Florida State University
Florida State University is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the state. Chartered in 1851, it is located on Florida's oldest continuous site of higher education.
Florida State University maintains 17 colleges, as well as 58 centers, facilities, labs, institutes, and professional training programs. In 2024, the university enrolled 44,308 students from all 50 states and 130 countries. Florida State is home to Florida's only national laboratory, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and was instrumental in the commercial development of the anti-cancer drug Taxol. Florida State University also operates the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida and one of the nation's largest museum/university complexes. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production". Per 2023 National Science Foundation data the university had research and development expenditures of $414.46 million and ranked 79th out of 890 evaluated institutions. The university has an annual budget of $3 billion and an annual estimated economic impact of $15.5 billion.
Florida State has a collaborative relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida and is allowed to use the name Seminoles and certain imagery. FSU's intercollegiate sports teams, known by their "Florida State Seminoles" nickname, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Florida State's varsity teams have won 19 all-time national athletic championships in nine sports.
History
Florida State University is traceable to a plan set by the 1823 U.S. Congress to create a higher education system. The 1838 Florida Constitution codified the primary system by providing for land allocated for the schools. In 1845 Congress passed the law admitting Florida as the 27th state. In a supplementary act to the law granting admission, Congress authorized two townships to host seminaries, one east and one west of the Suwannee River.In 1851, the Florida Legislature authorized the seminaries to be awarded to the two towns offering the best school support. The legislature declared the first purpose of these institutions was to train male and female teachers in all subjects generally taught at public schools, then to educate the public in agriculture, science, law and citizenship.
While the East Seminary was settled in Ocala in 1853, the West Seminary state institution opportunity created a contentious fight between the towns of Quincy, Marianna, and Tallahassee. Quincy dropped out of the competition in the following years, while Marianna and Tallahassee refused to yield. Failing to resolve the impasse, the conflict was returned to the governor and legislature for resolution. In 1854, as an incentive to the state, Tallahassee re-established an old school for boys, now called the Florida Institute, and combined the school with land and buildings. The legislature finally awarded Tallahassee with the West Seminary in 1856. The governor signed the law on January 1, 1857. In October 1858 the school was made coeducational by incorporating the Female Institute, which was located nearby.
The West Florida Seminary was located on the former Florida Institute property. The area, slightly west of the state Capitol, was formerly and ominously known as Gallows Hill, a place for public executions in early Tallahassee.
Civil War and Reconstruction
During 1860–1861, the legislature amended the 1851 law and started military instruction for students, partly due to the desire to protect the instructional staff from conscription, which would have closed the school. During the Civil War, the seminary became "'The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute.'" Enrollment grew to around 250 students. The school arguably became the state's largest and most respected educational institution. In 1865, at the Battle of Natural Bridge south of Tallahassee, cadets from the school joined active-duty Confederate troops in the defensive line.The cadets were trained by Valentine Mason Johnson and led into battle by Captain D.W. Gwynn. Some reports show the cadets played a minor role in the battle defending artillery pieces. The combined Confederate forces defeated attacking Union forces leaving Tallahassee as the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to Union forces.
At the surrender of Florida, Union military forces disarmed the cadets and used campus buildings as barracks until September 1865. The school then reopened and resumed its academic purpose. The FSU Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps is authorized to display a battle streamer Natural Bridge 1865. FSU is one of four institutions that can display a military battle streamer.
First state university
In 1883, the institution officially known as the West Florida Seminary was organized by the Board of Education as the Literary College of the University of Florida. Under the new university charter, the seminary became the institution's Literary College and was to contain several "schools" or departments in different disciplines. However, in the new university association the seminary's "separate Charter and special organization" were maintained. Florida University also incorporated the Tallahassee College of Medicine and Surgery, and recognized three more colleges to be established at a later date. The Florida Legislature recognized the university under the title " University of Florida" in Spring 1885 but committed no additional financing or support. Without legislative support, the university project struggled. The institution never assumed the "university" title, and the association dissolved when the medical college relocated to Jacksonville later that year.According to Doak Campbell, Florida State University's fifth president, "During the first 50 years...its activities were limited to courses of secondary-school grade. Progress was slow. Indeed, it was not until the turn of the century that it could properly qualify as a collegiate institution." In 1901, it became Florida State College.
Buckman Act
The 1905 Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the Florida college system into a school for white men, a school for white women, and a school for African Americans. The Buckman Act was controversial, as it changed the character of a historic coeducational state school into a school for women. The school's early and major benefactor, James Westcott III, willed substantial monies to support continued operations. In 1911, his estate sued the state educational board contending the estate was not intended to support a single-sex school. The Florida Supreme Court decided the issue in favor of the state, stating the change in character was within the intent of the Westcott will. By 1933 the Florida State College for Women had grown to be the third largest women's college in the US. It was the first state women's college in the South to be awarded a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, as well as the first university in Florida so honored. Florida State was the largest of the original two state universities in Florida until 1919.Return to coeducational status
Returning soldiers using the G.I. Bill after World War II stressed the state university system to the point that a Tallahassee Branch of the University of Florida was opened on the campus of the Florida State College for Women with the men housed in barracks on nearby Dale Mabry Field. By 1947 the Florida Legislature returned the FSCW to coeducational status and designated it Florida State University. The FSU West Campus land and barracks plus other areas continually used as an airport later became the location of the Tallahassee Community College. The post-war years brought substantial growth and development to the university as many departments and colleges were added, including Business, Journalism, Library Science, Nursing, and Social Welfare. Strozier Library, and Tully Gymnasium were built at this time.Activism
Civil rights
Florida State University ranked third in the United States for free speech and thought in a ranking released in 2024 by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.After many years as a whites-only university, in 1962, Maxwell Courtney became the first African-American undergraduate student admitted to Florida State. Fred Flowers joined the FSU baseball team as the first African-American athlete in university history in 1965. In 1966 Lenny Hall became the first African-American basketball player for Florida State. In 1968 Calvin Patterson became the first African-American player for the university football team.
During the 1960s and 1970s Florida State University became a center for student activism especially in the areas of racial integration, women's rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War. The school acquired the nickname "Berkeley of the South" during this period, about similar student activities at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is also said to have originated the 1970s fad of "streaking," said to have been first observed on Landis Green.
In 1972 Margaret Menzel, a professor in the biology department, led a class-action lawsuit charging discrimination against women in pay and promotion. The case was settled in 1975 with an agreement that the university would establish a task force to investigate bias against women at the university and to revise its anti-nepotism policy so as to not discriminate against the wives of university employees. Bill Wade, a gay male student, was elected homecoming princess using the name "Billie Dahhling" in 1980. While Wade's election may initially have been more college prank than protest, the controversy of the social acceptance of homosexuality was evident at FSU in the 1980s. Official university policy established in 2013 prohibits discrimination against multiple protected groups, including the LGBT community.