In 1988, The Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies launched the first Annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE^®) to address the resurgence of racist incidents in higher education. Since its inception, the conference has evolved into a vital national resource for higher education institutions, providing an annual multicultural forum that attracts Black/African Americans, American Indians, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Latino/as, and European Americans representing campuses across the United States.

The NCORE^® conference series constitutes the leading and most comprehensive national forum on issues of race and ethnicity in higher education. The conference focuses on the complex task of creating and sustaining comprehensive institutional change designed to improve racial and ethnic relations on campus and to expand opportunities for educational access and success by culturally diverse, traditionally underrepresented populations.

NCORE^® is designed to provide a significant forum for discussion, critical dialogue, and exchange of information as institutions search for effective strategies to enhance access, social development, education, positive communication, and cross-cultural understanding in culturally diverse settings.

NCORE^® is built on a solid programming tradition:

• Providing a range of policy, planning, and pedagogical perspectives from around the country and highlights exemplary working models and approaches which are adaptable to other institutional or regional settings.
• Assisting higher education institutions to create inclusive higher education environments, programs, and curriculum; improve campus racial and ethnic relations; and expand opportunities for educational access and success by culturally diverse, traditionally underrepresented populations
• Providing policy, planning, programmatic, curricular/pedagogic, research/assessment, training, and theoretical perspectives from around the country.
• Highlighting exemplary working models and approaches capable of being adapted in other institutional settings.
• Attracting attendees from higher education communities or agencies concerned with higher education from across the United States. NCORE also attracts international attendees.
• Consistently receiving high evaluations annually--99 percent of the conference attendees rate the overall value and benefit of NCORE as "Excellent," "Very Good," or "Good," with 898 percent rating it as "Excellent" or "Very Good".

Conference Participants Include:

• Senior administrative officers at both campus and system levels.
• Academic affairs administrators, deans, department chairs, and teaching faculty.
• Directors and staff of offices of affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, and minority affairs.
• Professionals in virtually all campus activity/service areas, including admissions, student life, financial aid, personnel, public safety, alumni affairs, and athletics.
• Representatives of state and national institutes, associations, agencies, commissions, and foundations.
• Leaders of student organizations.
• Representatives of community-based agencies and organizations.