Diversity

 

College of Computing and Informatics: Diversity and Inclusion

The College of Computing and Informatics at UNC Charlotte strives for equity and inclusion in computing and beyond. The College is committed to creating an environment that:

1. Expands and engages the participation of students, faculty, and staff that traditionally have not entered the computing field

2. Promotes the success of all of our students

3. Promotes the professional success of all members of all our faculty and staff

The College is driven by three declared values, the first of which is: To acknowledge inequity and do everything in our power to address it.

We acknowledge inequity 

Identifying, understanding, and documenting the many facets of inequity is essential to addressing it. The following projects contribute to the College’s every-day effort to identify, understand, and document inequity:

Monitoring the demographics of our student, faculty, and staff populations compared to the general population, and to the demographics of our peer institutions.

Students percentages by gender, URM, African American, Hispanic, compared to Charlotte region, and to other institutions:

Student Demographics	Women	URM	African American	Hispanic
CCI UNC Charlotte	17%	25%	11%	9%
UNC Charlotte		37%	16.2%
Charlotte Region	51%	30%	21%	5%
Computing Nationally	19%	16%	4%	9%

Monitoring experience of our students, faculty, and staff 

The College of Computing and Informatics is a member of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and participates in its annual Data Buddy survey. Undergraduate computing students: “Overall, I am satisfied with the computing program at my institution,” where (1) Strongly disagree - (5) Strongly agree. 

	2016-2017			2017-2018			2018-2019
	All	Women	URM	All	Women	URM	All	Women	URM
UNC Charlotte	3.36	NA	NA	3.68	3.77	3.68	3.95	4	3.88
Other Doctoral Institutions	3.91	NA	NA	3.93	3.9	3.81	3.95	3.9	3.82

The College participates in the APLU Student Experience Project, the goal of which is to improve the students’ experience - especially for under-represented groups. A baseline survey on climate and experience is run in 2019-2020.

Monitoring the success of our students

What percentage of students enrolled in the fall are retained in the following fall.

1-Year Retention	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19
General	64%	69%	67%	68%
Women	64%	67%	62%	70%
URM	65%	67%	66%	64%

What percentage of a cohort within six years.

	2010-16	2011-17	2010-16	2010-16
General	55%	50%	59%	59%
Women	71%	63%	65%	66%
URM	61%	56%	60%	54%

Understanding the inequity of experience. CCI creates and promotes several regular opportunities for deepening our awareness and understanding of inequity. For example:

• College and department forums share data illustrating inequity of experience and discuss it.
• Starting in 2019, the college began hosting a leadership retreat for student organizations’ leadership teams.
• A calendar of faculty and staff professional development opportunities is published every fall. Faculty and staff are encouraged to incorporate these in their annual professional development. 

We do everything in our power to address inequity.