Faculty Diversity at UMBC

Faculty Diversity at UMBC

Although UMBC never had a segregated student body, whether by race or gender, our campus has struggled in many ways to increase its diversity of the student body. UMBC is now promoted as a diverse institution and this is part of the defining narrative of the school and a point of pride for many administrators, faculty, students, and alumni. UMBC has been recognized as having the second most diverse student body (Princeton Review, 2008) and as one of the top 25 most diverse national universities (U.S. News & World Report, 2012). What does a racially diverse student body mean at UMBC? During the 2014-2015 academic year, 44.2% of the student body self identified as white, 16.4% as African American or Black, 20% as Asian, 5.9% as Hispanic or Latino, and less than 1% self identified as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. Students that identify with two or more races made up 3.6% of the student body, while 4.8% did not self identify. International students were separated in this data and made up 4.6%. This data is distributed each year in several sources, including the annual Progress Report on Institutional Programs of Cultural Diversity, available through the Provost’s Office.

Diversity in the faculty communities at UMBC has continued to be a struggle. Faculty and staff at UMBC that self identify as white routinely make up about 70% of respondents. The administration and campus leaders have repeatedly tried to recruit a more diverse faculty, and most recently put in place several programs and initiatives to address this issue, including the Executive Committee for the Recruitment, Retention and Advancement of Underrepresented Minority Faculty, the UMBC OutList, and the UMBC Postdoctoral Fellows Program for Faculty Diversity which began in 2011.

University Publications

ca. 2012

pamphlets; brochures; 4.7 x 8.5 in.

UPUB P12-028