The Academic Alliance (AA) consists of more than 80 distinguished representatives from the computer science and IT departments of colleges and universities across the country, spanning research universities, community colleges, women's colleges, and minority-serving institutions.
Charged with implementing institutional change in higher education, the Academic Alliance provides feedback on NCWIT programs, contributes and adopts effective practices, and serves as a national agent of change. It meets several times per year to compare approaches and provide guidance and mutual support. See our list of NCWIT Academic Alliance Members.
Membership in the AA is free for participating academic institutions and brings many benefits. AA members have access to leading-edge best practices for recruiting and retaining women, opportunities to attend workshops and compare practices with other institutions, the ability to advertise programs, achievements, and faculty openings at our website, and participation in NCWIT marketing and branding campaigns. For more information about the Academic Alliance, contact the Academic Alliance Program Manager, John Ezell.
Member News
The The Academic Alliance welcomes new Co-Chairs, Nancy Amato of Texas A&M University and Andrew Williams of Spelman College. They join our current Co-Chairs, Maureen Biggers of Indiana University and J Moore of the University of Texas at Austin.
The AA held a successful brainstorming meeting at Grace Hopper 2009. This year, the AA is initiating new projects on topics such as research, recruiting and member collaboration and is forming a new organizational structure that will include an Executive Committee comprised of the AA Co-Chairs and AA Project Leaders.
We would like to welcome our newest AA Member Institutions: DePaul University, Illinois State University, Kean University, North Carolina State University, Salish Kootenai College, St. Louis University, University of South Carolina Upstate, University of Central Florida, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of New Haven. A complete list of AA Member Institutions can be found at http://www.ncwit.org/alliance.academic.php.
New AA By-Laws
The AA has completed a new set of By-Laws to govern the organization. Download the AA By-Laws here.
AA Leadership and Organization
| Nancy Amato | Co-Chair | 2008-present |
| Maureen Biggers | Co-Chair | 2009-present |
| J Moore | Co-Chair | 2009-present |
| Andrew Williams | Co-Chair | 2009-present |
| Carla Ellis | Advsory Committee | co-chair from 2004-2009 |
| David Notkin | Advisory Committee | co-chair from 2005-2008 |
The AA is initiating 5 new project teams
1. Recruitment and New Member Engagement
This enrollment management project will focus on working with AA members to create and implement a multi-institution-type recruitment strategy and to measure its impact over time. A second focus for this project will be to institute a plan to welcome and engage our new AA members (i.e., care and feeding of our new members.)
2. AA Webinar Series
The goal of the project is to develop and conduct Webinars on topics relevant and helpful to AA Member Institutions. Elements involved with coordinating this process include: developing the mechanism to select webinars of interest to the AA; soliciting individuals to lead the webinars; coordinating, scheduling and publicizing them to AA members; and determining the webinar delivery means.
3. A Toolkit for Designing REU experiences for Undergraduate Women
The goal of this project is to develop useful and concrete advice for faculty members on how to design REU experiences for undergraduate women. The project will draw on existing research and promising practices with the objective of developing concise and easily applied advice of the type that could ultimately be made into an NCWIT Practice or Program-in-a-Box.
4. Sharing Promising Practices
AA members have expressed a desire for mechanisms to inform and advise each other regarding innovative programs and activities at their institutions. The goal of the project is to develop resources for AA member institutions to share existing programs and activities, e.g., searchable databases, webinars. This is distinct from, and less formal than, the NCWIT Practices or Programs-in-a-Box.
5. AA Seed Fund Award
The AA Seed Fund project provides AA members with startup funds to conceptualize and develop and implement initiatives for recruiting women into, and retaining them in, computing and information technology in higher education.
NCWIT Seed Fund Award Update
Proposals have been submitted for Round 6. The winners will be announced in January 2010.
Click here for more information about the Seed Fund Award and previous winners. The Seed Fund awards members of NCWIT's Academic Alliance with start-up funds (up to $15,000 per project) to develop and implement initiatives for recruiting and retaining women in computing and information technology. We thank Microsoft Research for its funding of the Seed Fund.
For more information about the Academic Alliance or the NCWIT Seed Fund Award, contact the Academic Alliance Program Manager, John Ezell.
