time zones). Our key goals are to share tacit knowledge about how to apply to graduate school, build relationships with prospective students and to help students find the right program for them — even if it is outside SCS.
We’ve met our initial goal of 50 registrants and are now aiming for 100.
We plan to use this event as a template for future events across SCS.
Tapia Graduate School Fair Follow-up – Thursday, November 5
SCS participated this year, and it was one of the most successful conferences of this type for SCS. We invited our URM students to sign up for free through various channels. Read the recap.
SHPE Conference – October 26-31
We partnered with the College of Engineering on this conference — and others historically geared toward engineering — to establish a presence with that demographic as it expands to include computing fields. A big thank you goes out to faculty, staff and students who have been volunteering for these recruiting opportunities.
Grace Hopper Career Fair Extension – November 17-18 (12 – 6 p.m. EST)
AnitaB.org has set up an additional two days for sponsors of the vGHC20 Conference (SCS is a Silver Academic Sponsor) to make connections with attendees. Faculty, student and staff volunteers are invited to support SCS graduate recruiting efforts.
Please use our Google spreadsheetto sign up before November 11 to allow us time to publicize topics of interest to attendees. Direct specific questions to conference volunteer coordinator Jenn Landefeld.
Information Session at Spelman – Thursday, November 5
Focusing on internship and graduate school opportunities at SCS, professors Justine Sherry and Srini Seshan hosted an information session where they discussed REU programs in SCS (REUSE, RISS, HCII, LTI), the CSD MS program and the CS Ph.D. program. They also gave an overview of SCS in general and the school's organization.
Students asked questions about admissions, some specific programs (e.g., societal computing in ISR), tradeoffs between internships and REUs, and a few other topics.
Students were invited to contact Justine and Srini personally if they apply so they can receive individual guidance as needed.
Ph.D./Graduate Student Mentoring and Application Support
A student-led team from SCS is offering feedback on Statement of Purpose content for doctoral program applicants, particularly those from underrepresented groups. The students are looking to quickly expand the number of volunteer mentors. Interested doctoral students should email gasp@cs.cmu.edu
See the GASP webpage for more details about the program.
Hiring Committee Process and Training
The SCS Faculty Hiring Committees are formed, and most have submitted their hiring and diversity plans for approval for the upcoming hiring cycle. SCS's hiring guidelines were modified this year to more closely follow guidance from the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty, and can be found on the Dean's Office website.
All hiring committees will be required to use a predefined set of criteria for evaluating candidates at all stages of the recruitment process and must confirm with the dean that they have such a process in place before they can begin evaluating potential candidates.
Guidelines continue to be refined based on feedback, and once instituted, will be requirements for all hiring committees. For more information, contact Nichole Merritt.
With support from Carol Frieze and Geoff Kaufman, our faculty hiring committees will be required to attend a specialized BiasBusters workshop this month. The workshop will provide an overviewew of how unconscious bias works and how it can impact decision making in the faculty hiring process, and will include research-based strategies that have been found effective in helping to mitigate bias in the hiring process. There will be opportunities to simulate hiring discussions, to share experiences and advice, and to learn about established best practices for recruitment and evaluation of candidates
Dean’s Meetings With SCS Constituencies: Women Faculty - October 28
Issues discussed included: transparency and progress tracking, continuity of existing programs, hiring processes, leveling the playing field in RPT, service tracking, and flexible leave policies. These meetings will be held biweekly in order to make progress on all of these issues that are essential to women faculty in SCS.
BPC: Broader Participation in Computing Plans
NSF Medium Proposals are due next week, and part of that submission entails writing a Broader Participation in Computing plan. Jodi Forlizzi has assembled a set of resources to assist:
SCS has written a departmental plan that is in review with BPC. This overarching plan will cover data gathering and reveal where we can best contribute our future efforts. Individuals will submit their plans.
On Box, you can find examples of individual BPC plans, a list of SCS activities that can be used in BPC plans and a graphic that shows how to write a simple BPC plan.
On BPC.net, you can find assistance for writing your NSF BPC plan.
SCS DEI Seminar Series
As we mentioned in the previous update, we're launching a series in spring 2021 that will highlight speakers whose work centers on diversity, equity and inclusion. To prepare for that lecture, we're soliciting nominations for presenters and volunteers to curate a robust, informative series of conversations that reflect our community needs and interests. We are still looking for speakers, hosts and moderators for these conversations that will encompass a diversity of ideas and speakers that reflect the society we live in. Ideas for topics might be based in research design, the impact of stereotypes in journal review or culturally sustaining pedagogy. This list is not exhaustive and we encourage creative interpretation from nominators.
Ph.D. Student Dean's Advisory Committee
Personal Story
In each update, we will post a submitted story (all stories here) that illustrates an important DEI-related challenge (Submit your story on this Google form.) This time, we illustrate the importance of representation among underrepresented groups at top tier universities like ours.
"I did my undergrad in India and frankly didn't like most aspects of the education system there. However, the one thing they did right was ensuring proportional representation for underrepresented groups. [...] I was very surprised when I came to CMU for my graduate studies and saw a complete absence of people from underrepresented groups at all levels. I'm so glad that BLM has finally gathered steam and really hope this will lead to concrete steps being taken." – PhD Student
Related Reading: In the recent election, California voted in favor of keeping a constitutional amendment that banned local and state governmental institutions from considering race, gender, and ethnicity in university admission, hiring, and public contracting. The LA Times wrote an opinion piece on the importance of considering demographic data (but not quotas) in these processes.
SCS DEI Progress Tracker
The SCS Ph.D. Advisory Committee is maintaining an SCS DEI Progress Tracker to map progress relative to the Towards Anti-Racist Change letter. To date: three items have been completed, five are on track, 18 have been started and 24 remain. In addition, concrete diversity goals have not been communicated.
For Next Time
Updates on:
Affinity groups
Target DEI goals
TA onboarding
Grad application evaluations
CS Pathways Summer Programs