Athletics administrators at NCAA member schools will have several more opportunities throughout the 2000 calendar year to take advantage of one of the Association's most important and enlightening human resources training endeavors.

The schedule for Diversity Education 2000 has been finalized, with two additional diversity training sessions to be available in July and three train-the-trainer opportunities offered in July and October.

The diversity training seminars are scheduled for July 7-8 in New York City and July 24-25 in Indianapolis; and the train-the-trainer sessions will be offered July 9-11 in New York, July 26-28 in Indianapolis and October 20-22 in New Orleans.

The NCAA diversity education effort is a broad-based initiative to increase diversity awareness in intercollegiate athletics administration.

The NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee and the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics proposed and received approval from the Association several years ago to develop and implement the diversity training programs for athletics staff and institutional personnel responsible for athletics administration.

Over the past few years, diversity training seminars have been held in conjunction with NCAA governance and conference meetings, as well as at the NCAA Convention. An annual slate of regionally based seminars also has been offered.

Recently, the program introduced the train-the-trainer component, which teaches selected participants who have completed the diversity training seminar to carry the diversity awareness message back to their campuses or conference offices.

The train-the-trainer component is an initiative the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee and the Committee on Women's Athletics believe plays an integral role in prompting participants to become catalysts for promoting diversity at their respective institutions.

Both the diversity training and the train-the-trainer seminars help participants develop the skills necessary to effectively process challenges that athletics administrators face daily.

Those challenges include those directly related to changes occurring in work-force demographics, and to those related to a continued push to further change the demographics by enhancing opportunities for women and minorities in athletics administration.

Seminar participants explore effective teamwork by examining the interaction among people of different cultural backgrounds in the workplace and learn how to draw on those differences to develop a productive team.

The seminars have been designed to be highly participative and to increase skills in the application of management practices.

Seminars include lunch each day and all skills-enhancement materials. Both air and ground transportation, hotel accommodations and other related expenses are the responsibility of the participant or his or her institution.

There is no registration cost to attend either the diversity training seminar or the train-the-trainer sessions. However, people who register for a session must attend each day. Space is limited to 40 individuals for the diversity training seminars and to 25 individuals for the train-the-trainer sessions.

Registration forms have been sent to member schools' chief executive officers, directors of athletics, senior woman administrators and faculty athletics representatives. Forms also have been sent to conference commissioners.

Registration also is available online at www.ncaa.org.

For further information regarding the diversity education seminars, contact Donnetta Moorman or Jon Williams in the professional development department at the NCAA national office at 317/917-6222.