The Gainesville Sun: Florida’s Hispanic population surges; few work as UF faculty
She remembers the day all too well.
In her final year as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida, Jessica Klahar was asked to name the Hispanic faculty member who’d had the greatest influence on her while she was a student. Klahar, a Miami native and the child of Colombian parents, racked her brain. Then she racked it some more.
Nothing came to her.
After a career at the largest university in the state of Florida, where the Hispanic population is booming, Klahar couldn’t think of a single Hispanic faculty member she’d had in a classroom, much less one she admired for teaching.
“It really amazed me,” said Klahar, 22. “I couldn’t think of someone . . . That really just goes to show that they’re not out there.”
During Klahar’s senior year at UF in 2005, Hispanic faculty made up about 3.8 percent of the full-time faculty. There was, however, growth among the cohort during Klahar’s years in Gainesville. Between 2000 and 2005, the number of full-time Hispanic faculty at UF grew from 107 to 167 – an increase of 56 percent.
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