Welcome to the CAHSI page.  We hope our short video will entice you to want to learn more about CAHSI's efforts to increase the number of  Hispanics who earn credentials in computing. As an NSF National INCLUDES alliance, CAHSI recognizes it role in engaging entities from the private and public sectors in building an inclusive and diverse workforce and how essential that is to advance innovation and discovery.  Let’s see how together we can accelerate our efforts to broaden participation in STEM.

Ann Gates, Director of CAHSI

CAHSI is incredibly impressive! I was moved by the clear goal to have 20% or more of the individuals that earn credentials in computing are Hispanics. 

Your video mentions policy work and I would like to know more about what that work entails? Do you have resources that you share with policy makers? Any actionable outcomes to date?

Thank you for your question. Our policy efforts are led by Deborah Santiago from Excelencia in Education (EiE) and Dr. Anne-Marie Nunez, a leading researcher on HSIs, who are investigators with CAHSI. CAHSI's website references EiE's policy briefs.  CAHSI used the results from a 2019 CAHSI Community workshop on building research capacity at HSIs to recommend changes and ultimately endorse H.R. 4372, the “MSI STEM Achievement Act” that was introduced by Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Congressman Michael Waltz (R-FL).  The current COVID-19 outbreak highlights the need to examine institutional policies on laptop and broadband access as essential tools for student success and equitable and inclusive practices. 

Hi Ann & CAHSI Colleagues,

This is a great video!  I would love to consider how we might support CAHSI and Aspire efforts that have launched (or will launch) at the same institutions as we have several institutions engaged in both projects. For instance, it would be really interesting if we could encourage Hispanics in computing to consider moving into academic careers at IChange institutions who are working to build more inclusive faculty recruitment and retention practices and policies. 

To learn more about Aspire's IChange Network, check out our video at http://stemforall2020.videohall.com/p/1897.  We'd love to hear from you and your team about other ways that our project might be able to support your work.

You can also learn more about the NSF INCLUDES Aspire - The National Alliance for an Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty at aspirealliance.org.

Hi Travis--great to hear from you.  We currently have an effort with Google to support Hispanic PhD students who move into academic careers. Let's set aside time to align our efforts and extend the impact of our aligned goals. Thanks for the links to your videos!

This is such important work! I'd love to hear more about your partnership with K-12 organizations and strategies for preparing students for success in STEM coursework and beyond. 

Each of CAHSI's regional hubs has initiatives in K-12.  NMSU, a CAHSI institution, has a successful Young Women in Computing program, and others are working with CS4All, AI4All, and other organizations.  Another effort is a Microsoft CS Teacher Academy to prepare middle and high school teachers for CS teacher certification. The CAHSI-Google problem-solving initiative is another effective effort that consists of one-credit and two-credit hour courses with a focus on metacognition.  

So good to see in this video how CAHSI has evolved and grown as a collective impact backbone. I, too, was interested in how you address policy and see you have partners in that space. Can you give any examples of how CAHSI partners are working on the high-school-to-college transition? I'm curious if you have focused at all on dual/concurrent enrollment as a strategy?

Enjoyed the video very much! Thanks for submitting it. Great to see the evolution and growth from 2006 to now from 7 founding partners to now over 60 institutions.  I like the aspirational goal that Hispanics will represent 20% or more of those who earn credentials in computing. Can you share some evidence of impact towards that goal to date?

CAHSI’s educational innovations have increased student retention and success. Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL), for example, has increased course completion rates by 10% (statistically significant at p<.01). CAHSI students are socialized into the knowledge, skills, and values of the profession from research experiences using the ARG model  Affinity Research Group (ARG) students have attended professional conferences at thrice the rate of a large, diverse national sample of REU students (63% for ARG students versus 18%), and presented a paper or poster at a national conference at thrice the national rate. These differences are statistically significant. The evaluation of CAHSI organizational capacity at the institutional level found that students are more engaged in computing since CAHSI began, with 79% of these faculty members indicating a positive change in at least one of the following: undergraduate student research, peer collaboration, and faculty interaction.  Evaluation reports can be found on the CAHSI website for those who are interested in learning more.

Very impressive program and video. You may know that we are partnering with CAHSI in California to expand our Cal-Bridge program (www.calbridge.org), which is currently helping students from underrepresented groups obtain PhDs in Physics and Astronomy, to include Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Our program is also a partnership of 25 UC and CSU campuses across California, and by expanding into CS with CAHSI's help, we hope to create a model that can then be expanded across the U.S. I hope we can chat sometime about how we can expand our Cal-Bridge/CAHSI partnership more broadly beyond California over time.

Thank you for talking about the Cal-Bridge program.  Chair Mohsen Beheshti from CSU-DH has been leading the effort for CAHSI to support the Cal-Bridge extension to CS.  We are in the process of identifying funding for that effort.  Let's follow-up on how we can extend the effort beyond California. I have been impressed with the Cal-Bridge model.

Ann, It's great to see how this Alliance has grown and how much it has accomplished! Thanks for your leadership!

Could you say more about the common data that CAHSI members collect? Do you collect any kinds of longitudinal data? Do you track students through CAHSI-sponsored events?

Hi Jan! We have defined common metrics that are centered on both institutional and student capacity building.  For institutional capacity building we are looking at increase in adoption of effective practices, increase in faculty/staff professional development, improved climate to cultivate academic and occupational success, and increase capacity of K-12 teachers to teach computing.  For student capacity building, we are looking at an increase in the number of Hispanic students who enter into post-secondary computing and graduate programs, increase in student retention through degree/certificate completion, and increase in number of Hispanic students who obtain competitive jobs in computing or who enter academia.  There are other metrics that we hope to capture. We are in the process of a creating a dashboard with public-facing and private-facing data. We have a new tool, CAHSI ENGAGE that is tracking students through our events, and we will be entering data from past events.  Looking forward to further discussion of our efforts.

In the southwest region, we are focusing on recruitment and retention of Hispanic and female students. As a region, we host many events at the K-12 level to increase student interest in computational thinking and computer science at a young age. In the past year, CAHSI representatives have attended multiple career and college fairs hosted at local high schools. Within our 2-year and 4-year institutions, we are working at creating a diverse and inclusive climate for current and incoming students. Many of the institutions in our region are working at establishing programs that incorporate CAHSI signature practices including Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), Google's Problem Solving course, and the Affinity Research Group (ARG) Model. These signature practices have been shown to provide positive opportunities for students to improve academic performance and build knowledge.

In the southwest region, we are focusing on recruitment and retention of Hispanic and female students. As a region, we host many events at the K-12 level to increase student interest in computational thinking and computer science at a young age. In the past year, CAHSI representatives have attended multiple career and college fairs hosted at local high schools. Within our 2-year and 4-year institutions, we are working at creating a diverse and inclusive climate for current and incoming students. Many of the institutions in our region are working at establishing programs that incorporate CAHSI signature practices including Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), Google's Problem Solving course, and the Affinity Research Group (ARG) Model. These signature practices have been shown to provide positive opportunities for students to improve academic performance and build knowledge.

As the Southeast Region Connector (Florida and Puerto Rico), my job resides on aligning regional efforts by focusing on a common agenda. The Southeast Region is focus on retention, recruitment, outreach, parity and marketing. At the moment we are a group of nine (9) allied institutions. There are three (3) allied institutions in Florida (University of South Florida, Florida International University and Miami Dade College) and in Puerto Rico we have (6) allied institutions (University of Puerto Rico at; Mayaguez, Arecibo, Rio Piedras, Bayamon and Polytechnic University and the Inter american University at Bayamon.We are implementing Peer Led Team Learning, Affinity Research Group, Google Problem Solving courses and Fellow-Net, all CAHSI signature practices in our allied institutions that support us in retaining our students and pursuing graduate school. For example, the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez is actually at the moment implementing ARG, PLTL, and Problem Solving. With the Lead, Dr. Nayda Santiago we do follow up systematically to provide support in the implementation of these practices with the active collaboration of the Backbone in the different allied Institutions. CAHSI Southeast Region facilitated two editions of the CCWiC and Explore CRC Conference’s in 2019, with the objective to increase the number of Hispanic female undergraduate students in areas related to computing. These conferences explored the areas of research, industry, entrepreneurship and innovation linked to Computer Science, Information Sciences, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computational Mathematics. These were sponsored by Google, L3Harris and ACM. We are participating actively in the Google in Residence Program, Faculty in Residence Program, Google Tech Exchange Program and have establish great collaboration with L3Harris. We are arranging new efforts for outreach in K-12, but have been active during these last few months establishing collaboration with CS4all for these purpose. There is also great great efforts in encouraging and supporting our students to participate in the Grace Hopper Conference and Great MInds in STEM Conference, both so important and meaningful in the lives and careers of our students. There are many great collaborations forming and strengthening, and all our faculty and institutions have seen the great positive outcomes. For all these we are very great full. 

I'm currently taking the Problem Solving course in the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez with Dr. Nayda Santiago and it has been a very enriching opportunity so far. Looking forward to taking at least one more of these courses before graduation. Amazing to get to know through this a bit more about CAHSI. 

Great video Ann, you have my vote! 

Extremely proud to be part of this committed vision for advancing Hispanics in Computing and STEM. Our mission to sustain, recruit, retain and accelerate the progress is working. Let us continue on with enthusiasm to be the change catalyst daily! 

Excellente video, muchas gracias por el trabajo y su dedication para ayudar a la poblacion latina. Bravo!!!

Excellent video! I really like this initiative to encourage more Hispanics in STEM roles. As a student from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and a puerto rican, I see this is great for me and my peers to join and have an active role in the industry. In campus, we try to give our contribution by mentoring and helping students to get strong skills in computing thanks to the CAHSI affiliation we got in campus. Thank you all!

Hi to all. I am a member of CAHSI for 2 years now and have 3 years of undergraduate research experience under the ARG model. Thanks to Dr. Nayda Santiago I've developed skills beyond what our courses teach us. Through our CAHSI community at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez campus, I've been able to put myself to the test and help our professor impact more students with workshops and community service among other things.  I will continue doing my part to help promote Hispanics in stem careers.

CAHSI has given me opportunities to grow and challenge myself as a Latina in computer science. We are fortunate that my school, The University of Texas at El Paso, is one of the many institutions that are part of CAHSI. Their support and guidance have helped us cultivate a growth mindset community to retain and increase the percentage of Hispanic students in computer science. Their mentorship programs, networking activities, and valuable resources have helped us attend conferences like Grace Hopper and Great Minds in STEM, where I had the opportunity to present my first research poster in 2017.
Being part of the CAHSI scholars program has allowed me to learn from other scholars how CAHSI is present in other institutions and how we can positively impact our communities.

The CISE Directorate at NSF is piloting a requirement that many proposals now have to contain a broadening participation component. Does CAHSI have any resources for faculty at non-CAHSI institutions who want to propose a (relatively small) project to better engage Latinx students at their institutions?

It's great to see one of the original BPC Alliances evolve and grow so much! Thanks to you Ann and all of the many people who have worked so hard to make this a success!

Hi I think this is a great opportunity for all Hispanic interested in STEAM. Im from Puerto Rico and I've been working for one and a half years now on undergraduate investigation working in ARG and it's been a great experience. 

Ann, such important work being done.  CAHSI southwest region is committed to recruiting Hispanics in computing and changing lives.  I am very proud to be a part of the CAHSI team here in Arizona.  Thank you for all the hard work you do.

CAHSI has really made me realize my full potential over this past year and a half, and I can't thank them enough for that. As a hispanic whose spanish is very poor I've always felt that I wasn't "hispanic" enough to join any organizations for hispanics. However from the first CAHSI event I attended I've always felt welcomed  and was reminded that I am still a latina woman, even if I don't speak spanish. Every CAHSI member I've met pushed me and motivated me to be the best version of myself, which is why I've applied to go for my Master's degree and why I am pushing myself to do projects when I have the spare time and teach myself new languages. Because of all the caring and wanting to see students succeed, I became the student advocate for New Mexico State and have been letting other students know what opportunities are out there, and as we grow within our University my goal is to have a place where students can not only learn about interviews, conferences, scholarships, etc, but a place where students can sit down and talk with each other and learn from each other's experiences.

At New Mexico State University, one of the founding intuitions of CAHSI, we work very closely with the Las Cruces Public School (LCPS) and Gadsden Independent School (GISD) districts to prepare high school students to major in computer science in college. This effort is led by Dean Enrico Pontelli, the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at NMSU, and the lead for the Southwest region (AZ, NM, TX) of CAHSI. The LCPS district has 5 high schools and at least one computer science class is offered at each school with multiple classes offered at 3 campuses. The computer science high school teachers in LCPS  created a 4-year pathway that provides opportunities for students to explore different aspects of computer science including computational textiles, programming, and computational modeling. In partnership with LCPS many students are able to take dual-credit courses at NMSU or our partner institution, Dona Ana Community College. As seniors LCPS students are also able to participate in an NSF funded technical internship program, Cyber Infrastructure: Training and Mentorship (CI:TraM), where they learn about careers in CS and ICT. At Santa Teresa high school in GISD, the CS teacher is working with the Microsoft Teals program to provide an enhanced experience to his students by partnering with tech-industry volunteers to increase interest in CS. He has also created an after-school program in partnership with NMSU’s Young Women in Computing (YWiC) program which focuses on creating community among his female CS students, by partnering with a CS undergraduate near-peer leader to provide mentorship and guidance for CS projects. As part of our outreach effort, members of the NMSU CS department attend local career and college fairs to provide information on the passage between high school and college, CS degrees, scholarship opportunities, and potential careers in CS.

New Mexico State University and CAHSI initiatives have completely transformed my education towards CS. Through the Young Women in Computing (YWiC) programming from 5th-12th grades. It all started with a Makey-Makey and a banana that would become a piano. I was able to learn more about integrated software systems, injecting viruses into Virtual Machines, compete in the Los Alamos National Laboratories Competition, SuperComputing Challenge, Technovation, all in middle school through YWiC. In high school, I was able to take dual credit courses in the Computer Science department. I was able to challenge myself and have the support of the professors and fellow students.

Now, in college at New Mexico State University, I have gained confidence through CAHSI to create my own CS initiative called Future ITGirls, now in its 3^rd year, exploring Computer Science through ballroom dance, programming, and research for 3^rd-5^th grade Latinas. I have grown through a mindset of community support and involvement leads to success. I have been able to attend the Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) conference and share internship opportunities, resume help, participate in a hackathon to share that information at New Mexico State University, assisting fellow college students in their CS journeys.

Something I have always struggled with is what it means to a Latina in CS. Not knowing Spanish but being a mestiza. Through CAHSI, I have learned that I am the product of my culture which has bestowed me a different perspective, one of value and meaning.

There is a saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”. My belief is, it takes a community to support and grow together to challenge assumptions and drive innovation to better the quality of life of my people.

My life has been transformed by the beauty of Computer Science through this pipeline. It is through the work of CAHSI, Dr. Ann Gates, Becca Galves, Raena Cota, Dr. Enrico Pontelli, Dr. Son Tran, Dr. Nayda Santiago, Diego Aguirre, and so many others that Computer Science pipelines are created and supporting the students its created for. To effect any change, we must provide support at every level, beginning in elementary school, and CAHSI has done so at New Mexico State University.

Recently, I was able to attend the Google Tech Exchange Program and take classes on the Google Sunnyvale office this semester. I was able to challenge myself in Applied Machine Learning, get back to the basics with Applied Data Structures and Algorithms, and explore different facets of CS with UX and PM. I was able to have this experience through CAHSI and I have become more comfortable and stronger in computer science and my capabilities. It has been an incredible experience and one I can’t wait to share with others. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

Wow. Educational outreach at every level: Professional, Student, Stakeholders and Policymakers.  Looking forward to seeing this project continue to grow and meet its goals.  Thanks for sharing your work and contributing to STEM justice!

CAHSI recognizes students as learners and as leaders.  From CAHSI Student Advocates to Student Scholars, students help move the alliance forward.  If you haven't see it already, the resources pages we have published on our website in response to COVID-19 may be of interest to any student.  See https://cahsi.utep.edu/cahsi-covid19/  

In the West Region, we have focused on the recruitment, retention and advancing of Hispanics in Computer science. Currently our initiatives include the CS Cal Bridge, a program which would bridge CS students into their PhD, which we hope will lead to more professors in CS. We have also collected data from numerous campuses regarding the retention rates of certain courses to evaluate how we can serve our students better. Thanks to the CAHSI Student group and Student advocate at CSUDH, we were able to organize a free conference for our students around the region and provide remote access for those who were not able to attend, at this event we had over 300 students participate from all over Southern California. CAHSI has also helped us develop a supplementary authorization in CS for in service teachers, we hope that this will help recruitment on the K-12 level. Overall, I'm thankful that CAHSI has provided so many amazing opportunities for our students, staff and faculty.

In the West Region, we have focused on the recruitment, retention and advancing of Hispanics in Computer science. Currently our initiatives include the CS Cal Bridge, a program which would bridge CS students into their PhD, which we hope will lead to more professors in CS. We have also collected data from numerous campuses regarding the retention rates of certain courses to evaluate how we can serve our students better. Thanks to the CAHSI Student group and Student advocate at CSUDH, we were able to organize a free conference for our students around the region and provide remote access for those who were not able to attend, at this event we had over 300 students participate from all over Southern California. CAHSI has also helped us develop a supplementary authorization in CS for in service teachers, we hope that this will help recruitment on the K-12 level. Overall, I'm thankful that CAHSI has provided so many amazing opportunities for our students, staff and faculty.

There are so many exciting initiatives coming out of the CAHSI West Region.  Thank you, Stephanie, for all your work as Connector in this region.

Hispanics comprise 16% of the U.S. workforce but only 7% of Computer workers.  The work that CAHSI is doing is critical to increase the representation of Hispanics in computing.  Happy to be part of such a hard working alliance!