The University will not increase tuition to pay the costs of proposed mandatory diversity requirements, a University official said yesterday.

At a University-wide teleconference, University Executive Vice President and Provost William Richardson said gifts and endowments which will not detract from other programs will pay for the establishment costs.

Needs for funding will include additional costs of hiring a part-time coordinator for the program, incentives for qualified faculty to assist other faculty to update their courses and more funding to support the additional teaching time required for some classes, Richardson said.

Several Commonwealth campus audience members, noting their limited resources, questioned the problem of the requirements' implementation.

Lynn Goodstein, director of the women's studies program, said audience members' concerns were justified because a majority of freshman and sophomores who take general education courses are at Commonwealth campuses.

Currently, all but one of the campuses has the resources to teach either a women's studies or black studies courses, according to the proposal.

Only six Commonwealth campuses are currently equipped to teach black studies courses, said James Stewart, director of the black studies program. Fifteen campuses are capable of teaching women's studies courses, Goodstein said.

Faculty workshops and teleconference communications will help serve the Commonwealth campuses, Stewart said.

Classes taught cooperatively through telecommunications between Commonwealth and University park professors is an eventual goal of the black studies program, Stewart said.

Women's studies courses will soon be available at all campuses through faculty workshop initiatives, Goodstein said.

The workshops will also help integrate the entire curriculum to reflect many perspectives, Goodstein and Stewart said.

Commonwealth campus audience members also expressed concern about the ability of associate degree students to complete the requirements.