Community Matters

These days, pad thai is giving the barbecue pork sandwich a run for its money on Birmingham lunch menus. UAB’s international reputation has attracted students, faculty, and staff from more than 100 countries around the globe—and in a world growing smaller by the second, crosscultural interaction is more important than ever.

The Princeton Review rated UAB third among all U.S. colleges in a 2009 ranking of campus social and ethnic diversity. UAB was the only university in Alabama to be included in that category.

In 2003, UAB took a historic step by establishing the Office of Equity and Diversity and appointing the university’s first African-American vice president, Louis Dale, Ph.D., to lead it. One of the office’s key initiatives is the Comprehensive Minority Faculty and Student Development Program (CMFDP), which supports full, four-year scholarships for minority students as well as minority faculty recruitment and retention.

The success of CMFDP made it a model for the national Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, a program funded by the National Science Foundation to increase graduate degrees for minorities in science, engineering, and mathematics.

Read more breakthrough stories in UAB Magazine.