CS-JEDI: Required DEI Education, by CS PhD Students, for CS PhD Students

TL;DR

This paper presents CS-JEDI, a 6-week DEI curriculum developed by CS PhD students to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion among first-year PhD students, with evidence of its effectiveness from initial implementation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, evidence-based DEI curriculum specifically designed for CS PhD students, created collaboratively by students for students.

Findings

All first-year PhD students completed CS-JEDI.

The curriculum improved students' understanding of DEI issues.

Positive feedback on curriculum relevance and impact.

Abstract

Computer science (CS) has historically struggled with issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Based on how these issues were affecting PhD students in our department, we identified required DEI education for PhD students as a potentially high-impact approach to improving the PhD student experience in our program. Given that no existing curriculum met the desired criteria, we (PhD students) - along with many others at our school - developed and implemented CS-JEDI: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Computer Science. CS-JEDI is a 6-week DEI curriculum that is now taken by all first-year PhD students in our department. This paper covers CS-JEDI's motivation and goals; describes how its evidence-based curriculum is tailored to these goals and to the CS PhD context; and gives a data-driven evaluation of the extent to which CS-JEDI's first offering, in Spring 2022, achieved these goals.