Education

EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

UF will offer educational workshops for all current and new students, faculty and staff on racism, inclusion and bias.

Leads: HR and Student Life

A task force led by representatives from Human Resources and Student Life established three phases to carry out this objective.

Phase 1: The university implemented two voluntary training modules — one for faculty and staff and one for students — in the 2020-21 academic year as an initial step in meeting this action item. Both modules were produced by EverFi, a third-party educational company. Students, faculty and staff were encouraged to complete the module pertaining to them.

Completion numbers as of June 15, 2021:

Faculty/Staff -- Managing Bias: 17,180
Students -- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: 16,669
Total completion: 32,104

Phase 2: In Fall 2020, a virtual retreat called “100 UF voices” was held to identify the knowledge and skills required to build a more inclusive UF community. Participants identified three broad areas of focus: Fostering awareness; building capacity and promoting action.

In February 2021, UFHR launched the Stronger Together series of voluntary webinars centered on racial fairness and equity. Webinars averaged around 100 participants, with almost 1,600 total completions. The series also included an optional book club.

UF’s Office of Research will make available this academic year competitive grants to faculty on topics of race, equity, justice and reconciliation.

Lead: UF Office of Research 

Fourteen research projects were funded for the 2020-21 academic year, representing a broad array of topics and fields of study. 

To continue supporting these important and necessary conversations into 2022, UF Research and the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer at UF in March 2022 invited proposals for the second Advancing Racial Justice RFP at the University of Florida. The deadline for submitting proposals is 5 p.m. on June 30. There is $400,000 allocated for this fund.

The 2020-21 academic year will focus on the Black experience, racism and inequity. Each of our colleges will feature speakers, seminars and courses. Led by faculty, we will also reevaluate and revise appropriate elements of our curriculum, including UF Quest.

Lead: Office of Undergraduate Affairs in the Office of the Provost

In carrying out this action item, the Office of Undergraduate Affairs in Office of the Provost described its work as: Educating the Next Generation of Gators: Addressing Racism in the Curriculum.

A committee was established to look at general education, the university curriculum and UF Quest to provide students with more opportunities to learn about how to identify and effectively respond to inequality. Student success and academic policies were also evaluated by the office’s staff. The work of the committees is described in an April 2022 Progress Report, which is linked here.

The University of Florida's Student Government will join in this effort by organizing programs and speakers across campus.

Lead: ACCENT Speakers Bureau, UF Student Government

In line with this request, the ACCENT program operated by UF's Student Government has held three events to date: 

• Aug. 30, 2021: Emannuel Acho
• Sept. 10, 2020: Anita Hill
• June 25, 2020: Black Lives Matter co-founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi

The UF Faculty Senate will organize Town Hall meetings and add a standing agenda item as part of their monthly Faculty Senate meetings.

Lead: Faculty Senate

The Faculty Senate established a standing agenda item on diversity in its meetings. It created a Diversity, Race and the Florida Bookshelf in the Faculty Senate Office. The senate also held a town hall on July 30, 2020, with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, the Gainesville Police Department and University Police; panel questions and responses are available here.

The Faculty Senate’s Welfare Council continues to work on the Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Action Items. The council’s 2020-21 annual report is available here.

In UF’s spring semester, we will devote a day to community service and learning as guided by local leaders.

Lead: Government and Community Relations

This initiative was led by a committee of university and community leaders. The committee determined that a single day would not be the best approach to serve the community. Instead, the days of service and learning were conducted as described below:

• Launched on MLK National Day of Service (January 18, 2021) and ended on International Gator Day (May 15, 2021).
  
  
• Related to that work, the university hosted a collaborative program with the broader Gainesville community on Servant Leadership on April 1, 2021, which drew 40 participants.