Since 1999, the Educational Consulting Foundation principals have
been involved in the four-year, $6 million National Science Foundation
grant, "Advanced Networking with Minority-Serving Institutions
(AN-MSI)." The purpose of the project has been to develop a
collaborative spirit and projects between three communities: tribal
colleges, Black colleges, and Hispanic-serving institutions. www.anmsi.org
presents more information. The project not only made good progress
in collaborations between the communities, but also initiated dialogue
between many institutions within each community. The report from
the project's external evaluator provides details of AN-MSI's success
in this regard.
Given that all educational institutions have the goal of providing
high quality education for their students, and with the increasing
pressures on their budgets and the students' changing expectations,
learning styles and familiarity with technology, schools are turning
to information technology to meet these conflicting demands. But
many schools lack the technical expertise to equip their faculty
and students with the appropriate technology, to train their faculty
in teaching with technology, to develop the courses needed for their
students, to provide a rich, comprehensive curriculum to attract
and retain students, and to offer mentoring possibilities for their
faculty and students. Collaboration between schools using the Internet
is becoming an increasingly important and prevalent method of resolving
these difficulties.
The ECF principals have considerable experience in assisting with
collaborative efforts, believe strongly in its effectiveness, and
would be pleased to discuss opportunities to help locate other schools
with similar needs and schools and resources that can provide assistance.
Contact us if you are interested.
