The Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida is committed to ensuring a safe, friendly, and accepting environment for everyone, regardless of rank or position of authority. We aim to prepare our students, staff, and faculty to be citizen leaders in an increasingly diverse global community and workforce. We firmly believe that a climate of inclusivity is critical to achieving these goals.
Diversity in scientific research fosters novel ideas, effective problem-solving, and creative experimentation. Numerous studies have shown that the ethnic diversity of authors on scientific publications is strongly correlated with impact. Additionally, we as ethical scientists have a moral obligation to help address systemic underrepresentation and combat racial discrimination in the workplace. Underrepresentation in Chemistry is especially noteworthy. For example, Black, LatinX, and women chemists make up only roughly 1%, 3%, and 20% of professors in the top 50 US schools compared to roughly 8%, 7%, and 50% of Chemistry B.S. graduates, respectively. While student and faculty underrepresentation is a multifaceted challenge, we must ensure a fair and equitable recruitment, retention, admission, hiring and promotion processes.
Our goal is to identify, mediate, and resolve issues of under-representation and discrimination to create a fair and welcoming representative workplace. This includes educational initiatives, policy changes, and outreach activities as well as recruitment, hiring, retention, and promotion practices to ensure all individuals a safe and fair environment no matter their race, color, religion, national origin or citizenship status, gender or gender identity, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, disability, or military status. These goals will ensure a representative student, staff, and faculty body reflective of a diversity of backgrounds and experiences that will result in improved educational and research outcomes.
While there is much work to be done, we are proud of our efforts to broaden participation in Chemistry. Using the latest available data, our Department and University were highly ranked in the following areas:
- UF Chemistry is fourth in the nation in both the number of and growth in Ph.D. Degrees granted to women1
- UF Chemistry is twelfth in the nation in the number of Ph.D. degrees granted to members of underrepresented minorities1
- Overall, UF is fifth in the nation in the number of Hispanic or Latino science and engineering doctorate recipients2
- Overall, UF is twelfth in the nation in the number of Black science and engineering doctorate recipients2
- Top-20 Chemistry research department in the percentage of women faculty and gender diversity3
Please see our Information & Resources page for useful references and documents.
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1Sandra L. Laursen and Timothy J. Weston, “Trends in Ph.D. Productivity and Diversity in Top-50 U.S. Chemistry Departments: An Institutional Analysis.” Journal of Chemical Education 2014, 91, 1762–1776.
2Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2017, National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).
3Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE), Johns Hopkins University, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health.