The National Conference for Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) was founded in 1988 in response to increased racist incidents in American higher education. The Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies in Norman, Oklahoma launched NCORE in 1988. Since 1988, NCORE has been one of the leading national conferences on reconnoitering and analyzing issues of race, ethnicity, gender, civil rights, and sexual orientation in higher education in America. The mission of NCORE is to ameliorate racial and ethnic relations, help colleges and universities to engender more inclusive and welcoming milieus, and expand opportunities for historically underrepresented groups in higher education. This year’s conference will be held in San Francisco, California on May 31, 2011 – June 4, 2011. The conference registration fee is $700 and the conference student registration fee is $425. To register for this conference, go here: http://www.ncore.ou.edu/register.html. To learn more about NCORE, go here: www.ncore.ou.edu.

I greatly encourage all students, especially graduate students, to check with your departments and outside of your departments for funding to go to this conference. If you have a research agenda committed to improving issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, diversity, civil rights, and etc., you need to become actively involved in NCORE and participate in the national conference each year. For those who would like to learn more about issues of race and ethnicity in higher education, you should become an active participant in NCORE. Those who are underrepresented in higher education should definitely become actively involved with NCORE. This national conference was founded to enhance the quality of the educational experience and campus climate for underrepresented groups in higher education. NCORE needs your presence, involvement, and support to become an even more powerful force for good in higher education.

Make the decision today to become actively involved in NCORE and to attend this year’s conference in San Francisco. On Facebook, “like” NCORE’s new Facebook page by going here: www.facebook.com/NCOREconference. By clicking the “like” button on NCORE’s Facebook page, you can stay updated on the latest developments and news pertaining to NCORE.

Although significant progress has been made since the great influx of racial and ethnic minorities who enrolled in higher education institutions across the nation during the 1960s (Kaplan & Lee, 2007), racism is still highly prevalent on higher education campuses across the country. You need to be associated with NCORE so that you can learn about and discover subtle issues of race and ethnicity that are not as overt as some of the more popular national issues of race and ethnicity are.

Through your association with NCORE, you can learn about the gaps in the extant peer-reviewed literature, offering you an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the field. For graduate students, finding a gap in the existing research is one of the foremost highlights of one’s educational experience. Just think about how great of an opportunity you will have to discover a gap or gaps in the existing published research by engaging with scholars from across the nation and world who participate in NCORE.

If you are serious about improving the educational experiences and outcomes of underrepresented students in higher education, then you can make a strong step toward achieving this feat by becoming active in NCORE today!

Reference

Kaplin, W.A., & Lee, B.A. (2007). The law of higher education (4^th edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison