Hewlett Grants fund student plans

Student organizations will have a chance to build coalitions in hopes of being more effective thanks to two new College grants, according to Student Assistants to the President juniors BJ Renteria and Sarah Stein-Greenberg.

The grants are just one part of Common Ground: Education for Democracy, an Oberlin program which is being supported by over $100,000 in funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Organizers intend to spread out the fund by awarding several grants to organizations each semester and also by funding Winter Term projects.

Two kinds of grants are available to students: The Community Education Fund will support projects organized in coalition between on- and off-campus groups and the Campus Coalition Fund will support on-campus projects. Grant applications will be available next week in the Multicultural Resource Center and the Center for Service and Learning.

The most important criteria for a project to receive funding is that it be organized and executed by two or more student groups that do not have overlapping leadership or membership.

"This grant provides some really great opportunities to establish connections with people," Stein-Greenberg said.

Although Renteria and Stein-Greenberg stress that the committee is open to many different ideas, they gave one example of a project that would fit the Hewlett criteria. "If AAA (Asian-American Alliance) and the Chess Club organize to teach chess to Asian-American students in public schools, that would be a great project," Stein-Greenberg said.

In addition to the student organization grants the Hewlett grant will support various other programs that deal with diversity, multiculturalism and campus dialogue.

The programs include workshops and training sessions for College faculty and staff about diversity issues, a new ExCo class for first-years about conflict resolution and communication skills and a speaker series to highlight different issues around multiculturalism, diversity and community-building.

According to the Hewlett Committee's executive summary, the grant is designed to bring students from different ethnic, racial, income, religious, gender and sexual orientation groups together to work in academic, cultural or community projects. Organizers said that while there is a lot of diversity on Oberlin's campus there aren't many institutions or projects that harness that diversity.

The grant is also an effect of the College's long-range planning process. Diversity emerged as a major priority from the discussions, which were held in 1996 and 1997.