Ford Foundation Launches International Fellowships Program
The Ford Foundation has launched the International Fellowships Program (IFP) that offers graduate and post-baccalaureate fellowships to outstanding scholars from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Russia. The aim of the program is to foster future leaders by recruiting promising students who otherwise have limited opportunities for advanced study.

The fellowships, which will be offered to 350 individuals annually for the next ten years, provide support for up to three years of master’s or doctoral study anywhere in the world in areas compatible with Ford Foundation goals.

Ford’s commitment to this program of $280 million over the next ten years represents the largest single grant in the foundation’s history. Under a complementary Pathways Initiative, an additional $50 million in foundation funds will also be available to assist institutions in targeted countries to broaden opportunities for undergraduate education.

“In making this commitment to international higher education, we can draw on our 50 years experience working overseas,” said Ford Foundation president, Susan Berresford.

More information about the program is available at www.fordfound.org.

AOL Time Warner Foundation
The merger that created the first Internet-powered media and entertainment company has also produced a foundation committed to serving the public interest and strengthening communities around the world. The AOL Time Warner Foundation will focus on developing strategic partnerships in the areas of “Equipping Children for a Better Future,” “Extending Internet Benefits to All,” “Engaging Communities in the Arts” and “Empowering Citizens and Civic Participation.”

The new foundation combines the former AOL Foundation, whose mission included increasing access to technology, and the Time Warner Foundation, a dedicated leader in promoting and encouraging literacy.

For more information, go to www.aoltimewarnerfoundation.org.

Irvine Foundation Supports Ethnic
Diversity in Higher Education
In California, The James Irvine Foundation has pledged $5 million in new grants to support ethnic diversity at independent colleges and universities in the state. The grants are part of the foundation’s Campus Diversity Initiative, a program started in 1987 that has since invested more than $30 million to promote student, faculty and curriculum diversity in California.

The latest grants will fund study abroad programs, faculty fellowships for minority Ph.D.s and the recruitment of faculty from under-represented populations on college campuses. One grant will provide support for the Diversity Scorecard project, a coalition of public and private colleges in the Los Angeles area that will monitor and improve access, retention and achievement for underserved students.

The Irvine Foundation is also providing support for Pathways to College Network, a broader program to improve access to higher education for low-income students across America, formed from an alliance of corporate and private foundations, educational institutions and the U.S. Department of Education. Other funding for Pathways will be provided by the Ford Foundation, the Lucent Technologies Foundation, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.

For more details, go to www.irvine.org.

Nuclear Threat Initiative
CNN founder Ted Turner and former senator Sam Nunn, a Carnegie Corporation trustee, have announced the creation of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private foundation whose mission is to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Pledging $50 million over the next five years for the new entity, Turner named Nunn, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Initiative. Describing the role of the new organization, Nunn said, “No private effort can be a substitute for the strong role of government nor can the private sector provide substitute funding for activities that are the proper role of governments. Only by working with the U.S. and other governments, other nonprofits and the private sector can we make meaningful progress toward mutual assured safety.”

Board members include Senator Pete Domenici and Senator Richard Lugar, who have played leadership roles in promoting legislation to help former Soviet nations reduce and safely handle their nuclear arsenal; Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Group and a specialist in U.S.-Russian releations; Andrei Kokoshin, a member of the Russian parliament and former member of Russia’s Security Council; Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and William Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Responsible Wealth Opposes Repeal of Estate Tax
A network of corporate, foundation and academic
leaders has joined forces with Responsible Wealth to oppose the proposed repeal of America’s estate tax. In a recent advertisement printed in The New York Times, the group cautioned about the potentially devastating effects the repeal would have on public charities, educational institutions and other organizations that serve the poor and disadvantaged. Advocates for preserving the estate tax include William H. Gates, Sr., Warren Buffet, Paul Newman and members of the Rockefeller family.

Responsible Wealth is affiliated with United for a Fair Economy, a nonpartisan group that spotlights the widening wealth and income gaps in America.

For more information, visit www.responsiblewealth.org.

Measuring Up 2000
A recent report called Measuring Up 2000 produced by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, indicates that the state in which a student lives, along with ethnicity and financial resources, plays a major role in determining that individual’s educational future.

The report rated each state after analyzing statistics on student preparedness for college, the percentage of students enrolling and completing college, the affordability of higher education in each state and the economic and civic benefits gained by states as a result of its citizens receiving higher education.

“Despite the accomplishments of American higher education, its benefits are unevenly and often unfairly distributed and do not reflect the distribution of talent in America,”
said former North Carolina governor James B. Hunt, Jr., chairman of the National Center’s Board of Directors and Carnegie Corporation trustee.

Measuring Up 2000 was funded with grants from the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Charitable Trust, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

For more details on “Measuring Up 2000,” go to visit www.highereducation.org.

American Legacy Foundation
The American Legacy Foundation, created in March 1999 as a result of the tobacco settlement agreement, has awarded $15 million to the University of California, San Francisco, to establish a center for scholarly research on former top-secret documents of the tobacco industry relating to corporate practices and the health effects of tobacco.

The grant will fund two programs, the American Foundation National Tobacco Documents Library and the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and ensure online access to more than 40 million pages of documentation, most of which was obtained through litigation by state attorneys general.

In 1995, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. brought a lawsuit against the University of California in an effort to remove tobacco-related documents from the UCSF library. After the California Supreme Court sided with the university, the library made 10,000 pages available on the Internet, the first time such material had been posted online.

For more information, go to www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco.

UNITeS
Stressing the need to narrow the digital divide, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has announced the creation of the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a global program of volunteers who assist developing countries with information and communications technologies.

Working with a large number of partners within the public, private, academic and social sectors, UNITeS lies at the core of a major United Nations initiative to address technological disparities among nations. In July 2000, Cisco Systems, Inc., a leader in Internet services, agreed to invest $3.5 million in educational programs in 24 countries through its Networking Academy Program, which teaches students around the world how to design, build and maintain computer networks. Recently, UNITeS has formed its first academic partnership with George Mason University in Virginia to send participating graduate students to work on summer technology development projects.

Under the auspices of the United Nations Volunteers organization, volunteers will offer both onsite and online assistance in the areas of e-commerce, public health information and institutional development. Corporate representatives visiting targeted areas are invited to volunteer on an ad hoc basis when traveling for work or pleasure.

Copyright information | Masthead | Carnegie Corporation of New York web site