Tuskegee University and UC Berkeley recently announced the Berkeley-Tuskegee Data Science Initiative, a multi-year partnership to develop curriculum and collaborative research opportunities for students and faculty at both institutions.

On June 21, Charlotte Morris, president of Tuskegee University, met with Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ to discuss the new initiative. In a reception at University House, Chancellor Christ greeted the Tuskegee delegation, including four faculty and staff representatives and the first cohort of Tuskegee Scholars, 13 students in residence at Berkeley for eight weeks to take Data 6 or Data 8 courses.

“We‘re excited to create our partnership with Tuskegee around the theme of community – community in the classroom, how we teach our students community in our research, how we explore challenging issues and fields at the intersection of data science and society and community at the university level between UC Berkeley and Tuskegee University,” said Chancellor Christ.

President Morris noted Tuskegee’s pioneering legacy as a top historically Black college and university (HBCU), including a track record for excellence in STEM fields. “We want to go beyond that legacy and take Tuskegee to the next level in terms of technology, in terms of what’s going on in the world today, so that our students will be marketable when they go across that stage at graduation,” she said.

On June 28, faculty at both universities discussed the collaboration at the National Workshop on Data Science Education in both online and in-person sessions on the Berkeley campus.

The Berkeley-Tuskegee Data Science Initiative events this summer are the culmination of two years of conversation and planning. In 2021, Google contributed $5 million to Tuskegee University in support of STEM initiatives, including the development of a data science program. The initial phases of the initiative are funded by part of this contribution.

Deborah Nolan, emeritus professor of statistics and associate dean for faculty at the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS), was involved in the project from the outset. She and collaborators at Tuskegee and Berkeley have been exploring what shape educational and research collaborations could take between the two universities. Nolan said the initiative’s events last week were both a launch and a celebration of this shared endeavor.