Press Release

CONTACT: Daniel Teraguchi
Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen
(202) 387-3760
E-mail:dt@aacu.org

Forty Institutions Selected for AAC&U Project Boundries and Borderlands III

Washington DC—January 18, 2000—The Association of American Colleges and Universities has selected 40 colleges and universities to participate in its two-year project, Boundaries and Borderlands III: The Search for Recognition and Community in America. This institute and its associated activities and networks are designed to help institutions create new curricula aimed at helping students develop new capacities for democratic citizenship and tolerance to negotiate multiple communities and commitments in our diverse democracy.

With grant support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Boundaries and Borderlands III builds on AAC&U's groundbreaking work in diversity and faculty capacity building from the project American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning launched in 1993. The Hewlett Foundation has funded this project as part of its ongoing Pluralism and Unity initiative. AAC&U's American Commitments project, involving over 150 institutions and scores of faculty, has created a series of diversity resources being widely used by campuses. They include an expansive Web site, DiversityWeb (www.diversityweb.org), a quarterly newsletter, Diversity Digest, distributed to some 14,000 educators, media and opinion leaders, and numerous publications.

With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Ford Foundation, American Commitments sponsored two earlier faculty institutes on which Boundaries and Borderlands III is modeled. The project is designed to deepen the intellectual, curricular, and co-curricular frameworks for higher education faculty and staff committed to embedding issues of diversity as elements of institutional mission, campus initiative, and curriculum. Participants will have an opportunity to engage in sustained study of the latest scholarship on diversity, examine curricular models being developed at institutions across the country, learn the latest research on the impact of diversity of student learning, and develop skills in fostering intergroup dialogue and learning. The ten-day summer institute will also provide workshops on classroom pedagogies to enhance a climate of engagement, collaborative programming across academic and student affairs, and programs that engage students directly in the wider community. Participants will be networked via a national listserv and through online town meetings offered through the DiversityWeb.

"Respecting differences and valuing inclusion is at the heart of this initiative," says Hewlett Program Officer Raymond Bacchetti. "AAC&U has taken the lead in making these twin goals national priorities for faculty capacity building and institutional renewal. Hewlett is proud to join their efforts with ours as we work to build campus leaders."

Boundaries and Borderlands III will also include colloquia with nationally known speakers, an American Writers Series, and cultural events. The centerpiece of the institute will be a series of eight, three-hour seminars that thematically examine:

• Education: The Making of Citizens

• The U.S. Democratic Experiment: Forging a Nation for Whom?

• Difference and Democracy: Theoretical Frameworks

• Race and Racialization: The Color of Democracy

• Women, Democracy, and Citizenship

• Immigration: Patterns, Politics, and Experience

• Religious Diversity and Freedom in a Liberal Democracy

• The Limits and Promise of Community in a Multicultural America

The full list of institutions selected competitively to participate in the Boundaries and Borderlands III project is attached.

AAC&U is the leading national association devoted to advancing and strengthening liberal learning for all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Since its founding in 1915, AAC&U's membership has grown to more than750 accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size. One of its five key priorities is establishing diversity as an educational and civic priority.