Diversity at UF: An Analysis
- Neha Iyer
- Dec 25, 2020
- 5 min read
There are over 4,000 universities and colleges in the United States, each placing a unique emphasis on diversity within their student bodies. Diversity can be defined as “the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.,” and is vital in a university setting because it helps students develop analytical and critical thinking skills while fostering an open-minded and collaborative learning environment. Such preparation is necessary for life in our increasingly pluralistic society. Over the years, UF has created programs, organizations, and scholarships aiming to empower underrepresented groups and develop an intellectual and diverse population. However, the question remains, how effective have these opportunities been in diversifying UF’s population? SRI UF has analyzed enrollment data of the student body to detect changes over time to measure diversity in the student body.
Trends
Source: UF Diversity Dashboard
The above figure displays incoming fall freshman demographics by race from 2015 to 2019. When comparing the student body’s racial and ethnic make-up over the past five years, it is imperative to note that white students have consistently comprised over 50% of the student population. More recently, that figure has declined, but not to a significant degree.The proportion of Hispanic/Latinx students from 2015 to 2019 has grown slightly by ~2%. While the Diversity Dashboard uses the term “Latino,” we have opted to use “Latinx” in the interest of inclusion and cultural sensitivity. Remaining groups’ proportions have remained relatively constant with the past five years’ incoming fall cohorts having exhibited little to no change.
We have also been interested in examining any change in the student population’s gender makeup, as outlined by the UF Diversity Dashboard. It is important to note that the Dashboard does not account for non-binary students. This line graph shows the percentage of males and females enrolled for the fall semester from 2015 to 2019. For the past five years, the rates of male and female students enrolled at UF have remained relatively constant, with females hovering around 55% of the student population and males around 45%.
Undergrad v. grad
We also wanted to focus our attention the enrollment of different racial and ethnic groups of undergrads in 2019. The majority of the population is white. The next largest group– comprising around 22.78% of the undergraduate population– is Hispanic/Latinx students. However, remaining groups together make up less than 15% of students, with Black students making up 5.76% of the undergraduate population, Asian students 8.70%, and American Indian students 0.18%. This graph is also very similar to the results shown from the
five-year trend of different racial/ ethnic groups from 2015-2019.
Similar to how we compared the undergraduate population, we also collected data on graduates’ enrollment by race and ethnicity in 2019. While most students are white, the graduate population has a lower proportion of white students than the undergraduates enrolled at UF in 2019, at 52.86%. A significant portion of the graduate population comprises a group the UF Diversity Dashboard refers to as “Non-Resident Aliens.” The IRS defines this term as non-U.S. citizens who have not passed the green card or substantial presence tests, despite being considered a vulgar or dehumanizing classification by some. Compared to the undergraduate population, which was 2.29%, this group makes up 28.42% of the graduate population. The remaining racial and ethnic groups remain relatively small, with the Hispanic/Latinx population comprising around 11.60% of the graduate population, Black students 4.9%, and Asian students 4.07%.
Diversity of Colleges at UF
Diversity at UF varies greatly across the colleges. Below, we can see an example of this phenomenon in the charts comparing the engineering college’s racial diversity with the veterinary medicine college. The engineering college has more significant diversity than the veterinary medicine college. It warrants noting that some colleges within UF have their own unique programs to promote diversity. The UF Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering has such a program, in the form of their “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” plan. This plan was so successful that the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) recognized the college within its Diversity Recognition Program
Comparing the engineering and the veterinary medicine colleges, we see that neither one is very gender diverse, though in converse directions. The engineering college is male-dominated at 75%, while the veterinary college is female-dominated at 78.40%. Furthermore, nursing is UF’s most female-dominated college at 92.49%. Women outnumber men in 13 out of the 17 colleges UF offers. These facts are in line with national trends where— 2018—women earned more doctoral degrees than men for the tenth year in a row, earning 139 master’s degrees for every 100 earned by men.
The graph above more clearly lays out the racial and gender diversity of each college within UF. Dentistry has the highest percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students (21.66%) and Asian students (15.02%), while UNK has the lowest rate of Hispanic/Latinx students (9.36%) and law has the lowest proportion of Asian students (4.13%). Engineering has the highest number of students considered to be “non-resident aliens” (19.55%), while Dentistry has the lowest (0.78%). Health and Human performance has the highest rate of Black students (11.79%), and veterinary college has the lowest rate (2.80%). TheCollege of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Engineering each respectively have the highest and lowest proportions of white students (73.7% and 48.5%)The most evenly distributed colleges with regards to gender diversity are Law and Medicine.
Diversity of Students vs. Employees
Above, we can see the graphs detailing the statistics of the racial and gender diversity of the complete student body and UF employees, including faculty and staff.Faculty includes professors and lecturers, while staff includes posts concerning technical, executive, administrative, and managerial support. Looking at the diversity breakdown between students, faculty, and staff at UF is interesting to analyze. For one, each group is mostly white with the following predominant races for each group being varying orders of Hispanic/Latinx, Black, and Asian. The UF Diversity Dashboard accounts for “non-resident aliens” among faculty and staff, but not students. On the other hand, gender diversity is slightly more varied between each group. While both students and staff have a female majority at 55.72% and 60%, faculty bears a male majority of 58.11%.
Conclusion
The national averages of student diversity in universities in 2017 are as follows: Hispanic/Latinx students made up 19%, Asian/Pacific Islander students made up 7%, Black students made up 14%, American Indian/Alaska Native students made up 0.7%, and white students made up 56%. Four percent of students were of two or more races. While UF is roughly on par with national averages for Asian and White students, UF is almost four percentage points below the average for Hispanic/Latinx students and just over seven percentage points below the average for Black students. UF has created certain initiatives to increase diversity and inclusivity, such as committing $400,000 toward a Racial Justice Research Fund to support research and scholarship that will inform understanding of the Black experience, racial justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus and beyond. The Chief Diversity Office is also focusing on certain initiatives to increase UF’s diversity, such as regularly meeting with minoritygroups and applying for two significant diversity grants. In June, University President Fuchs announced various steps UF would take towards addressing racism and inequity on campus, that he stated were aligned with The Decade Ahead plan UF created in 2016 to ensure UF is “a premier university that the state, nation and world look to for leadership”. As that decade ends in 2026, it will be interesting to see whether the detailed steps and goals were achieved.
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