Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance
 
 

Our Mission

The mission of the Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance (EL Alliance) is to increase the number of students from groups with long-standing underrepresentation that receive undergraduate and graduate degrees in the computing disciplines.

Our Challenge

Minority undergraduate and graduate scholars in the computing disciplines in the U.S. are faced with multiple challenges. All too few and far between, they are scattered among research institutions where they not only experience the pressures of university life, similar to all of their fellow students, but they are  often the only minority student in their classes, or one of very few. Their network of formal and informal resources, support, and encouragement, so critical to all students, is significantly smaller, and less robust. Add to that the possibility of having come from a high school that did not prepare them well, and losing this student, a priceless human resource, becomes a serious possibility. Students faced with these challenges make choices to leave their computing departments for more welcoming environments or to leave college altogether. Even those that graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computing may have had such a painful journey that they are highly unlikely to consider graduate school, and another opportunity for diversifying the professoriate and national leadership has been lost.

Our Goal

ELA's primary goal is to support and retain more minority students in Computer/Information Science, and Engineering (CISE) disciplines and support them as they pursue graduate studies in CISE disciplines.

Expected Outcomes

  • barreraIncreased retention of minority undergraduate students through graduation.
  • Provision of relevant encouragement, education, support and preparation for graduate education.
  • Increased interest and enrollment in graduate school.
  • Increased opportunities for career enhancement and advancement through direct linkages with some of the country’s most powerful and well-positioned individuals and institutions in computing that have an explicit charge and commitment to ensuring the success of minority scholars in computing.