DIVERSITY GROWS AS UWF EXPANDS TOWARDS THE FUTURE BY TIANNA REESE Layout & Graphics by Dusty Kennedy
T
he University of West Florida is a growing university that continues to become more diverse.
In fall of 2007, there were 10,358 students enrolled, and about 23 percent were minority students. Today, with about 12,000 students, the minority population has increased to about 31 percent. Darius Perkins, a Student Government Association senator and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc, said that he has noticed that diversity has increased since his arrival on campus in 2011.
• Improving retention, recruitment and graduation among the under-represented populations. “We want to provide every thing that these students need to be successful,” LeDuff said. • Improving the cultural environment to include everyone. “We want to have an environment that everyone feels comfortable,” LeDuff said. • Increasing recruiting, hiring and retaining faculty. “We want to hire faculty that students can relate to and form a bond with,” LeDuff said.
“I think that’s good for UWF to continue to diversify itself,” said Perkins.
• Teaching how to interact multi-culturally. “We want to prepare our students for the real world, because you will deal with different kinds of people through your life and career,” LeDuff said.
Stephanie Pelonia, senior, agrees.
• Improving community relations.
“It has a good mixture of different cultures from what I have seen,” Pelonia said.
“We want to let the community know that we are here and we want to be a part of the community,” LeDuff said. “We are becoming more involved in the community, becoming sponsors for different organizations, and we also are involved with churches helping upand-coming college students with applications and financial aid.”
Diversity isn’t just about skin color or ethnicity, however. It also includes gender, and there are more females attending UWF than
We want to prepare our students for the real world, because you deal with different kinds of people through your life and career. males, a percentage that has changed little since 2007 when 61 percent were female. Today, women comprise 58 percent of the student population at UWF. UWF has recently increased its diversity efforts with the hiring of Kim LeDuff as the chief diversity officer in September 2011. The university has established five goals for the upcoming years to increase diversity, LeDuff said.
Luis Sepulveda, junior, wants to see more diversity at UWF. “As a minority who went to a public school in Escambia County, the demographic definitely seem less diverse than what I was expecting. Although there are ethnic school organizations, unfortunately they don’t leave as much of an impression as Greek life.”
Students are the future, and we came to college to prepare for the future and to be able to handle different situations that may come in our field of expertise. We will soon be in a workforce that will have many people from different backgrounds and countries. While the university grows we hope that the university’s diversity and culture grow as well.
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spring 2014 / issue iv 10.