Mentoring and Outreach                Part of the Stars Alliance Program

The Stars Alliance is an NSF-funded program that includes about 20 colleges and universities, mostly in the Southeast, that seeks to increase the numbers and diversity of students in computing fields.  This includes Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Science and Technology, etc.  UTK joined the Stars Alliance in the spring of 2008.  The Stars Alliance Program

Some of the goals of this program include:
1) Increasing the number of students in computing fields
2) Increasing the diversity of computing programs:  reaching out to underrepresented groups.
3) Improving the retention rate of those who start in computing fields
4) Encouraging undergraduates to become involved in research activities and to continue on to graduate school.
5) Promote outreach activities:  high school, middle school, and community services
6) Promote leadership skills in students

What we will be doing at UTK starting in fall Semester 2008 will be to initiate the following:

1) Create a mentoring program for UT students in computing fields (such as Computer Science).  We  have 3 undergraduate students in Computer Science and Computer Engineering, and 4 graduate students in CS who either received their BS degrees in CS from UTK or who took extensive undergraduate CS courses here.  These students (as well as myself) will be available to answer questions, give advice, make suggestions about what courses to take, etc.  Students may be more comfortable speaking with fellow students than with faculty.  We are not controlling what these students tell you:  you might get different advice from each of the 8 students--but you willbe getting the opinions of students who have been in the program.  We hope by doing this to improve the retention rate.

2) Outreach.  We will be doing outreach to some local high schools, and we will also be doing outreach to local home schoolers (two of the students in Stars were homeschooled locally themselves)

3) I'll be working with the Stars students on such things as leadership, research activities, etc.
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The students:
1) Katie Agle (kagle@utk.edu) CpE/CS  undergraduate -->>Cetus Lab Monday 12;30-2:30
2) Anthony Allen (eallen@eecs.utk.edu).  CS grad student, extensive undergraduate coursework in CS at UTK:  Hydra Friday 9-11
3) Andrew Burks (aburks3@utk.edu) CS undergraduate -->Hydra Lab Tuesday noon-1;30
4) Jamie Davidson (jdavids8@utk.edu) CS undergraduate   ----> Hydra Lab Friday 3-5pm
5) Tarrah Glass (glass@eecs.utk.edu).  CS grad student, BS in CS from UTK-->>Crux Lab Friday 2:15-4pm
6) Jordan Lefebvre (lefebvre@eecs.utk.edu) CS grad student, BS in CS from UTK.  home schooled
7) Robert Lefebvre (rlefebvr@eecs.utk.edu) CS grad student, BS in CS from UTK.  home schooled
8) Don Lopez (dlopez3@eecs.utk.edu) CS undergrad-->Cetus lab Tuesday 3:30-4;45

I'm David Straight (straight@eecs.utk.edu) CS (now EECS) faculty since 1975.

We can help you with all kinds of mentoring, and if you're interested in joining Stars, we can provide lots of help.