University of Kentucky reveals steps to improve diversity, address racial disparities
The University of Kentucky will recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday in the upcoming academic year as it focuses on inclusion and racial disparities, President Eli Capilouto announced at a Board of Trustees meeting on Friday.
In addition to making Juneteenth — a commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States — a university holiday, UK officials also announced Friday a bevy of changes designed to address any opportunity gaps for Blacks and other students of color.
Students will be required to take online diversity and inclusion courses before coming onto campus this fall. By next month, the university hopes to earmark more money to increasing diversity among faculty and staff.
Of the university’s 30,545 students enrolled last fall, 1,978 were Black and 4,541 were considered underrepresented minorities. In 2018, the last available year for employee data, of the university’s 13,940 employees, 1,102 were Black and 1,456 were underrepresented minorities.
Capilouto said the changes were phase one of a series of plans. The actions occur against a backdrop of repeated local and national protests against racial inequity and injustice set off by recent police violence against Blacks and amid a pandemic that underscored racial disparities in health care.
The board was meeting on Juneteenth, the day the last slaves were told — in Texas on June 19, 1865 — that they were freed via the Emancipation Proclamation.
“We know we have to have real action and we have to have real action now,” said Kirsten Turner, the associate provost for academic and student affairs.
The diversity courses for students should be in place ahead of this fall’s start to classes, Turner said. Diversity and inclusion curriculum for UK 101, an introductory course for first-year students, will be expanded and rewritten before the school year as well.
By December, the university hopes to implement training for faculty members and teacher’s assistants on cultural proficiency and handling classroom discussions on race.
A university panel, starting this month, will be tasked with evaluating the on-campus culture and reconsidering portions of the Student Code of Conduct to reflect a more diverse campus.
The university will hire a cultural ecologist to audit the campus facilities and help create a diversity/inclusivity master plan, Turner said during the meeting. The university will also create a Percent for Art fund that will take 1 percent from every capital project that costs more than $5 million. Money pooled in the fund will be used to purchase more diverse art.
University researchers have created an alliance that will work to study and develop strategies “around the reduction of social and racial injustice and health disparities,” according to a Friday press release.
Turner said the university will also look to expand the number of minority-owned businesses that the university uses as suppliers.
“Today, I hope we are stating as a board and as a university our unequivocal commitment to this cause,” Capilouto said. “History is full of beginnings. The present can be one, too. Let us commit today to a new beginning, one from which we will not retreat ever again.”
This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 3:33 PM.