The California Education Learning Lab recently awarded UCSB a grant through its Grand Challenge: Building Critical Mass for Data Science opportunity. Professor Mike Ludkovski will lead a consortium of Southern California schools in the development of educational pathways from Community Colleges to the California State University and the University of California that result in degrees in data science. This $1.3M grant is one of 13 awards, totaling more than $8 million, made by the Learning Lab. The award comes on the heels of the collaborative, NSF-funded, Central Coast Data Science Partnership and the Pacific Alliance for Low-income Inclusion in Statistics and Data Science (PALiISaDS). These three awards, along with the Campus's Student Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science (SEEDS) program help position UCSB for a meaningful and impactful role in California's Data Science Education landscape.
Project Summary: The Southern California Consortium for Data Science consists of an intersegmental alliance of 8 partnering institutions: 3 CCs, 4 CSUs and 1 UC. The team of 19 PIs/co-PIs is based in Statistics/Math & Stats departments and brings wide ranging expertise in Data Science (DS) education. Leveraging its breadth, the proposed consortium will develop shared instructional resources and event templates that can be replicated and utilized across all partners. SCCDS is focused on two primary goals: (i) improve transfer pathways through curriculum alignment, course articulation and bridges for incoming transfer students; and, (ii) intersegmental outreach to promote data science careers among community college and high school students through hosting of DS focused events. As part of launching new introductory DS courses and scaling up existing ones, the Consortium will engage in professional development, especially centered on inclusive pedagogy and DS ethics. With all project activities, our vision is to increase the number of DS Transfers and broaden their diversity through an ongoing and authentic collaboration across the Consortium, incorporation of best practices that are culturally relevant and inclusive, programming and recruitment efforts that focus on students’ and industry needs, and data-driven strategies for closing equity gaps.
