The University of South Florida in Tampa enrolls nearly 43,000 students. African Americans make up 10 percent of the undergraduate student body.
The university is launching a new effort to increase diversity. In addition to ongoing efforts aimed at student and faculty diversity, the university has debuted the USF System Supplier Diversity program. The new program seeks to provide additional opportunities for diverse businesses to work with the USF System in the procurement of goods and supplies, construction, professional services and other contracts. The program has launched a new website, created training programs for university employees and holds community outreach events.
Leading the new supplier diversity program is assistant vice president Terrie Daniels. Before joining the university’s staff this past spring, Daniels was deputy commissioner of the department of administration for the state Indiana, where she led the state’s supplier diversity programs.
Daniels states that “there is great support from leadership for creating an effective, university-wide program that offers more robust ways to ensure increased diverse business inclusion in USF’s day-to-day business, as well as future growth. This new program will provide a better and stronger bridge between our educational community and the business community.”
Daniels is a graduate of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, where she majored in marketing and computer information systems. She holds a master’s degree in contract compliance from Morgan State University in Baltimore.
