University of Delaware pledges to increase diversity

The University of Delaware is pledging to increase diversity among its faculty and student body.

The university’s board of trustees launched initiatives yesterday to address the school’s racial imbalances. It created the President’s Diversity Initiative, aimed at recruiting and retaining unrepresented students and professors. A new Center for the Study of Diversity also will study the campus environment to determine why students and faculty from diverse backgrounds succeed or fail.

A recent Middle States Commission on Higher Education report concluded the school is not racially diverse.

In 2010, African-Americans represented 5 percent of the university’s undergraduate population. Hispanics accounted for about 6 percent of undergraduates.

The university’s faculty has less diversity. Only 4 percent of the full-time faculty is African-American, and about 2.5 percent is Hispanic.