Progress in diversity

September 2007 • Vol. 86: No. 4 : Cover Story

In 1996, 15 percent of the student body came from “underrepresented populations,” which includes African Americans and Latinos as well as poor, white South Georgians.

In 1996, 15 percent of the student body came from “underrepresented populations,” which includes African Americans and Latinos as well as poor, white South Georgians. This year, that number is 23 percent, or almost a quarter of the student body.

In January 2006, Adams announced the University would use $2 million over at least four years for scholarships for underrepresented student groups. The money also would begin building an endowment managed by the Arch Foundation to support the scholarships.

In 2002, UGA received a $3.5 million grant from The Goizueta Foundation of Atlanta to help Georgia schools better educate the state’s growing Latino population. In May 2006, the University received another $4 million grant from that foundation to continue its efforts begun four years earlier. They include scholarship programs and a center that helps schools, teachers and parents improve the academic success of Latino children in grades K-12. UGA announced in July that five undergraduate students would receive The Goizueta Foundation Scholarship worth $3,000 for the 2007-08 academic year.

In fall 2005, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the U.S. Department of Education picked UGA and the University of Texas at Austin to each receive $1.8 million to develop programs to better prepare Latino students for higher education.

“This is what land-grant universities are about, access and opportunity for everybody,” Adams says. “If I had not had the quality public education I had in the ’40s and ’50s, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. I have real empathy for people born with less than a full chance.”