Empowering Leadership Alliances Seeks High School Students of Color Interested in Computing Fields

In conjunction with Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), the Empowering Leadership Alliance (ELA) is starting an initiative to reach out to high school seniors interested in computing fields before they matriculate on their respective university campuses.

ELA is an NSF-funded program that engages underrepresented minority (URM) students in computing disciplines at research institutions in a nationwide network composed of leading universities including Rice University, UC Berkeley, and UT Austin.

Their mission is to increase the number of students from groups with long-standing under-representation that receive undergraduate and graduate degrees in the computing disciplines.

We are asking villagers to inform minority high school seniors who are interested in pursuing computing-related fields about EL Alliance. Ideally they should register with the online EL Alliance registration form.

After students register, they will be contacted by ELA staff who will invite them to:

• Ask questions about computing or classes or university academic life
• Participate in university student-led teleconferences where college students would answer the high school students’ questions,
• Be matched with a current college student,
• Participate in mentoring teleconferences, among other possibilities.

We think that CSTA and EL Alliance can help bridge the fragile pipeline from high school through college and graduate school so that our nation can benefit from these future minority leaders in computing. If you have any questions about the EL Alliance, please contact Alice Fisher.