Recruiting Students of Color through a Student Organization
Gloria Childress Townsend, Khadija Jirari Stewart, Allana Johnson · 2021
The literature investigates 1. classroom advantages for students that result from participation in extra-curricular activities; 2. benefits of support programs for Students of Color (SoC); and 3. relationships among sponsors of clubs and the student members of these organizations. The authors found no studies involving the tendency of SoC to enroll in the computer science courses of sponsors of organizations designed to support SoC in computing (SoCiC). The authors' project involves the creation of a student organization for SoCiC. The poster describes activities that the club provides and if word-of-mouth and email communication among a school's small population (21%) of SoC may lead SoC to enroll in the Computer Science I (CS1) courses taught by the sponsors of the organization. The poster reports percents of students who enroll in the sponsors' courses and who enroll in the courses of other faculty members. Future work will involve interviews to explore reasons for faculty selection by SoC. The poster's expected audience includes faculty members interested in effective ideas for recruiting and retaining SoC.