Mark Your Calendars for AAC&U’s Fall Diversity Conference

Diversity and Learning: Identity, Community and Intellectual Development
November 12-15, 1998
Sheraton University City Hotel
Philadelphia, PA

Building on resources developed by AAC&U’s American Commitments Initiative and the Ford Foundation’s Campus Diversity Initiative, this conference is designed for working teams of faculty and administrators interested in fostering systemic, long-term change in their classrooms and at their institutions. To prepare students to meet the challenges of America’s increasing diversity and build a more just society, we all need to understand the relations among America’s diverse histories and communities as well as the intellectual, cognitive, and moral development of our students.

This conference will feature:

• new research about the impact of diversity on student learning and identity development, with a focus on recent scholarship about multiracial identity and “whiteness.”
• workshops on collaborative leadership and learning for pedagogical, curricular, and institutional change.
• case studies of campus-community partnerships addressing racial legacies and learning.
• introductions to new technologies to enhance diversity work within and across campuses.

For further information, see http://www.aacu-edu.org

Why Can’t We Talk About Race? AAC&U Releases Video From Racial Legacies and Learning

As part of AAC&U’s Racial Legacies and Learning Initiative and the President’s Initiative on Race, colleges and universities across the country held discussions during a Campus Week of Dialogue in April (see Diversity Digest, Winter, 1998). They discussed America’s racial legacies and ways educators and community leaders can come together to advance and deepen the national dialogue on race.

This tape features a New York City town hall meeting with participants from business, religion, education, and local and state politics, and sponsored by City College-CUNY, Bloomfield College, SUNY-Stony Brook, and Wagner College. A panel and studio audience of about 30 people draw on research, personal experiences, campus initiatives, and institutional missions to explore the questions: “Why Can’t We Talk Honestly About Race?” and “How can higher education work with local communities to improve student learning and engagement with racial issues?”

With candid conversation on topics such as affirmative action, intergroup relations on campus and in urban communities, and curricular change, this video provides a model for productive campus-community dialogues and can be used in classrooms or other campus-community forums to prompt discussions and learning about campus diversity issues.

To order Why Can’t We Talk About Race? (60 min., $15) contact AAC&U, 1818 R Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202/387-3760; pub_desk@aacu.nw.dc.us. For information about the Racial Legacies and Learning Initiative, see DiversityWeb (http://www.diversityweb.org).