About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Florida International University

Encyclopedia : F : FL : FLO : Florida International University

Florida International University (FIU) is a state-run university in Miami-Dade County, Florida, well-known for its, business, hospitality management, creative writing, architecture, and management information systems programs. It currently has more than 37,000 students, 1,100 full-time faculty, and 100,000 alumni, making it the largest university in South Florida.

Contents

History

Birth of the idea

The founding of FIU began with state Senator Ernest 'Cap' Graham (the father of former Florida governor and former U.S. Senator Bob Graham), who presented the initial proposal to the Florida legislature in 1943 to establish a state university in South Florida. Graham was ahead of his time, recognizing that Miami needed a state university to serve its growing population. While his bill did not pass, the Senator Graham persisted in presenting his proposal to his colleagues, warning them that Miami needed a state university.

In 1965, Florida Senator Robert M. Haverfield introduced Senate Bill 711, which instructed the state Board of Education and the Board of Regents (BOR) to begin planning for the development of a state university in Miami. The governor signed the bill into law in June 1965, and FIU was on its way to becoming a reality.

FIU's founding president Charles "Chuck" Perry, who died in 1999, was appointed by the Board of Regents in July 1969 after a nationwide search. Just 31 years old, the new president was the youngest in the history of the State University System and, at the time, the youngest university president in the country.

Perry recruited the three co-founders - Butler Waugh, Donald McDowell and Nick Sileo - who came to abandoned Tamiami Airport in the summer of 1969 and launched the monumental task of creating a new university. Alvah Chapman, former Miami Herald publisher and Knight Ridder chairman, used his civic standing and media power to assist the effort. In the 1980s, Chapman would become chair of the FIU Foundation Board of Trustees.

Opening of the doors

In September 1972, 5,667 students finally entered the new state university. Miami had been the largest city in the country lacking a public baccalaureate-granting institution, and now it finally had a university that offered both accessibility and affordability. Eighty percent of the student body had just graduated from Miami-Dade Community College. A typical student entering FIU was 25 years old and attending school full-time while holding down a full-time job. Forty-three percent were married. FIU was far from a typical university.

Negotiations with University of Miami and Miami-Dade Community College led FIU to open as an upper-division only school. It would be 10 years before and lower-division classes were added.

The first commencement, held in June 1973, was held in the reading room of the ground floor of Primera Casa (today called the Perry Building) - the only place large enough on campus for the ceremony. More than 1,500 family members and friends watched FIU's first class of 191 graduates receive their diplomas.

By late 1975, after seven years at the helm, Chuck Perry felt he had accomplished his goal and left the University to become president and publisher of Family Weekly, one of the country's largest magazines. When he left, there were over 10,000 students attending classes and a campus with five major buildings and a sixth being planned.

Expansion and rise to elite status

Harold Crosby, the University's second president and the founding president of the University of West Florida in Pensacola, agreed in 1976 to serve a three-year "interim" term. Under his leadership, the North Campus (which would be officially renamed the Biscayne Bay Campus in February) - located on the former Interama site on Biscayne Bay - was opened in 1977. State Senator Jack Gordon was instrumental in securing funding for the development of the campus. President Crosby was also insistent that the "I" in FIU be highlighted, which prompted the launching of new programs with an international focus and the recruitment of faculty from the Caribbean and Latin America. President Crosby's resignation in January 1979, triggered the search for a "permanent" president.

Gregory Baker Wolfe, a former United States diplomat and then-president of Portland State University became FIU's third president, from 1979-1986. After stepping down as president, Wolfe went on to teach in the university's International Relations department. The student union on the Biscayne Bay Campus is named in his honor.

In 1986, Dr. Modesto A. Maidique became President of FIU. Maidique set forth a number of goals for the institution, including a substantial growth in its ability to serve the local population, the addition of a football team to the sports program, and the development of programs in architecture, law, and medicine. These goals have been achieved - FIU has since grown to become the largest university in the Miami region, with a budget of over $400 million. In 2002, FIU achieved two major milestones: fielding its first football team, and opening the first public law school in South Florida, the Florida International University College of Law. In March of 2006, the Florida Board of Governors approved FIU's bid to open a medical school, which will begin operating in 2008.

Academics

The University offers more than 190 bachelor's degree, master's degree and doctorate programs in 20 colleges and schools:

Recognition

In 2000, FIU received the highest research university ranking conferred by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. That same year, FIU was awarded Phi Beta Kappa chapter, the country's oldest and most distinguished academic honor society. FIU is one of only 78 universities nationwide to hold both designations.

FIU has been ranked among the top 100 public national universities in the U.S. News & World Report annual guide to "America's Best Colleges." FIU was the youngest institution in that group. However, FIU was placed in the fourth tier of the National Universities category which includes both public and private schools [[1]]. The magazine also reported that FIU students are among the least indebted college students in the nation, and it recognized the university as a "best buy" in higher education.

In 1998, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine ranked FIU as the country's 18th best value in public higher education. FIU was named one of the top 10 public commuter colleges in the U.S. in the 1995 edition of Money Guide, an annual report published by Money magazine, and has been cited in several other of the country's leading college guides.

FIU's engineering programs are consistently ranked among the best in the United States. The program is well-funded, partly from major research projects. The university is 7th among all universities - public and private - in the number of U.S. Patents.

The 1999 National CPA Examination Report noted that FIU Accounting graduates ranked first in the nation in passing the CPA exam on the first try and are consistently (last 5 years) ranked in the top 5 in their exam scores. In January 2001, the Academy of Management Journal ranked FIU's College of Business Administration (CBA) Management Information Systems (MIS) unit the 11th best in the U.S. The Creative Writing Program is ranked among the top ten in the country by "Who Runs American Literature?" in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. The School of Hospitality Management is recognized by industry leaders as one of the nation's top five hospitality management programs.

U.S. News and World Report recently ranked FIU's International Business Undergraduate and Graduate programs as the 7th and 18th best in the nation, respectively (America's Best Colleges 2006, America's Best Graduate Schools 2007).

In March 2006, Fortune Small Business listed FIU as one of the country's "10 Cool Colleges for Entrepreneurs" for its cutting-edge curriculum.

Facilities

View of the College of Business Administration building from the northern entrance to FIU's University Park campus.
Enlarge
View of the College of Business Administration building from the northern entrance to FIU's University Park campus.


The eight-story Green Library at FIU's University Park campus is the University's largest building and the largest library in the Southeastern United States.
Enlarge
The eight-story Green Library at FIU's University Park campus is the University's largest building and the largest library in the Southeastern United States.

FIU has two major campuses and several minor campuses around South Florida. The largest campus, University Park (UP), encompasses 342 acres (1.4 km²) in west Miami-Dade County, Florida, several miles southwest of Miami International Airport. Until recent years, aerial pictures of the campus clearly revealed the features of the airport that used to occupy the space. Construction has obliterated most of these features, however - and has caused some disconcertion among students. With several major buildings now under construction at any given time, already-stressed parking lots have been closed off from student use, serving instead as staging areas for construction equipment. Current construction on the University Park campus includes an independent art museum, new housing and parking facilities, a College of Law building, and a Business School complex.

The University Park Campus suffered a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina as it passed through South Florida on August 25 2005. The storm felled many trees and damaged buildings under construction, but existing campus facilities experienced little damage, and the University was able to open for the Fall semester as scheduled on August 29 2005.

The Biscayne Bay Campus (BBC) in North Miami is about 200 acres (809,000 m²), directly on the bay and adjacent to the Oleta River State Park, with which FIU has a research partnership. Access to these resources has inspired the creation of a marine biology program on the BBC campus, for which a state-of-the-art facility is now in the late stages of construction. The BBC campus is also adjacent to the Munisport Landfill, known to locals as Munisport Dump, a site previously listed on the Federal Superfund list as one of the country's most toxic waste dumps. That area is now being developed with condominiums, and a large high school. University buses run between the main campuses throughout the day on school days.[link]

The main campuses contain all of the University's student housing facilities, with 1,900 beds distributed throughout various apartment buildings and smaller dormitory facilities on the University Park Campus, and another 300 in a single apartment building on the Biscayne Bay Campus. There is a main push for housing on the South Campus, with the opening of two new residence halls in the last 5 years and a planned 850-bed residence hall currently under construction.

The Campus Libraries combine to host over 1.5 million volumes.

Smaller campuses include:

In the summer of 2006, the University will open a campus in Tianjin, China, from which a branch of its Hospitality Management program will operate. The facility is being constructed as a cooperative venture with the local municipal government.

Athletics

The FIU logo displaying the Golden Panther mascot.
Enlarge
The FIU logo displaying the Golden Panther mascot.

FIU is a member of the NCAA participating in Division I and the Sun Belt Conference in all sports except for men's soccer (which competes in Conference USA as an affiliate member). It joined the conference in 1998. Their colors are dark blue and gold, and their nickname is the "Golden Panthers". The school's original nickname was the "Sunblazers", but it was changed in 1987 to the current one.

FIU competes in the following 11 sports:

FIU's athletics department has produced several professional and Olympic athletes, including current players in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the National Basketball Association.

FIU won two NCAA Division II national championships in men's soccer in 1982 and 1984. To date these are the only national titles the university has achieved in athletic competition at any level. It is of note that the men's soccer team also reached the Division I championship game in 1996, but lost the match to St. John's University 4-1.

As previously mentioned, the men's soccer team competes as an affiliate member of Conference USA. This relationship began in 2005 and was formed since the Sun Belt Conference does not sponsor a men's soccer competition. Prior to this the team played in the Atlantic Soccer Conference from 2000 to 2004.

The old FIU athletics logo used predominantly during 1990's.
Enlarge
The old FIU athletics logo used predominantly during 1990's.

The school's football team competes in the annual Shula Bowl against in-state rival Florida Atlantic University (FAU). The team plays its home games on campus at FIU Stadium. The head coach of the team is ex-NFL quarterback Don Strock.

The men's and women's basketball teams, along with the women's volleyball team, play their home games on campus at the Pharmed Arena.

The baseball team plays its home games on campus at University Park Stadium.

FIU had previously competed in the Trans America Athletic Conference from 1991 to 1998, the conference later became known as the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001.

Activities

FIU has the typical array of student organizations, fraternities and sororities, and honor societies. Because of the sizable branch campus in North Miami, FIU has long had two separate student governments.

The student newspaper is called The Beacon. It publishes two times a week on Mondays and Thursdays and is distributed throughout both campuses.

FIU has a student-run radio station, WRGP, 'Radiate FM', broadcasting from Homestead, FL on 88.1 MHz. A broadcast translator rebroadcasts Radiate FM's signal on 95.3 Mhz on the south campus. Another translator may soon be installed at the north campus, broadcasting on 96.9 Mhz.

Other

The National Hurricane Center (NOAA) is located at the University Park campus.

The Team Ropes Adventure Challenge program is located at the Biscayne Bay Campus.

Notable alumni

FIU now has over 100,000 alumni, including:

Athletics

Law and politics

Authors and entertainers

Others

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: