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:
- Expands and engages the participation of students, faculty, and staff that traditionally have not entered the computing field
- Promotes the success of all of our students
- 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
| 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% |
| 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.