Where does one of the world’s largest computer software companies
go when it wants to partner with a college that has a highly diverse
student body in a region that is experiencing severe high-tech labor
shortages?
For executives at Oracle Corporation, a Redwood Shores,
Calif.-based company, suburban Maryland’s Montgomery College seemed a
logical recruit for the company’s $100 million academic partnership
campaign. The newly announced partnership between Oracle, a
world-leading producer of database software, and the three-campus
Montgomery Community College has resulted in a $1 million investment of
software and curriculum material by Oracle.
“Montgomery College and Oracle are taking significant steps toward
providing an ethnically diverse work force that will help the region’s
technology sector grow,” says Dr. Robert Parilla, president of the
college.
The campaign effort, the Oracle Academic Initiative (OAI), has
attracted more than 100 two-year and four-year participating
institutions around the world since it was launched last fall. Oracle
has partnered with a variety of institutions, including Morehouse
College, the City University of New York, and the Baltimore City
Community College. Company officials say they sought the partnership
with Montgomery College in part to enhance their diversity outreach
efforts.
“There’s a lack of women and minorities in the [information
technology] industry. [Montgomery College] has a high diversity level
at its three campuses,” says Wanda Miles, senior manager of the Oracle
Academic Initiative.
Considered one of the most ethnically diverse community colleges in
the nation, Montgomery College has an enrollment of 20,000 students,
more than 50 percent of whom are non-White. Roughly 26 percent are
African American, 15.9 percent are Asian, and 10 percent are Latino.
Students enrolled at the institution also represent more than 150
countries of origin.
The college’s diversity is reflective of demographic changes that
have occurred in Montgomery County, Md. — a suburb of Washington, D.C.
— in recent years. An influx of Asian, Latino, and other ethnic
minority immigrants to the county, coupled with the area’s growing
African American population, have made the college a center of striking
diversity.
