The primary objectives of this proposal will be:

1. to attract more underrepresented students from area high schools and from among Pitt underclassmen into becoming majors in Computer Science
2. to offer effective mentoring to the underrepresented students by selected faculty - aimed at retaining interest, enhancing performance, and reinforcing persistence toward graduating in CS 
3. to inform and enable all CS majors to differentiate among IT job opportunities and career paths available in PA
4. to provide an up-to-date computing infrastructure designed to better prepare CS majors for future work responsibilities, while also giving them a home computer laboratory for meetings and interactions with CS peers and professors
5. to encourage the highest achievers to pursue also a graduate degree, taking advantage of a newly proposed program that efficiently links the BS and MS degrees in CS, thereby making it possible for CS majors to complete both degrees during a period of only five years

As part of this proposal, the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Computer Science has developed partnerships with MARCONI COMMUNICATIONS (formerly FORE Systems) and with ALCOA Corporation who will:

• participate as guest speakers in University-industry seminars specifically oriented to our CS majors and potential CS majors
• offer meaningful internships to our students in real-life work environments 
• become members of an advisory board for the Department of Computer Science

As part of this proposal, the Department of Computer Science has also developed a partnership with approximately 100 area high school districts through University of Pittsburgh's existing College in High School program. The CS Department has participated in this program for many years by teaching selected groups of high school teachers how to teach CS topics, e.g. programming in a modern language, and thereby enabling some of the best high school students to earn college credits in advance of enrolling at Pitt or at another college.  The chief advantage of this partnership will be to gain direct access through collegial contacts to high school students who are thinking about majoring in CS -- for purposes of informing and encouraging them, especially those who are underrepresented in the CS discipline, to choose the CS major as the direction of study that is not only extremely important but also very likely to be exciting and highly rewarding. This partnership will directly serve approximately 600 students in area high schools per year.

The objectives for this proposal were determined through a process that included 

• awareness of the critical shortage of IT workers that exists nationally
• the Program Director's leadership roles in major national organizations, e.g. the Computing Research Association, which have been concerned with and developed statistics on the unacceptably low numbers of women and minority students studying CS
• commitments by CS faculty and the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences to attract more under-represented students into CS at Pitt
• inputs from the above-named partners and other organizations indicating shared concern about the dismal numbers of women and minorities earning degrees in CS and expressing their support for our efforts to improve the situation
• recognition by Pitt's and all other major CS departments in the U.S. that we also have a crisis due to the extremely low number of American undergraduates deciding to advance their technical education by going on for an MS degree in CS. Graduate-level departments of CS are being overwhelmed with applications from foreign students, while almost all American graduates with BS degrees in CS, including those with exceptionally high academic records, decide not to continue on to graduate school

During the funding period, this proposal will directly serve approximately 22 of our (full-time) CS faculty, about 190 of our undergraduates, and about 50 of our graduate students per year. We will consider our activities to be successful if we experience an increase of 30% in our CS majors who are women and an increase of 20% in our CS majors who represent minorities in four years. Further, our activities will be successful if we increase the number of American undergraduates who enter our MS degree program in CS by 25% in four years.

Through an investment of $218,640 matched by $82,530, the University of Pittsburgh should be able to sustain these activities after Commonwealth funding based on the commitments made by the Dean and the CS Department Chair toward ensuring continued 

• participation by needed faculty and staff
• evaluation and improvement of relevant curricular changes
• maintenance and upgrading of affected computer equipment