I was PhD admissions chair for CS at Cornell this year. e made a big step in improving diversity of the program. Let me tell you about it.
59 new students. 21 women, 5 African-American, two Hispanic, a Pacific Islander.
A big reason: we got more people to apply. We could not have done this this previous year -- we did not get five African-American applicants.
I spent last fall pestering people to send me info on students who might be good PhD candidates, then pestering them to apply.
Huge resources: the McNair Scholars coordinators across the US. Old friends. @red_abebe reaching out to @black_in_ai.
Cornell CS also had people at Tapia (that will be me this year) and Grace Hopper. And we're part of the FLIP alliance (Diversifying the Future Leadership in the Professoriate in Computing).
We got *really strong* applicants -- 1300 in all (up from 850 last year) for a target class size of 50. This year, we added to our evaluation: "how well did they take advantage of opportunities?"
And I played advocate in our final committee discussions, just as I played advocate for a few students in scientific computing (for example).
The group that showed up at visit day was not all young white men. And that helped a lot with our pitch to come to Cornell, I think. We got disproportionately high yield on our offers to women and URMs (and not for lack of competition).
The diversity programs at Cornell came out and had a coffee with our visiting students, and I hope that we made them all feel welcome.
And then there was the usual salesmanship in the end game.
I am documenting our process in a report, but it is taking longer than I wanted to write it (it'll be out by end of May, swear), and I've been told a few times now that we should get out the word.
Fortunately, I am not admissions chair next year. But getting out the word that we want a diverse student body -- and need a diverse applicant pool to do it -- is something that's on my plate for the next few years.
So, Twitter world -- if you're interested in a PhD in CS, please apply! And if you think you might be interested in a PhD in CS, but don't think you fit some mold, ask about it!
CS is not just white dudes slinging code, and we all suffer for it when the world thinks that's what it is.
