Bridgework

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Winter 2001

Hampshire College is located about 10 miles from the industrial city of Holyoke, Mass. But in many ways, the college, where one junior runs a software development business in his free time, and the hardscrabble city are on opposite sides of the so-called Digital Divide. Now, Hampshire is among a growing number of New England higher education institutions launching new programs to bridge that divide separating those with Internet access and skills from those without.

With a two-year, $80,000 grant from WorldCom, Hampshire faculty and students are helping young people in Holyoke create their own news journal on the World Wide Web, and in the process, mentoring them in journalism, community leadership, entrepreneurship, digital photography and website design. The news journal will promote community involvement, highlight ongoing community revitalization efforts and offer a showcase for youth artwork and writing.

The project also will familiarize Holyoke youth with a range of important job skills and potential career paths, and will acquaint Hampshire students with both the challenges and the potential of urban communities struggling to overcome the Digital Divide. (A hard copy of the digital newsletter will be produced to reach the many Holyoke residents who don't own computers and to motivate them to visit neighborhood libraries and community centers and use the Internet-maybe for the first time.)

Under other WorldCom grants, Quinnipiac University is helping sixth-graders in Hamden, Conn., videotape interviews with residents of a local nursing home and use the interviews to develop a website, while Brown students are helping the local Mount Hope Learning Center create a public history initiative and develop neighborhood-specific content for the Web.

More recently, the University of Massachusetts Boston has received more than $1 million from the Corporation for National Service to help people in Boston access the Internet. And with millions of Americans getting health and medical information online, the National Cancer Institute has begun funding initiatives such as a Yale Cancer Center program providing computer access and training to low-income families at New Haven Head Start facilities. Parents who complete the course will receive free Internet-ready computers.

Several New England universities are also confronting another digital chasm-the lack of minority and female involvement in technology development. The new Institute for African-American ECulture at Northeastern University, in collaboration with Boston University, has received $3.2 million from the National Science Foundation to study and promote African-American involvement in developing new technologies. The Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, meanwhile, has been awarded a three-year, $624,803 grant from the National Science Foundation to work with the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council on a study of factors affecting the attraction and retention of women to the burgeoning IT field.