FACTS ABOUT DIVERSITY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

May 19, 1999

Contact Tom Hager (541) 346-3134

STUDENTS

The University of Oregon student body is more diverse than the state around us. The Oregon University System (OUS) reports that the UO’s percentage of ethnic students (students of color not including international students) totaled 11.83 percent in 1998, a number that has trended slightly upward at the UO over the past five years. By comparison, the latest (September 1998) Oregon census figures indicate a total of 11.62 percent comparable ethnic population for the state. However, the OUS numbers are incomplete. The UO recently began tracking a new multi-ethnic category for students (ethnic students of mixed race or who consider themselves to fall outside standard categories). OUS does not track multi-ethnic students. Including multi-ethnic students raises the UO’s total student ethnic proportion to 12.60 percent. Add international students (the UO is the nation’s No. 1 public research university in terms of percentage of international students) and you have a significantly more diverse campus than the state around us.

SCHOLARSHIPS

Still, we have more work to do, especially in attracting African-American students, whose numbers at the UO have been essentially flat for a decade. Toward that end, the UO has strongly supported and recently increased scholarship and other support moneys for ethnic students. The UO’s Student Academic Affairs Office estimates that scholarship dollars targeted specifically toward building diversity at the UO will total close to $1 million for the next academic year. The fund for Diversity Building Scholarships alone is scheduled to double from this year’s $280,000 level to more than $500,000 next year.

FACULTY

Recognizing the need to build a more diverse faculty, the University of Oregon has dedicated more than $300,000 per year to special efforts devoted to attracting faculty of color. Here are the results:

During the four academic years between 1995-96 and 1998-99, more than one in five of the new tenured and tenure-track faculty hires made at the UO have been faculty of color–26 new faculty of color out of 121 total hires.

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