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MULTIMEDIA REVIEWS (Provided by the editorial staff of EMME unless indicated otherwise) Kilberg, Richard (Director), Elliott, Martha J. H. (Producer). (2002). Beyond Black and White: Affirmative Action in America. 58 minutes, color. Produced by Films for the Humanities and Sciences <www.films.com>
The Association of American Colleges and Universities: Diversity http://www.aacu.org/issues/diversity/ The Association of American Colleges and University (AACU) has been a source of leadership on the issues of diversity in higher education for over 30 years. This website essentially serves as the portal to the vast amount of diversity-related resources available from the organization. Listed on this page are several of the AACU's publications, upcoming meetings and events, nation-wide initiatives, and other project websites (see review of DiversityWeb to follow). Books, reports, and articles on diversity topics are available in PDF format and provide useful information for research. A convenient search enables the visitor to browse and locate relevant publications by category. DiversityWeb: An Interactive Resource Hub for Higher Education http://www.diversityweb.org/ This website is a project of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' Office of Diversity, Equity and Global Initiatives; yet this project website is worthy of a separate mentioning because it intends to provide a valuable resource for those seeking to “foster civic engagement among today's college students.” Within the website are materials for all levels of university work: leadership, curriculum development, faculty and staff, students, and community. The project conducts its own research regarding the growth of diversity on campuses nationwide and publishes a unique periodical, Diversity Digest, available both in print and online. Diversity Digest features writings that observe and analyze recent research, student experiences, and examples of faculty development and transformation of curriculum in the university. DiversityWeb makes it easy to take part in its mission: it hosts calls for papers and welcomes the input of the larger university community. There is also an extensive list of diversity-oriented conferences geared toward university faculty or students.
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University
The stated purpose of Harvard's website is significantly more sophisticated than many of its contemporaries: “generating and synthesizing research on key civil rights and equal opportunity policies that have been neglected or overlooked.” The website itself is well-suited to this purpose: it is easy to navigate and search yet contains a great deal of high-caliber research and articles surrounding the most difficult civil rights issues. Those topics include Affirmative Action, Criminal Justice, K-12 Education and Metro & Regional Inequalities, among others. Each category is then subdivided so as to provide greater contextual information: there are congressional testimonies, links to legal documents, as well as socio-economic reports related to the civil rights issue under examination. There is a section of the website dedicated to providing the most up-to-date developments in the continued cause of civil rights; a section full of resources for researchers, lawmakers and community members; suggestions for how to influence policy as an individual and how to participate in the mission of the Civil Right Project at Harvard University. Although not all resources available in this site focus on issues of higher education, the website is worthy of notation because civil rights issues, such as Affirmative Action, have bearings on all levels of education including higher education.
Diversity, Affirmative Action and Higher
Education: Coordination, Collaboration and Dissemination of
Information This article is the result of a collaborative effort that involved the Postsecondary Institute at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the US Department of Education, The American Council on Education, and The Harvard Civil Rights Project. Although the results of this meeting date to 1997, most of the article remains relevant because it is a response to those who criticized Affirmative Action in the university. This valuable article provides practical ideas that the university can consider to create more of a haven for diversity within its walls. Some of the suggestions include utilizing existing information effectively, integrating technology and mass media into the pursuit of equity, networking among faculty members, and cross-institution sharing.
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