Edison State College Struggling to Diversify Its Faculy and Administration

Edison State College is headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, and operates three satellite campus in southwestern Florida.  The college has met with success in its efforts to diversify the 16,000-member student body. About 10 percent of the students are black and 17 percent are Hispanic.

But a new report presented to the board of trustees found that the percentage of minority faculty and the percentage of minority administrators has declined over the past five years. The report found that today three of the college’s 46 administrators are members of minority groups. And only 13 of the 139 full-time faculty members are minorities. The highest-ranking black officials at the college are Christine Davis, associate dean of enrollment management and student affairs at the Edison State College Collier County campus and Rodney Dennison, associate dean of arts and sciences at the Lee County campus.

In comparison, at nearby Florida Gulf Coast University, minorities make up 17 percent of both administrators and full-time faculty.