CONWAY - Six University of
Central Arkansas students have been awarded the 2012 Computer Science Female
Freshman Scholarship.
The scholarship is funded through the
National Center for Women and Information Technology
(NCWIT) Academic Alliance Seed Fund, a program designed to help bridge the
gender gap in computer science and technology. Its goal is to recruit and
retain women with opportunities for learning, research, service and leadership
in the field of computer science and technology.
Currently, women earn more than half
of all undergraduate degrees in the U.S., including 45 percent of math degrees and 38 percent
of chemical engineering degrees, but they earn only 11 percent of computing degrees.
UCA received a $10,000 grant
earlier this year from the NCWIT and Microsoft Research to help support female
students. UCA was one of five universities that received the grant for 2012.
Other schools were the University of Virginia, Fisk University, Claremont Graduate University, and
Union College. The grant is administered through the university's Department of
Computer Science.
Samantha Anima of Rogers, Amanda Falls
of Conway, Yaying Li of China, Angela Lewis of Bryant, Jessica Stewart of
Searcy and Kelsey Zahorec of Jacksonville are the first group of students to
receive the scholarship. Each student received a $500 scholarship.
"All of the six
students ranked UCA Computer Science their top choice to pursue their
undergraduate study. In their applications for the scholarship, most of them
expressed extremely strong desire to become one of the female leaders in
Computer Science and Information Technology," said Dr. Chenyi Hu, Chair of
Computer Science. "The faculty will do their best to help these female students
to reach their career goal."
The Department of Computer Science is currently
taking applications for the spring 2013 scholarships. For more information,
visit http://uca.edu/computerscience/.
