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Broadening Participation

Latest Initiatives

The Allen School has recently initiated the following set of policies and activities aimed at improving our culture and practices, building upon the many activities we were already doing and continue to do.

Many members of the Allen School community have offered suggestions about how we can continue to improve our culture and practices. The initiatives described below incorporate the priorities and best ideas of many committed students, faculty, and staff. We will continue to seek out ways to support our community and build a program that others will be inspired to emulate.

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Resources & Educational Opportunities

  • An opt-in email list for undergraduates to share opportunities and resources available to those who identify with groups that are underrepresented in computing.
  • Periodic anti-harassment training for faculty and academic student employees (ASEs).
  • Expanded our existing system for students to send instructors anonymous feedback, including the option to copy members of the School leadership and/or student services staff, and extended access to the tool to teaching assistants (TAs).
  • Significantly expanded support for the College of Engineering’s STARS program, including development of a STARS course on computational thinking, persistence, and other topics essential to student success in CSE or another engineering degree.
  • Revamped and expanded our seminars and courses that on-ramp students to the Allen School, including support for students who may benefit from additional instruction and skills development based on academic preparation.
  • A speaker series aimed at undergraduates that focuses on life and career skills, covering communication, personal finance, and other topics not part of the conventional curriculum. The series provides students with real-world insights that will help them to succeed after graduation.
  • Expanded our course offerings on computer ethics and the social impact of computing at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
Accessible Accordion

  • CSE 492E Computer Ethics helps Allen School undergraduates to understand how the code they write influences the world in which it operates and prepares them for the life-long practice of grappling with the often unanticipated consequences of innovation. The course invites students to explore issues spanning AI ethics, social good, utopianism, governance, inclusion, facial recognition, classification, privacy, automation, platforms, speculative design, identity, fairness, power and control, activism, and subversive technologies [Dan Grossman, Jared Moore].
  • CSE590w Accessibility Research Seminar is a course open to students at any level who are interested in examining the intersection of race, disability, and accessibility. The course explores topics such as AI and fairness, speech and speech technologies, fabrication, self-description, algorithms for government decision-making, disparities in the provision of health care, policing and prisons, and more [Jennifer Mankoff, Annie Ross].
  • CSE 599 Computer Ethics is a graduate-level seminar course exploring goals, philosophical approaches, and researchers’ and technologists’ responsibilities related to ethics along with the many kinds of ethical issues that impact technology and society today. Students learn different approaches to anticipating the unintended consequences of technology and have an opportunity to discuss and address issues related to applied technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence, user interface design, facial recognition, misinformation, accessibility, and privacy [Katharina Reinecke].
  • CSE 599 Computing for Social Good explores broad, ongoing themes around computing for social good, including advances in human-computer interaction, computer networks, artificial intelligence, and sustainability. Students examine fundamental social and ecological challenges and consider what role, if any, technology should play in responding to them, taking a systems approach to trace root causes and find the right place(s) to make lasting change [Kurtis Heimerl].
  • CSE 599M Foundations of Fairness in Machine Learning explores the foundations of fairness in machine learning, including sources and measures of unfairness and possible interventions to alleviate it [Jamie Morgenstern].

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Policies & Procedures

  • Revised protocols for the School’s mandatory email lists to ensure that these lists are used in a way that promotes a healthy, appropriate and welcoming work environment for all members of those lists.
  • Allen School faculty searches now request a statement from all applicants about how they would contribute to our community, in line with changes introduced across the College of Engineering.
  • Revamped our introductory (100-level) courses, based on recommendations from a working group of senior faculty, to reflect changes in computing technology, teaching methods and student interest. This review, which encompassed curriculum, organization, programming language and environment, teaching methods and techniques, new devices, etc., was aimed at ensuring that our gateway courses are attractive and welcoming to the broadest group of students.
  • Expanding our Direct Admission pathway to admit more students to the major as freshmen, which enables us to better support them throughout their time at the UW via student programming such as our revamped and expanded Direct Admit seminar.
  • Evaluating our transfer admission process to make it more holistic.

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Understanding Our Community & Fostering Ongoing Dialogue

  • Surveying our student populations on an ongoing basis to assess our current climate and to determine what inequities might exist among student experiences, which we will use to guide future policies and programming.
  • A weekly meeting of the Allen School Vice Director with G5PAC, a group of graduate students and postdocs, to discuss specific efforts to cultivate a supportive environment and to identify areas where we can improve.
  • Hosted “Below the Waterline: A Presentation on the National Academies Report on Sexual Harassment” by Professor Sharona E. Gordon, with participation from Allen School faculty, staff, and students. (Professor Ed Lazowska served on the National Academies study committee, and serves on the National Academies standing Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine that chartered the study.)

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Student-led Efforts

  • Students established Minorites in Tech (MiT), focused on fostering a diverse community that increases solidarity and support to combat low retention rates of minorities within industry.
  • Students established GEN1, which aims to support and celebrate Allen School students who are in the first generation of their family to attend college.
  • Students established Q++, a student organization supporting LGBTQ+ students in the Allen School.
  • Our ACM student organization (now named COM2) introduced a Big/Little mentoring program to help new majors connect with more senior students.
  • Our Allen School Ambassadors expanded opportunities for volunteers to engage in K-12 outreach activities, thus broadening their impact.
  • Increased student, faculty and staff participation at the annual Tapia and Grace Hopper conferences.

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Supporting the Broader CS Community

  • Hosted a three-day OurCS workshop for CS undergraduate women with disabilities, to promote engagement in research.
  • Offering expanded opportunities for K-12 teachers to learn about computer science and effectively incorporate it into their classroom teaching, to ensure broader access to CS for K-12 students.
  • Our partnership with WA state high schools through the “UW in the High School” program continues to expand outside the Puget Sound region.

To learn more about our efforts to broaden participation in computing and build a welcoming and supportive community, visit our main Broadening Participation page, and also see our list of ongoing activities.

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