UNT’s Growth in Diversity

by Jaz’man Hampton

Diversity at the University of North Texas is currently growing at a steady pace among students and faculty.

In November of 2018, UNT was awarded the annual Higher Education Excellence in Diversity or the HEED Award, from the “INSIGHT Into Diversity” magazine. The range of diversity in public and private institution is based on the student body as a whole, as well as the range of different curricula available to the students.

UNT received a diversity score for ethnic, gender, geographic, and an overall score, which were all above the national average score.

Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the top three universities in America with the greatest amount of diversity, according to bestcolleges.com.

The University of North Texas is becoming a well diverse institution, truthfully, the university is growing toward becoming majority Hispanic Institute. Since 2008 the rate of non-white students has increased at a continuous rate.

The majority has taken a slight decrease in student enrollment. From 2008 to 2017 the white student enrollment has fallen by 17.78%. The decline in white students at the university takes a hit in both undergraduate students which enrolled 3,400 less white students within the last nine years, as well as graduates, which enrolled 768 fewer students within the nine-year span.

African-American students enrollment increased by 1.29% within the nine years. However, the consistency of growth for African-American students took a small drop in 2010, when the enrollment for African-American students went down by 1.10% from the previous year.

The slight drop was due to less African-American students enrolling into a Master’s program. In 2009, 796 African-American students enrolled into graduate programs at North Texas, the following year, African-American graduates enrolled at 1.17% less, than the previous year.

The Hispanic community at North Texas has grown the most in diversity for North Texas. From 2008 to 2017 the Hispanic students has grown by 11.02%. The largest increase came in 2013 when the enrollment rate for Hispanic students went up by 1.74% from the previous year.

Asian/Pacific Islander’s at North Texas continues to increase each year. In 2008, the Asian/Pacific Islander’s made up only 1,544 students in the undergraduate course and 260 in graduate programs. In 2017, the undergraduate level grew by almost 900 students, and the graduate level grew by more than 60 students.

American Indian/Alaskan Native groups at North Texas have` an inconsistent and low growth rate. From 2008 to 2017, the American Indian/Alaskan Native grew only by 0.79%. In 2010 this group received its highest growth rate within the nine-year span at 0.14%.

Nonresident Alien grow at a consistent rate, and in 2016 obtained more than 1,000-plus students for the first time in the history of North Texas.

The growth of diversity spreads through the faculty at UNT also, although at a much slower rate than student growth. Faculty as a whole went up just 1.05% between the years of 2015 to 2017. White-male full-time professors serve as the majority group for tenured professors with 186 currently employed by the university.

The Asian-male community at UNT takes the second lead with 31 total men in full-time tenured employment at the university. African-Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians all have less than 15 people as full-time tenured professors. American Indians have no male presences in the Associate Professor and Assistant Professors status at the university.

Asian-women had only 9 full-time women professors in 2017, and White-women made up a little more than half of what their male colleagues as full-time tenured professors in 2017. Full-time tenured professors were the best category to focus on in this data because they’re the only group with consistent data for the university.

The impact of diverse colleges and universities can influence a better society. Attending a postsecondary institution with various walks of life, ethnically diverse individuals, and groups allow for better learning within the institution, according to The Century Foundation at tcf.org.

With the growth of diversity on the rise for North Texas, specifically in the area of the Hispanic community, the well-known publicly white institution could look forward to a new title within the next few years.