It’s not unusual that all 15 students in one of Dr. Maureen Eke’s
African American literature course sections at Central Michigan
University are White. What’s striking, however, is that Black students
and their Black professor from a campus located hundreds of miles away
are beamed onto a large television screen to join Dr. Eke and her
students in class discussions and lectures.
For the students at historically Black University of Arkansas-Pine
Bluff and their teacher, Dr. Bettye Williams, participation in these
class discussions and lectures is made possible by interactive
television equipment.
“African American literature, in essence, seems to be a natural way
to create a community of learners between diverse institutions,” Eke
says.
The diversity movement in higher education has taken many forms in
the past several years. Beyond recruiting a diverse array of students,
administrators and faculty, some schools have begun requiring diversity
courses in the curriculum and encouraging students to volunteer in
nearby communities. Such initiatives have grown popular as educators
increasingly search for ways to prepare their students to enter a
diverse workforce.
In the case of Central Michigan University (CML) and the University
of Arkansas-Pine Bluff (UAPB), technology is seen as another tool for
enhancing campus diversity. School officials and faculty members are in
the third year of a five-year project that combines team teaching with
two educational technologies: interactive television, or ITV, and the
Internet. The Building Community Through Technology (BCTT) project, is
funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for $1.3 million over five years.
The project uses television equipment to allow a teacher and his or
her students on one campus to conduct a class with students and a
faculty member on another campus, and vice versa. The respective
classrooms are linked by interactive television technology, which
involves the transmission of live audio and video through telephone
lines. Thus, students and faculty at both locations participate in
discussions, pose questions and conduct class exercises.
“Our hope is to add two classes a year to the project,” says Dr.
Carole Beere, project co-director and dean of graduate studies at CMU.
