Columbia University is continuing its push to increase and retain a diverse campus community by pledging $100 million over the span of five years toward recruiting staff and opportunities for career development for professors and students from underrepresented groups.

Columbia News reports that the higher education institution initially announced an $85 million diversity initiative in 2005 in which professional development programs were created in an effort to diversify faculty at the university's Harlem campus. Six years later, Columbia's Medical Center was inspired by the 2005 initiative to create their own.

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger told Columbia News the initiative is part of the university's commitment to diversity and its efforts to expand programming.

“Each of our schools is dedicated to using these resources for recruiting the most talented faculty, retaining our diverse community, and supporting critical research," Bollinger said. "This is a longstanding initiative inseparable from Columbia’s identity and core values.”

Columbia News reports that only 3 percent of the university's student body was from diverse backgrounds when Dr. Dennis Mitchell started as the vice provost for faculty diversity and inclusion. Since then, that number has increased to 22 percent.

“We have grown our own programs,” Mitchell told Columbia News. “Diversity changes the climate and the culture of the university. We can’t have excellence without diversity, and the belief that they are separate things is a fallacy.”