Curriculum and Integration

 The onset of desegregation presented many challenges throughout the South. University officials faced the massive task of integrating blacks into the student body; black students faced the challenge of building a community that facilitated an exploration their culture and heritage. By demanding a new curriculum that reflected their culture and heritage, black students worked with University of Central Florida faculty to promote integration efforts and to improve the experiences of future students.    

To the black students at UCF, changes to the curriculum were essential. Prior to desegregation, UCF’s curriculum reflected its white student body. If no changes were made following desegregation, how would the university be able to fulfill its obligations of education and professional preparation for its students of color? To do so, the university needed to offer opportunities and fields of study that catered to black students and other minority groups. In October 1969, the Black Student Union was founded as a means to facilitate these changes for UCF’s black students. On January 23, 1975, the BSU met with Vice President Carroll B. Gambrell, Jr. to demand these changes to the curriculum.¹

The response of some university officials was strikingly receptive and understanding of the needs that black students vocalized. However, other educators and officials were either opposed to the actions taken or found them unnecessary.² Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the university began to add more material—including a major in Black History— to the curriculum in order to accommodate the black student body.³

 The changes made to UCF’s curriculum helped to integrate black students and to provide them access to any necessary education and resources required to succeed at the university. By ensuring equal representation and proper accommodation of black students, changes to UCF’s curriculum created a more diverse and educated student body at the university.