UNC Charlotte “University in Action” 2013-14
Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service
STARS (Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service), is a program co-founded in 2005 by Drs.
Teresa Dahlberg and Tiffany Barnes, faculty in UNC Charlotte’s Department of Computer Science.
Originally funded by a National Science Foundation grant, the program is designed to increase the
participation of women, under-represented minorities, and persons with disabilities in computing disciplines
through multi-faceted interventions. The interventions focus on the influx and progression of students from
middle school through graduate school in programs that lead to computing careers. STARS is organized as a
national constellation of regional stars that include research universities, minority and women's universities
and colleges, K-12 educators, industry, professional organizations, and community groups. Approximately
1346 students, 88 faculty from 51 colleges and universities, and over 168 regional partners have participated
in student-led community-based research and activities. The program serves 46,000 K-12 students nationally.
In 2012, to sustain the program beyond grant funding, the STARS Computing Corps became a non-profit
entity dedicated to building and preparing a larger, more diverse national computing workforce for the 21st
Century.
The STARS Computing Corps is comprised of multiple programs including the STARS Leadership Corps,
and STARS Haiti. The STARS Leadership Corps is a multi-year service-learning experience that fosters
student-led regional engagement, and challenges students to find innovative ways of leveraging technology to
solve important social and global problems. The STARS Leadership Corps works with regional K-12 schools
and industry and community partners to cultivate an extended student academic community. This student
community engages in mentoring, professional development, and research experiences to promote
recruitment and leadership development.
Examples of current STARS Computing Corps projects include the SPARCS Saturday Academy team which
develops and teaches training modules for pre-college students covering various computer science topics
including web development, security, object-oriented programming, and video game design. STARS students
serve as mentors for middle school age girls in order to broaden participation in STEM education (Science,
Technology, Engineering, Math). The training sessions are conducted monthly on the UNC Charlotte
campus. The High School Game Development at Olympic Outreach Group, another STARS program, uses
game development as a means of imparting the value of STEM and higher education STEM learning in an
approachable and interesting way. To achieve this goal, STARS interacts with Olympic High School students
on a weekly basis help them create their own games and to answer any questions about studying STEM fields
in college.
Finally, the STARS Haiti project sent 12 students from five institutions (including UNC Charlotte’s College
of Computing and Informatics) to Haiti during Spring Break. Accompanied by six faculty and community
mentors, the STARS students spent two weeks training schoolteachers and students to use kid-friendly
laptops for computer-based education. To strengthen human resource capacity, students trained and
mentored 24 local Haitian high school students, and assisted local teachers and students in creating their own
curricular software for the laptops. These individuals will continue to promote learning with computers long
after the STARS students have returned to the United States. STARS partnered with the local non-profit,
Mothering Across Continents, to complete this project.
Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service
7/31/2014
UNC Charlotte “University in Action” 2013-14
Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service
Links:
http://uncc.starscomputingcorps.org/projects
http://www.starsalliance.org/
http://www.starscomputingcorps.org/haiti; http://stars-haiti.posterous.com/
HTTP://FOREIGNPOLICYBLOGS.COM/2012/03/01/HAITI-UNDERGRADUATE-PH-DSTUDENTS-UNC-CHARLOTTE-VOLUNTEERING-COMPUTER-EXPERTISE-HAITI-SPRINGBREAK-2012/
Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service
7/31/2014