Where does one of the world's largest computer software companies go when it wants to partner with a college that has a highly diverse student body in a region that is experiencing severe high-tech labor shortages?

For executives at Oracle Corporation, a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company, suburban Maryland's Montgomery College seemed a logical recruit for the company's $100 million academic partnership campaign. The newly announced partnership between Oracle, a world-leading producer of database software, and the three-campus Montgomery Community College has resulted in a $1 million investment of software and curriculum material by Oracle.

"Montgomery College and Oracle are taking significant steps toward providing an ethnically diverse work force that will help the region's technology sector grow," says Dr. Robert Parilla, president of the college.

The campaign effort, the Oracle Academic Initiative (OAI), has attracted more than 100 two-year and four-year participating institutions around the world since it was launched last fall. Oracle has partnered with a variety of institutions, including Morehouse College, the City University of New York, and the Baltimore City Community College. Company officials say they sought the partnership with Montgomery College in part to enhance their diversity outreach efforts.

"There's a lack of women and minorities in the [information technology] industry. [Montgomery College] has a high diversity level at its three campuses," says Wanda Miles, senior manager of the Oracle Academic Initiative.

Considered one of the most ethnically diverse community colleges in the nation, Montgomery College has an enrollment of 20,000 students, more than 50 percent of whom are non-White. Roughly 26 percent are African American, 15.9 percent are Asian, and 10 percent are Latino. Students enrolled at the institution also represent more than 150 countries of origin.

The college's diversity is reflective of demographic changes that have occurred in Montgomery County, Md. -- a suburb of Washington, D.C. -- in recent years. An influx of Asian, Latino, and other ethnic minority immigrants to the county, coupled with the area's growing African American population, have made the college a center of striking diversity.