The University will demonstrate the scholarship of its students and the depth of its commitment to multicultural education this summer as 11 University students attend the 13th Annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education in June in Santa Fe, N.M.
Eight of the students were awarded scholarships to attend the conference on billed as “The Leading and Most Comprehensive National Forum on Issues of Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education.” No single college or university has ever received as many scholarship selections as the university has this year.
The conference, held June 1 to 5, attracts approximately 1,200 administrators, faculty, deans, directors and department chairs from colleges and universities across the nation and in other countries.
Yih-Huei Dawn Liu, the co-director of the Asian Pacific American Student Union and one of the eight NCORE 2000 scholarship recipients, said that while she is expecting the conference to be an incredible experience for the approximately 150 students nationwide attending, it is primarily for faculty and administrators.
Only 30 students received scholarships nationwide. Each of the 110 scholarship applicants was individually evaluated based on their demonstrated dedication and work in areas of social justice, respect and inclusion in his or her campus community according to Cris Cullinan, a Training Administrator in human resources at the University.
Cullinan will be presenting at the conference for her sixth year, but has attended the conference for eight years. She will be teaching a two-session course about class discrimination. She said the team of University students are talented, well-prepared and she expects them to perform beautifully.
These student scholars will take part in the NCORE 2000 Student Scholars’ On-Site Educational program, which includes participation in 24 session hours of workshops, as well as community outreach work and national network meetings. Since the scholarship recipients were granted free registration for the conference but needed to raise funds for travel costs, the original 11 student scholarship recipients at the University worked together over the past two months to raise funds to support the entire team attending the conference.
“The network and exchange of ideas will allow us to see where Oregon stands compared to the rest of the nation,” Liu said. “The 11 different perspectives will allow us to get to know each other in a different environment and see all the effort we have put into our involvement on campus and come together at a different level.”
ASUO President-elect Jay Breslow, one of the eight NCORE 2000 scholarship winners and a psychology and Spanish major, attended the conference as a freshman in Orlando, Fla. He said that, as a returning senior, he looks at the conference as a time where the University can share what works and doesn’t work at the school and with other campuses.
The 1999 Summer Diversity Internship Program was a direct result of last year’s May 18 sit-in at Johnson Hall where students gathered to protest a harassment incident and demand that specific measures be taken to improve the climate of tolerance on campus.
This session, entitled “Opportunity for Change: Diversity Initiatives,” was one of approximately 100 accepted by the conference from hundreds of proposals received by the conference planning committee. University executive assistant president Dave Hubin will be joining the University students in this presentation.
Spencer Hamlin, a student senator and political science major, said the five presenters, aided by the rest of the team, will present problems faced by the University such as racism, sexism, homophobia and how the student frustration with the administration’s lack of effort to combat these problems led to the sit-ins.
“Personally, this is a once in a lifetime experience,” Hamlin said.