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The University of Florida (also known as Florida or UF) is a public university and land-grant institution located in Gainesville, Florida. It is the fourth-largest university in the United States with 49,693 students served by the eighth-largest budget (nearly $1.9 billion per year). As an academic institution, UF places 1st in the state of Florida, 16th among US public universities, and 50th overall by US News and World Report among US national undergraduate universities in 2006. UF is recognized as one of the Public Ivies and is a member of the Association of American Universities. Also, in a recent study, UF ranked 57th among the world's top 500 universities based on a host of various criteria.*

Noted as the place where Gatorade was created, UF ranks first among public institutions and second among all institutions in the number of National Merit Scholar students enrolled, although this is likely to change in the coming years, as UF has recently unveiled drastic reductions to the size of scholarships offered to potential National Merit Scholars recruits. UF is the alma mater of more current members of the U.S. Congress than any other public university as currently nine alumni serve in the House or Senate.*

History

The June 5, 1905 Buckman Act created the current University of Florida by removing funding for existing educational institutions, including the University of Florida at Lake City (formerly Florida Agricultural College), the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School at St. Petersburg and the South Florida Military College at Bartow consolidating them under state control as the University of the State of Florida. On July 6, the state legislature selected Gainesville for a new university campus. Andrew Sledd from the University of Florida at Lake City became the first president, while architect William A. Edwards designed the first campus buildings in the collegiate gothic style. Classes began on September 26, 1906. In 1909 the name was shortened to the University of Florida.

1905 was considered the university's official founding date until 1935, when the date was changed to 1853 by Attorney General Cary D. Landis at the request of UF's third president John J. Tigert. 1853 is the founding date of the East Florida Seminary in Ocala, the earliest founded institution of the colleges which became the University of Florida. The East Florida Seminary had an unusual history in its short existence. It was founded in Ocala by Gilbert Kingsbury to take advantage of legislation passed in 1851 to establish the creation of two seminaries. It briefly closed during the Civil War and reopened in Gainesville having been moved by an act of the Legislature in 1866, and finally ended up being assimilated into the modern University of Florida created by the Buckman Act.

The Buckman Act established the University of Florida as the only public school in Florida for white males. In 1947, UF began allowing women to enroll. Admission of African-American students began in 1958.

Shands Hospital at UF first opened in 1958 along with the medical school. Rapid campus expansion began in the 1950s and continues to the present. In 1985, Florida became a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), the prestigious higher-education organization comprised of the top 62 public and private institutions in North America. UF is one of only 17 public, land-grant universities that belongs to the association.

Throughout the 1950s, UF was one of the Florida universities that was the target an ongoing investigation by a McCarthyist committee of the state legislature, headed by Charley Johns, which resulted in a number of LGBT students' and faculty members' being ousted from the University and the publication of the Purple Pamphlet.

The alligator was chosen as the school mascot in 1911. The school colors, blue and orange, are thought to have come from both the Blue and Gold of the University of Florida at Lake City and the Orange and Black of East Florida Seminary at Gainesville. *

Historic Sites

The University of Florida Campus Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The district includes 19 buildings, eleven of which had been added to the register previously. Two buildings outside the historic district, the old WRUF radio station (now the university police station) and the old P. K. Yonge Laboratory School (now Norman Hall), are also listed on the register.

Additionally, a former East Florida Seminary residence building, Epworth Hall, is listed on the register. Epworth Hall is now part of the First United Methodist Church of Gainesville.

Academics

UF is divided into sixteen colleges*, which offer over 100 undergraduate majors and an equally wide array of 200 graduate degrees, including the only public pharmacy, dentistry, and veterinary medicine programs in the state. The centerpiece of the journalism programs at UF is WUFT, which consists of both a PBS television station and an NPR radio station. The commercial radio station, WRUF AM850, is also one of the oldest stations in the state.

The acceptance rate at UF has trended downward as the applicant pool has become more competitive. In 2005, the average incoming freshman had an average weighted GPA of 3.9, a SAT score of 1340, and an ACT composite of 29. The university has a freshmen retention rate of 92%. Undergraduate tuition is around $120 per credit-hour for Florida residents, and $520 per credit-hour for out-of-state students, with a typical load of 30 credits per year.

National Merit Scholars, as of the Fall 2007 term, are no longer being offered a competitive academic scholarship upon enrolling at UF. In past years, the university heavily recruited National Merit Scholars by offering $5,500 per academic year in scholarships, as well as a single $2,000 research stipend for summer study. That scholarship package has now been reduced to $1,250 per year plus a single $1,000 research stipend.

The University of Florida is home to an Honors College that offers many honors courses to students who earned SAT/ACT scores of 1400/33 or above. The Honors program lasts for a student's first two years, but Honors program services and courses remain available to upperclassmen. Honors students must complete four honors courses to be awarded an A.A. degree with honors or high honors. Honors at the bachelors degree level are determined by rules set by the student's College and major.

The university is 13th among all universities - public and private - in the number of U.S. Patents awarded in 2000.

Student Government

Student government at the University of Florida consists of an executive, judicial, and unicameral legislative branch.

The executive branch consists of a President, Vice President, Treasurer, 9 agencies, and 41 cabinets. The President, Vice President, and Treasurer are elected in annual elections held in the spring. The legislative branch is composed of 92 senators, who serve one year terms. 46 senate seats are elected each spring semester and the remaining 46 are elected each fall semester. The judicial branch has four functional components: The Student Honor Court, Student Traffic Court, Campus Conduct Committee, and Residence Hall Conduct Board.

Colleges

The University of Florida is divided into 16 colleges and more than 100 research, service and education centers, bureaus and institutes--offering more than 100 undergraduate majors.

These colleges include:

Athletics

The school's sports teams are called the Florida Gators and compete in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA's Division I-A. Florida dedicates about $44 million per year to its sports teams and facilities. For the sixth time, UF swept the overall men's and women's Southeastern Conference All-Sports Trophy in 2002. With its third-place finish in the 2001-02 Sears Directors' Cup rankings, Florida has ranked among the nation's top 10 athletic departments for 19 straight years.

Football

The Gator football team became a commanding force in college football when Steve Spurrier became head coach in the 1990s. Spurrier quickly built the Gators into the dominant team in the SEC, winning a string of conference championships. In 1996, the Gators, led by Spurrier and quarterback Danny Wuerffel, won their first national championship. In January 2001, Spurrier left the Gators to coach the NFL's Washington Redskins. He was replaced by Ron Zook who, in October 2004, was fired in the middle of his third season but remained coach for the rest of the regular season. In December 2004, Urban Meyer, previously the coach of the Utah Utes, replaced Zook as the head football coach. While the team is no longer at the same level of dominance it enjoyed under Spurrier, it still consistently posts highly successful seasons. Traditional football rivals include the Seminoles of Florida State University, the Hurricanes of the University of Miami, the Bulldogs of the University of Georgia, and since the early 1990's the Volunteers of the University of Tennessee. The Gators' home stadium is Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field or "The Swamp".

Basketball

The UF men's basketball squad has also come to prominence in recent years. They went to the Final Four in 1994 under coach Lon Kruger. Since 1996, they have been coached by Billy Donovan, who is credited with bringing national acclaim to the program. Donovan returned the Gators to the Final Four in 2000, and into the NCAA Championship game, where they lost to Michigan State. They won their first Southeastern Conference Tournament title in 2005, beating the University of Kentucky, their primary basketball rival. After repeating as SEC tournament champs in 2006, the Gators went on to win the first basketball National Championship in the history of the state of Florida, defeating the UCLA Bruins on April 3, 73-57, at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Alumni

Famous UF alumni include:

Arts, Literature, Humanities and Entertainment

Science

Sports

Sportcasters

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Golf

Olympics

Government and Military

Other

  • Keith Koenig, who received both his undergraduate and graduate degree from the University of Florida. Currently, he serves as President and CEO of City Furniture, a leading furniture retailer in the South Florida region.

The University of Florida has more of its graduates in the United States Congress than any other university or college in the country - currently nine alumni serve in the House or Senate. In the last four decades, more presidents of the American Bar Association have come from the Levin College of Law than any other U.S. law school.

See also

References

External links

Athletics

History

Registered Historic Places in Florida | Universities and colleges in Florida | University of Florida | National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association | Southeastern Conference

University of Florida | دانشگاه فلوریدا | Université de Floride | Universitas Floridensis | フロリダ大学 | University of Florida

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "University of Florida".

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