In October of 2020, a new book was released by Kendall Hunt Publishing Company entitled, “Navigating the Peer Mentoring Relationship: A Handbook for Women and Other Underrepresented Populations in STEM”. Congratulations to Dr. Kinnis Gosha for co-authoring chapter 8 entitled “Using Virtual Platforms to Facilitate Peer Mentoring Relationships”.
Author: shanikajordan
The CRCL was awarded $749,949 by the National Science Foundation for the grant titled, “The STARS Aligned: How the STARS Computing Corps Broadens Participation in Computing”. The primary research aim of this grant (NSF #2022660) is to investigate research questions around the impact of the STARS Computing Corps Alliance on its past and current efforts to broaden participation in computing. CoPI Gosha’s role in the grant is crucial in ensuring inclusion of HBCUs into the STARS ecosystem.
CRCL Director, Dr. Kinnis Gosha, has worked to establish a partnership with Dell Technologies, Morehouse College and Georgia State University to c0-offer a Sales Engineering course in the Fall semester of 2020. The course will be offered in the Software Engineering program at Morehouse along with the Information Systems program at GSU. Students in the class also come from Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Dell Technologies partnered with Morehouse last Fall to offer the course. Dell executives and pre sales engineers will assist in the instruction of the course.
July 2020 – The Culturally Relevant Computing Lab launched a two week virtual app development program for middle and high school students. The program utilized MIT’s App Inventor software. The Atlanta University Center Consortium Data Science Initiative and the Boeing company provided funds to help support scholarships for students with financial need. Approximately 60 students participated in the program.
The National Science Foundation has funded a five year grant (NSF #1818458) for nine million dollars to support the continuation of the HBCU STEM Undergraduate Success Center. Culturally Relevant Computing Lab Director, Dr. Kinnis Gosha, is one of the co-investigators on the grant. The grant is a collaboration between Morehouse College, Spelman College and Virginia State University.
On July 20th, 2020 Dr. Kinnis Gosha participated in the STEM for All Multiplex video and panel discussion. The videos and panel discussion covered the latest scientific innovations at HBCUs and explored ways to use HBCUs as a strategic resource to advance excellence and diversity in STEM. Click the link to watch Dr. Gosh’s video on Using Conversational Agents to Broaden Participation in CS
Autodesk has agreed to fund a collaboration with the Culturally Relevant Computer Lab to create an externship program at Morehouse College. The program will support five computer science and software engineering majors for one academic year to collaborate on a project focused on enhancements to their Fusion 360 software product.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Division Chair for Experiential Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies was recently featured in the San Francisco Business Times article titled, “Moving Diversity Beyond a Hashtag”. The article focuses on how tech companies specifically Silicon Valley can increase their diversity in the workplace. Dr. Gosha expresses his thoughts on this issue stating that companies should do more than just focus on recruitment. He expresses that they should focus on collaborating with colleges to design curriculums that can help students become more qualified for computer science positions.
As a way to expand the number of Blacks in computing, Morehouse College took a virtual approach. In 2020, Morehouse College partnered with Momentum Learning and Opportunity Hub to develop the Momentum@Morehouse Coding Bootcamp. The 12 week program was targeted to adult learners regardless of gender. Over 300 individuals applied to the program and ultimately 27 enrolled in the cohort. Many of the coding students reside outside of the state of Georgia and most already had an undergraduate degree before starting the program. Those who completed the boot camp were awarded a certification in Full Stack Web Development.
FEAT Workshop
A workshop funded by the National Science Foundation was hosted on the Georgia Tech campus on August 29 and August 30, 2019. The purpose of this workshop was to address the fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) in computing-based research, practice, and educational efforts. The workshop was organized by PI Ayanna Howard, School of Interactive Computing and Co-PI Jason Borenstein, School of Public Policy and Office of Graduate Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Co-PI Kinnis Gosha, Division of Experiential Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies at Morehouse College. The final report can be found here .