After 35 years, it's time to celebrate the people who paved the way for diversity on campus.

It is the anniversary of Project 500, the University's first major attempt to provide equal educational access and opportunities to all of its students.

The program was initiated as a response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of 1965, challenging the University in 1968 to recruit 500 new minority students for the fall semester.

Black students already at the University went back to their communities and recruited 565 college-aged students from the Black and Latino communities, coming from such areas as New York City, Chicago, St. Louis and Alabama.

"The reason why we are celebrating (Project 500) is because it's important for students to remember who came before and paved the way for us," said Lauren Smith, a senior in LAS and public relations representative for the Project 500 commemoration.

Smith said while there were black students on campus before Project 500, there was little diversity and few diversity programs. The first 500 students had to create diversity programs on campus.

The first 500 students needed to feel welcome and at home on campus, Smith said. She said the students relied heavily on the community.

"The community gave (the first 500) a place to stay," Smith said. "The anniversary is a way of thanking the community again and reminding the students it was a community push as well as one made by current students to bring them here."

Clarence Shelley, special assistant to the chancellor, was hired on July 1, 1968, to develop strategies for increasing the attendance and graduation of students who were not represented in the campus population.

Shelley said celebrating the 35-year anniversary of Project 500 is symbolic of many things.

He said he feels a "deep abiding pride in all the things the (first 500) students did here and what they've done since they graduated," and that those who graduated all accomplished remarkable things.

Many of the events this week are in memory of the accomplishments made by the Project 500 students, including book signings, an open house and a commemorative walk that will take place on Thursday. The walk will begin at the Illinois Street Residence Halls and end at the Union.

Smith said the walk is to honor the first steps made when students arrived on campus.

She said Project 500 celebrations are a time for the entire campus to come together.

"It's not just a part of African-American student history but a part of everyone's history when we all came together (as a campus)," Smith said. "Everyone is welcome to the events."

Daniel Williams, senior in LAS, said he believes Project 500 should be a campuswide event that every student becomes involved in.

"(Project 500) for this campus represents diversity here, and makes people realize that diversity has to come from somewhere," Williams said. "Project 500 was geared to get 500 African-American and other minority students here on campus, and we must celebrate it as a campus community."

Shelley said there is always more to do and things that could have been done differently to bring diversity to campus.

"But the fact that those students are now having their children come here is the best evidence that what we did worked," he said.