C2. Coordinating Diversity Research Enhancement. The University already hosts a number of centers of research and curricular programs whose focus is the scholarship of diversity. However, there is little coordination and cooperation among the researchers, and the net effect of all this work for MarylandÕs scholarly reputation for excellence is much less than might be. Although a Consortium for Research on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity was organized last year to encourage cooperation and coordination among the various research centers, academic units, and programmatic committees engaged in this research (and has begun to do so, successfully), with enhanced resources, the Consortium could more effectively serve the campus's need to make this research more visible. The Consortium, in the Diversity Panel's opinion, is best suited for this work because it includes representatives from the many research centers, campus-wide committees and projects, and academic units that focus on this area in their research/scholarship (and intends to include all, once they are identified), but does not subsume or supercede them. Each of the member groups has its own research agenda, sources of funding (especially grants), and has become respected for its particular work; none wishes to bury its identity in a new entity or shift its focus from the work in which it specializes; and none should do so. But some single group should be charged with making the work of all our centers and projects known to each other, to the wider campus community, and to a scholarly audience beyond our campus. With enhancement funds to initiate collaborative work and to widely publicize all the research on diversity that our campus produces, the Consortium can be an effective means to get more mileage from our already existing efforts.