Florida International University

From Free net encyclopedia

Florida International University (FIU) is a state-run university in Miami-Dade County, Florida, well-known for its creative writing, hospitality management, international business, 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 public university in South Florida.

1 History
2 Academics
3 Recognition
4 Facilities
5 Athletics
6 Activities
7 Other
8 Notable alumni
9 External links

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History

Although state senator Ernest 'Cap' Graham, father of former Florida governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham, proposed a state university in Miami as early as 1943, the legislature did not approve the project until 1965. In July of 1969, the Florida Board of Regents appointed Charles "Chuck" Perry to be FIU's first University President. Perry was only 31 years old at the time, and was thus the youngest person in the country to hold such a position. The university's main campus, University Park, was built on the site of the old Tamiami Airport, and opened its doors in 1972.

The university's second president, Harold Crosby, served a three-year "interim" term from 1976-1979. Crosby oversaw the opening of a second campus on Biscayne Bay in North Miami in 1977.

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, which 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.

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Academics

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

School of Architecture
College of Arts and Sciences
- School of Music
College of Business Administration
- School of Accounting
- Chapman Graduate School of Business
College of Continuing and Professional Studies
College of Education
College of Engineering and Computing
- School of Computing and Information Sciences
College of Health and Urban Affairs
- School of Health Sciences
- School of Nursing
- School of Social Work, Policy and Management
- Robert Stempel School of Public Health
Honors College
School of Hospitality and Tourism Management
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
College of Law
College of Medicine (set to open in 2008)
University Graduate School

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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 the group. The magazine has reported that FIU students are among the least indebted college students in the nation and 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.

In 2006 U.S. News and World Report ranked FIU's International Business Undergraduate and Graduate programs as the 7th and 22nd best in the nation, respectively.

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Facilities

Image:FIU-CBA.jpg
Image:FIU-GreenLibrary.jpg 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, and a College of Law building.

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.[1]

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:

A 36 acre (145,000 m²) Engineering Center (EC), which houses the College of Engineering, located within two miles of University Park. This campus is also serviced by University transportation. It is also the home of the Motorola Nanofabrication Research Facility.

The FIU Broward site at the Pines Center in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

A tower in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

A campus shared with several other universities and colleges in Davie, Florida

A recently opened site in Homestead, Florida, which is at the southern end of Miami-Dade County.

A museum in Miami Beach, Florida, the Wolfsonian-FIU which specializes in artifacts from the modern era of art and design.

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.

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Athletics

Image:FIU.jpg 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:

baseball
men's & women's basketball
men's & women's cross country running
football
women's golf
men's & women's soccer
softball
women's swimming and diving
women's tennis
men's & women's track and field
women's volleyball

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.

Image:FIU old logo.jpg 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.

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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 88.1 FM, broadcasting from Homestead, FL on 88.1 MHz. A broadcast translator will soon be installed on the University Park campus where the studios are located, retransmitting WRGP's programming on 95.3 MHz for listeners on or near campus.

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