This morning’s sessions included a series of talks on increasing the diversity of students pursuing engineering and computer science degrees. Tonya Groover from the University of Pittsburgh discussed a new high-school outreach program that was piloted in the summer. Tonya is the founder and Executive Director of the Technology Leadership Institute, where she spearheaded a hands-on, 6 week program introducing the world of computer science to local high school students. The TLI program “…teaches students the basics of computers in a six-week summer program of academic enrichment including coursework in math that forms the foundation of computer science…”

Tonya is a senior in Computer Science.

Where she gets the energy to lead such an effort AND complete her own studies is beyond me. But she spoke with the passion and eloquence that you’d expect from an Executive Director, and it is clear that her pilot program was a success. 24 students from 16 high schools completed the program, which was conducted on the University of Pittsburgh campus. The “mentor/instructors” were 4 undergraduate and 2 graduate computer science students, assisted by one faculty instructor. Students experienced first hand what engineering and computer science are all about, and had the added benefit of working with role models on a campus they could now imagine attending themselves. 

See www.cs.pitt.edu/tli for more information.

Nice work, Tonya!

Jim Vanides, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied