April 4, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The United Negro College Fund, in Fairfax, Va., has raised $94-million for its Technology Enhancement Capital Campaign, with cash gifts accounting for $28-million and in-kind donations totaling $66-million.
The goal of the campaign is to help the fund’s member institutions, 39 historically black colleges and universities, improve their own technology infrastructure, integrate technology into the curriculum, and increase their students’ and faculty members’ access to computers, software, and other technology.
The campaign started in March 2000, and grew out of a survey the fund conducted in 1999 that found that while the average American college or university owned one computer for every 2.6 students, the average institution in the fund’s network owned one computer for every six students. The survey also found that the number of network servers the fund’s colleges and universities owned per 1,000 students was about half that of other institutions nationwide.
Donations to the campaign from corporations total more than $75-million, and include gifts from Cisco Systems, Dell Computer Corporation, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard Company, J.P. Morgan Chase, Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and Procter & Gamble.
The 1999 survey also found that only 15 percent of students and about 40 percent of faculty members owned their own computers, compared to 55 percent of college students and 71 percent of faculty members across the nation. In response, the fund has developed the UNCF Technology Purchasing Program, which allows students, alumni, and staff members to buy discounted computers, printers, and software.
“When you look at the changing demographics in America, it’s going to be extremely vital that young people and minorities who are in our work force not only have the academic and intellectual skills, but that they also have the technological skills that the marketplace demands,” says William H. Gray III, the fund’s chief executive officer. “If there’s a gap between black colleges and majority colleges, that is not good for the nation and its prosperity.”
To get there: Go to http://www.uncf.org.
