Our Legacy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  • LaGrange College opens with 70 students and 3 faculty members
    Tuition was $10 per term ($282 in today’s money)
  • The Reverend Robert Paine was LaGrange’s first president.  The North Carolina native was also a professor of moral science and belles letters and taught geography and mineralogy.  He was assisted by two other professors.  The first board of trustees had 50 members, including a Native American, a Choctaw politician and a Cherokee leader.  J. D. Malone, of Limestone County, was the first graduate in 1833.

  • Women are allowed to enroll at State Normal School
  • 31 young women enroll making us the first coeducational teacher-training school in the USA
  • First Florence State Normal School graduating class includes three women
  • First women join the faculty
  • Catalog states that for ten years men and women "have been associated in our halls and classrooms. The experiment has been successful beyond the expectations of its friends and advocates..."
  • Construction begins on a dormitory for young women
  • Memorial Amphitheatre is completed honoring the university's veterans
  • Wendell Gunn is admitted as first African-American student
  • Football is integrated by Bobby Joe Pride, Gene Stoval, and Leonard Thomas - making Florence State University the first predominantly white university in Alabama to have African-American players
  • William Weakley is signed to join the basketball team; he does not play any games that season
  • Barbara Glen integrates the UNA faculty by joining the English Department
  • First women enroll in ROTC
  • Mrs. Mary Ella Potts appointed to board of trustees. She is the first woman to serve as a President Pro Tempore of a state institution board of trustees in Alabama
  • Women's basketball team begins competing under the Associate of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women
  • First female athletic scholarship is awarded (African-American Lillian Goodloe)
  • Seven-year-old desegregation lawsuit against Alabama colleges and trials goes to trial
  • Women's soccer team is started
  • Presidential Mentor's Academy was established
  • The Center for Women’s Studies was established in 2004. It was originally known as the Women’s Center.
  • The Office of Diversity & Institutional Equity (ODIE) was established in the Fall of 2008. Dr. Lelon Davidson became its first director.
  • The Military & Veteran Service Center was established in 2011 by Dr. Wayne Bergeron.
  • The President’s Diversity Award was established in 2011. It is also known as the UNA Diversity Award and is given annually by the President.
  • Commissioned a Study for 2018 Campus Climate Diversity Survey Report
  • Honored Dr. Wendell W. Gunn by naming the Commons Building, the Wendell W, Gunn University Commons
  • Launched Global Learning Community Pilot
  • Launched President's Diversity Faculty Fellowship and the first faculty members were hired Fall 2018
  • Launched and required new workplace Diversity and Inclusion Education and Training for faculty and staff
  • Commissioned Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Task Force
  • Launched Black History Month Lecture Series
  • Approved Black Studies Minor
  • Appointment of Dr. Wendell W. Gunn to Board of Trustees
  • Launched One Book program
  • Launched Mitchell-West Center for Social Inclusion
  • Launched new Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Plan
  • Launched Micro-credential in Spanish for the Clinical Encounter