Gillis to Chair New COFHE Committee

Gillis to Chair New COFHE Committee

RICE NEWS OFFICE
August 27, 1998

Rice President Malcolm Gillis has been named chair of the newly created Presidential
Committee on Diversity of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE).

The committee has been charged with examining ways in which COFHE members might
best participate in the national dialogue about diversity in higher education.
The committee plans to engage CEOs from the boards of COFHE member institutions,
as well as prominent members of the business community, in helping to explain
to the American public why educating students in a diverse environment should
be an important national objective.

"Why CEOs? Present trends indicate that we will be faced with an increasingly
diverse work force in the coming years," said COFHE President Katharine
Hanson. "Members of the business community would offer a unique perspective
on the need for a diverse student body as they are looking at the long-term
interests of our country."

The committee will also consider ways in which COFHE might send a positive
message to today’s young people to reassure them that, if they study hard and
prepare themselves academically, COFHE institutions will be there for them when
they are ready to go to college.

"The highly selective colleges and universities of COFHE have long stressed
the merits of diversity in the composition of their student bodies," Gillis
said. "Diversity in artistic, athletic, analytical and leadership talents,
as well as racial and cultural backgrounds.

"Also, our students set great store in such diversity," he added.
"Not only while they are in school, but, as they tell us, long after they
have left our campuses. We need to do a much better job in explaining why this
is so."

Included on the committee with Gillis are university presidents Douglas Bennet,
Wesleyan University; Richard Levin, Yale University; COFHE Chairman Judith Shapiro,
Barnard College; Ruth Simmons, Smith College; Hugo Sonnenschein, University
of Chicago; and Peter Stanley, Pomona College.