In the effort to boost diversity on the nation’s college and
university campuses, the Association of American Colleges and
Universities (AAC&U) has enlisted the Internet to educate
administrators, faculty and student about effective diversity practices.
Last year, AAC&U teamed up with the University of
Maryland-College Park to create DiversityWeb, an interactive site on
the World Wide Web that allows schools to publish campus profiles of
diversity program experiences. AAC&U has helped develop
DiversityWeb as a component of its major diversity initiative, which is
entitled, American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy and Liberal
Learning.
“We wanted to make DiversityWeb an important resource for everyone
who is involved with working on campus diversity,” says Dr. Carol
Schneider, executive vice-president of AAC&U.
So far, the Web site is getting numerous visits by Internet users.
In January 1997, when the site went fully online, DiversityWeb recorded
some 4,000 visits for the month. It reached a high of 50,000 visits in
September, according to AAC&U and University of Maryland Web site
managers.
In early November, the Advisory Board to the President’s Initiative
on Race cited DiversityWeb as a prominent online resource with
information on issues relating to race and diversity.
The Ford Foundation is a primary sponsor of DiversityWeb through its
Campus Diversity Initiative. The partner institutions received grants
totaling more than $900,000 to develop the Web site and to maintain it
through the 1998-99 academic year, according to Schneider, who added
that Ford Foundation officials are now considering extending its
support beyond the spring of 1999.
The Web site is organized into nine priority areas: institutional
vision, leadership and systemic change; recruitment, retention and
affirmative action; curricula; faculty and staff involvement; student
experience and development; campus-community connections; diversity
research, evaluation and impact; political, judicial and legislative
issues; and diversity newsmaking. The site includes the contents of the
AAC&U-published quarterly newsletter, Diversity Digest, and
Diversity Newsroom, a resource area for journalists.
