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Florida State University, also commonly referred to as FSU or Florida State, is the oldest continuous site of higher education in Florida. FSU is a comprehensive, research intensive university founded in 1851 and located in Tallahassee, Florida. Its president is T. K. Wetherell, succeeding president Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte on January 6, 2003. The university is composed of 17 colleges and institutes that offer more than 300 programs of study.

FSU's more notable programs include Business, Creative Writing, Criminology, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Dance, Film, Music, Hospitality, Political Science, Information Studies, Physics and Meteorology. Florida State is home to the ground breaking National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, funded by the National Science Foundation. Florida State's academic staff boasts Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and numerous members of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Campus

Florida State's main campus is located at in Tallahassee near the Florida State Capitol building. The campus is bordered by Tennessee Street (U.S. Highway 90) to the north, Gaines Street to the south, Stadium Drive to the west, and Macomb Street to the east. StarMetro provides free transportation for students to and from the university.

Florida State also maintains two additional campuses in Panama City and Sarasota. Additionally, Florida State operates an overseas branch campus with degree programs in the Republic of Panama.

In addition to the branch campuses, the university offers a variety of overseas study opportunities for students during the regular academic year, as well as in special summer programs. FSU operates study centers for overseas study oppare located in Florence, Italy; Republic of Panama; Valencia, Spain; and London, England.

The university is home to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, funded by the National Science Foundation. Other research centers, such as the Center for Advanced Power Systems, supported by the Office of Naval Research, place the university at the cutting edge of research and its application to industry. Beginning January, 2006 the Applied Superconductivity Center, formerly located at the University of Wisconsin at Madison will be located at the university. The Center is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and other government agencies.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota is affiliated with the university, and is the largest museum/university complex in the U.S. and houses one of the most significant collections of fine art in North America. It is recognized as the official State Art Museum of Florida.

History

The Legislature of the State of Florida in a Legislative Act of January 24, 1851 provided for the establishment of two seminaries of learning, one to be located east and the other west of the Suwannee River. By 1854, the City of Tallahassee had established a school for boys called the Florida Institute. The city's hope was that the State would take it over as one of the seminaries. After an unsuccessful attempt by the city to make this happen in 1854, Mayor Francis W. Eppes, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, again made the offer in 1857 which was accepted by the Florida Legislature. Thus, Florida State University's legacy began as an all boys school, which is contrary to popular belief. In 1857 first meeting of the Board of Education of the State Seminary West of the Suwannee River was held. The school became co-education the following year, when it absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy, begun in 1843 as the Misses Bates School. The school existed as the West Florida Seminary from 1857 until 1863, when the state legislature changed the name to The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute, reflecting the addition of a military section which trained cadets. On March 6, 1865 Institute cadets and other men of Tallahassee successfully prevented Federal troops from taking Tallahassee at the Battle of Natural Bridge. This battle participation enables the current ROTC unit at FSU to display a battle streamer titled "Natural Bridge 1865". FSU is one of two universities to have this distinction.

In 1901, the school was renamed Florida State College, and was a four-year institution organized in four departments: the College, the School for Teachers, the School of Music, and the College Academy. In 1905, Florida's educational system was reorganized by the state Legislature, and six state institutions of higher learning were consolidated into two when the University of Florida in Gainesville was established and designated a men's school and the Florida State College became a women's school called the Florida Female College. The football team and fraternities were then moved to Gainesville which marks the beginning of those traditions at the University of Florida, also contrary to popular belief. In 1909 the name of the college was changed to Florida State College for Women. Demand by returning World War II veterans had brought men back to the campus in 1946 with the establishment of the Tallahassee Branch of the University of Florida.

On May 15, 1947, the Governor of Florida signed an act of the Legislature returning Florida State College for Women to coeducational status and naming it The Florida State University. Today, the student population is almost 40,000. Florida State is also the home of the first chapter (Alpha) of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in the state of Florida, and is home to one of the oldest schools of public administration in the country. Florida State is presently comprised of seventeen independent schools and colleges.

The Westcott Building at Florida State University is located on the hill where the West Florida Seminary once stood, which has been the site of an institution of higher education longer than any other site in Florida.

Academics

Florida State University has leading graduate, undergraduate, and professional programs that include Law and Medicine.

In the 2006 U.S. News & World Report of Best Colleges, Florida State was ranked 51st (from 54th in 2005) among all public research universities in the U.S, and is ranked 109th (up from 111 in 2005) among all national universities. Florida State was ranked higher than any Florida public university except the University of Florida.

College Of Medicine
The fully accredited College of Medicine is the first new M.D. program to be established in the United States since 1982. It is charting a new course for medical education with an emphasis on the use of interdisciplinary teams and emerging new technology. Created in June of 2000 by the Florida Legislature, its mission is educating physicians to serve the state's rural, geriatric, minority and other medically underserved populations. The medical school's regional campuses will be in Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota, and Tallahassee with the Rural Track Medical Education Program serving the cities of Marianna and Chattahoochee in the Florida Panhandle.

College of Law
The Florida State University College of Law has jumped to 53rd in the 2006 edition of the influential national rankings of law schools by U.S. News & World Report. The magazine's 2006 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools also ranks the College of Law as one of the most diverse in the country. Environmental Law Program Ranks 14th in Nation. Hispanic Business magazine has ranked the College of Law among the top 10 law schools in the nation for Hispanics for the second consecutive year. Hispanics made up 9% of the school's 748-member student body and received 11% of the 205 law degrees awarded to the class of 2004.
College of Business
The College of Business has consistently been ranked one of the Top 40 undergraduate business schools by U.S. News & World Report at 38th. Among public universities, it has been ranked in the Top 25 and has grown to be one of the nation's ten largest. The college is a recognized leader in graduating minority doctoral candidates. The college earned a fourth-place spot in the Black Issues' Top 100 for its success in awarding the doctorate in business to African Americans. In the Academy of Management Journal *, the college's program in Management Information Systems was ranked 15th and is the highest ranked MIS program in the State of Florida.

Dedman School of Hospitality
The Dedman School of Hospitality* is in the College of Business at FSU, and is located at Doak Campbell Stadium. Based on input from industry representatives, the hospitality management major's business component is what attracts companies to FSU students; as a result the school boasts a consistent 100% job placement record. The Dedman School of Hospitality also offers a major in Professional Golf Management, one of seventeen programs nationwide accredited by The Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA), to prepare students to meet the challenges found in the world of professional golf. The state of Florida has more golf courses than any other state in the country and is the headquarters for the PGA, LPGA, PGA Tour, and National Golf Foundation and FSU has a long, distinguished history of graduating professional golfers and educating students for business and hospitality operations.

Computer Science
FSU's Computer Science program is a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) by the National Security Agency.

College of Information
The College of Informations programs in Information Studies/Technology is one of the most respected and consistently top-ranked programs in the nation and has held such rankings for many years in the U.S. News & World Report. The program tied for 12th, the School Library Media program ranked 2nd and the Services for Children and Youth specialization program tied for 2nd. The college has the largest online MLS program in the nation. According to the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper, the undergraduate program in Information Technology is sprouting in popularity.
College of Visual Arts, Theatre And Dance
The College of Visual Arts, Theatre And Dance is one of the leading comprehensive theatre training programs in the United States. U.S. News and World Report has consistently included FSU's graduate theatre programs in its top-tier rankings in the top-10, one of the few public university programs thus honored. The School is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre and is a founding member of the University/Resident Theatre Association.

College of Music
The College of Music has been a fully accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Music since 1930. It currently has a student body of 650 undergraduate and 350 graduate students.

Many of FSU's other academic programs consistently rank among the nation’s top twenty-five public universities, including programs in Chemistry, Creative Writing, Criminology, Dance, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Film, Meteorology, Oceanography, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, Statistics, Social Work, Sociology, and Traumatology. *

The Taxol Story

A significant achievement at the university was chemistry professor and synthetic organic chemist, Robert A. Holton's synthesizing of Taxol on Dec. 9, 1993. The chemical has been used as an effective breast and ovarian cancer treatment.

Holton's and his Organic Chemistry team finished a race to develop a cheaper semisynthetic version. In 1993, Bristol Myers Squibb began marketing it. Just like other chemotherapy drugs, it had side effects, but it also prolonged lives, and in many cases, defeated cancer.

Before the drug company's exclusive license expired, Florida State made $350 million in royalties, vaulting the school into the ranks of Columbia University and California's state universities in research profits. For perspective, Taxol has earned Florida State three times the amount the University of Florida earned from the popular beverage Gatorade.

Enrollment

Fall 2005 enrollment is 39,218 students. Women account for 56.7% of FSU's enrollment. Minorities made up 24.2% percent of total enrollment. 47.8% of the minority enrollment was Black, 38.6% Hispanic, 12.0% Asian, and 1.6% was American Indian.

The Fall 2005 freshman class had a SAT mid-point of 1110 to 1260 with a 3.5 - 4.0 GPA. *

Departments

Associates, Bachelors, Masters, Specialist's, Doctoral, and Professional degree programs are offered through the College of Arts & Sciences; the College of Business; the College of Communication; the College of Education; the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, jointly administered with Florida A&M University; the College of Human Sciences; the College of Law; the College of Medicine; the College of Social Sciences; the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice; the College of Motion Picture, Television & Recording Arts (Film School); the College of Information; the College of Music; the School of Nursing; the College of Social Work; and the College of Visual Arts, Theatre, & Dance. The School of Computational Science will begin admitting doctoral students in the Fall of 2006.

Traditions

The school's colors are garnet and gold and the symbols of the athletic teams are Chief Osceola and Renegade. School songs include the alma mater, "High Over Towering Pines" along with the "Hymn to the Garnet and Gold" and the "FSU Fight Song".

Florida State's school colors of garnet and gold are a merging of the University's past. In 1904 and 1905 the Florida State College won football championships wearing purple and gold uniforms. When FSC became Florida State College for Women in 1905, the football team was forced to attend an all male school in Gainesville. The following year, the FSCW student body selected crimson as the official school color. The administration in 1905 took crimson and combined it with the recognizable purple of the championship football teams to achieve the color garnet. The now famous garnet and gold colors were first used on an FSU uniform in a 14-6 loss to Stetson on October 18, 1947. *

FSU is also the home of the Marching Chiefs, the largest collegiate marching band in the world. The Marching Chiefs are the force behind the famous "War Chant".

School Athletics

Also see: Florida State University Seminoles for detailed sports information.

The school has an athletic department with programs for men and for women. The men's program consists of as baseball, basketball, cross country running, football, golf, swimming, tennis, and track & field. The women's program consists of basketball, cross country running, golf, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track & field, and volleyball.

The school's athletic teams are called the Seminoles. This Native American name is used with official sanction of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc. They participate in the NCAA's Division I (Division I-A for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Their traditional rivals include the Gators of the University of Florida and the Hurricanes of the University of Miami.

Under head coach Bobby Bowden, currently in his 30th year, the Seminole football team became one of the nation's perennial powers, greatly expanding the tradition that had been virtually non-existent for the 30 years of football before Bowden. The Seminoles played in five national championship games between 1993 and 2001, and have claimed the championship twice, in 1993 and 1999. The FSU football team was one of the most successful teams in college football during the 1990s, boasting an 89% winning percentage. FSU also set an NCAA record for most consecutive Top 5 finishes in the AP football poll - the Seminoles received placement 14 years in a row, from 1987 to 2000. The Seminoles were the first college football team in history to go wire-to-wire (ranked first place from preseason to postseason) since the AP began releasing preseason rankings in 1950.

In 2005, FSU's men's football team won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship, earning them a berth in the 2006 FedEx Orange Bowl, in which the #22 ranked Seminoles lost 26-23 in triple overtime against #3 ranked Penn State University. FSU head coach Bobby Bowden is the winningest college football coach in the NCAA with 359 career wins, followed by Penn State's Joe Paterno with 354. FSU football is well-known for introducing great talent into the NFL, including Deion Sanders, Derrick Brooks, Anquan Boldin, Javon Walker, Warrick Dunn, and Peter Boulware in recent history.

Facilities

  • Westcott Building
  • WFSU - FSU's Public Broadcast Center
  • WVFS
  • FSU is home to a pair of cutting edge nuclear resonance magnets that are used for theoretical physics research as well as for developing cures for cancer and neurological disorders. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), or "Mag Lab", is one of only nine such facilities in the world.
  • Also notable is FSU's Antarctic Research Facility, the largest repository of Antarctic sedimentary core samples in the world.

For a listing of athletic facilities please see Florida State University Seminoles.

Notable alumni

Athletics

Please see: Notable Florida State Seminoles

Education

Entertainment

Government

Meteorology

Military

Social Sciences

Space Exploration

More distinguished/notable alumni can be found at the FSU Alumni Association, *.

Nobel Laureates on Staff

Pulitzer Prize Winners on Staff

Rhodes Scholars

External links

Athletics Fansites

Film schools | Florida State University | Music schools in the United States | Public universities | Schools of Medicine in the United States | Universities and colleges in Florida | Nursing schools in Florida | Tallahassee, Florida | Colleges and universities | Florida State University | Universidad Estatal de Florida

 

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