Retention And Mentoring Of Underrepresented Minority Students For Electrical And Computer Engineering Programs

Overcoming the four principal barriers to success: lack of preparation, cost of education, isolation on campus, and low faculty expectations, are the focus of attention for underrepresented minorities in the field of electrical and computer engineering. This paper describes the efforts and results of a plan for actively retaining minorities and women students in undergraduate computer engineering programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). It also describes a series of activities aimed at producing leaders for tomorrow in industry and academia. Such programs for the retention of women and minorities are critical to the country’s efforts to increase the number of engineering professionals, and are a priority at larger institutions and HBCUs.