New UCF president pushes for diversity

Over half of students to come from underrepresented groups, he says

University of Central Florida will have a renewed emphasis on diversity and partnerships with other organizations, President Dale Whittaker wrote in an email to employees Monday, the start of his second week on the job.

Soon, more than half of UCF students will come from underrepresented groups, according to Whittaker’s message. About a quarter of UCF students are Hispanic now.

This past spring, Whittaker said he asked a group of campus leaders to talk about inclusion and diversity. After meeting with students, faculty members and staff, the group said they wanted the university to create a senior leadership position focused on inclusion, diversity and equity. This person would have the authority and resources to make changes across campus, Whittaker said, and more details are expected in the coming weeks.

Whittaker discussed another staffing change in his email: Thad Seymour, Jr., previously the vice provost for the upcoming downtown campus, is now the vice president for partnerships and chief innovation officer. He’ll continue to oversee the new campus, which is set to open in August 2019, as well as the Center for Higher Education Innovation, economic development, community relations, corporate partnerships and the Florida High Tech Corridor.

Before coming to UCF, Seymour worked for business and nonprofit organizations in Florida and helped to lead the development of Lake Nona's Medical City.

“I’m really excited about where UCF is headed and where I think we can take this,” Seymour said.

While the university also works closely with a number of companies and organization, he said he thought UCF could develop those in a “deeper, richer way.”

The university’s existing relationships with Siemens — which has worked on more than 100 research projects with UCF and Lockheed Martin, which provides internships to UCF students and opportunities for teachers to earn master’s degrees — are examples of the type of partnerships Seymour said the

university should replicate.

And the university’s success will be good for the area, too, he said. After studying the country’s great cities, Seymour said he found that “every one of them has a great research university,” sometimes two or three.

“We are so large that we have to do a great job of partnering with our business partners and providing the talent that the region needs in the future,” he said.