From: Houston Chronicle, July 12, 1998

More than 100 minority students, faculty members and researchers recently attended a science and mathematics conference hosted by Rice University and the University of Houston-Downtown.

The first conference, the South-Central Computational Science in Minority Institutions Consortium, examined such issues as the strengths and weaknesses of minority and majority institutions.

Groups who participated in the workshops concluded that institutions can prepare minority students in several ways, including better funding, improved academic programs and partnerships between majority and minority institutions

That event coincided with a conference by the Association of Departments of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at Minority Institutions. During that two-day conference, educators discussed ways of having culturally sensitive curricula, improving teaching and research environments and retaining minorities in computer sciences.