University of Florida
The University of Florida is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. The university traces its origins to 1853 and has operated continuously on its Gainesville campus since September 1906.
After the Florida state legislature's creation of performance standards in 2013, the Florida Board of Governors designated the University of Florida as a "preeminent university". The University of Florida is one of three members of the Association of American Universities in Florida and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production".
The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It is the third largest U.S. public university by student population and is the fifth largest single-campus university in the United States with 54,814 students enrolled in fall 2023. The University of Florida is home to 16 academic colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes. It offers multiple graduate professional programs—including business administration, engineering, law, dentistry, medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine—on one contiguous campus and administers 123 master's degree programs and 76 doctoral degree programs in 87 schools and departments. The university's seal is also the seal of the state of Florida, which is on the state flag, though in blue rather than multiple colors.
The University of Florida's intercollegiate sports teams, the Florida Gators, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I and the Southeastern Conference. University of Florida students and alumni have won 143 Olympic medals, including 69 gold medals.
History
Origins
The modern University of Florida traces its origins to 1853, when the East Florida Seminary, the oldest of its four predecessor institutions, was founded in 1853 as the East Florida Seminary in Ocala, Florida. The seminary was Florida's first state-supported institution of higher learning and operated until 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War. In 1866, the East Florida Seminary reopened in Gainesville on the grounds of the Gainesville Academy, a small private college that had closed during the war.The second precursor to the University of Florida was Florida Agricultural College, the state's first land-grant college under the Morrill Act, established in Lake City in 1884. The Florida Legislature, looking to expand FAC's curriculum beyond agricultural and engineering offerings, changed the school's name to the "University of Florida" for the 1903–1904 academic year. This name was in use for two years.
"University of the State of Florida"
In 1905, the Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the state's publicly supported institutions of higher education. Under the act, Florida's six state-supported institutions were merged to form the State University System of Florida under the newly established Florida Board of Control. Four institutions were combined to create a new "University of the State of Florida" for white men: the University of Florida at Lake City, the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School in St. Petersburg, and the South Florida Military College in Bartow.The Buckman Act also created two other institutions segregated by race and gender: Florida Female College for white women and the State Normal School for Colored Students for African-American men and women, both in Tallahassee.
The Buckman Act did not specify where the new University of the State of Florida would be located. The City of Gainesville, led by its mayor William Reuben Thomas, campaigned to be the site of the new university, with its primary competitor being Lake City. After a brief but intense period of lobbying, the Board of Control selected Gainesville on July 6, 1905, and funds were allocated for the construction of a new campus on the western edge of the town. However, because the facilities in Gainesville would not be ready to accept students for several months, the new university was housed in the former campus of Florida Agricultural College in Lake City during the 1905–1906 academic year. Former FAC president Andrew Sledd was chosen to be the first president of the University of the State of Florida.
The University of the State of Florida's first semester in Gainesville began on September 26, 1906, with an enrollment of 102 students. Two buildings had been completed at the time: Buckman Hall, named after the primary author of the law that created the university, and Thomas Hall, named after the mayor of Gainesville who had led the successful effort to bring the school to town. Both structures were designed by William A. Edwards, who designed many of the university's original buildings in the Collegiate Gothic style in his role as lead architect for Florida's Board of Control.
During his term, first university president Andrew Sledd often clashed with key members of the Board of Control over his insistence on rigorous admissions requirements, which his detractors claimed was unreasonably impeding the growth of enrollment. Sledd resigned over these issues in 1909.
Growth, mascots, and establishment of colleges
Florida State College for Women president Albert Murphree was named UF's second president before the 1909–1910 academic year, which was also when the school's name was simplified from the "University of the State of Florida" to the "University of Florida". Murphree oversaw a reorganization of the university that included the establishment of several colleges, beginning with colleges of law, engineering, and liberal arts and sciences by 1910. Murphree was also instrumental in the founding of the Florida Blue Key leadership society and in building total enrollment from under 200 to over 2000. He is the only University of Florida president honored with a statue on campus.The alligator became the school's informal mascot when a local vendor designed and sold school pennants imprinted with the animal, which is very common in lakes in and around Gainesville and throughout the state. The 'gator was a popular choice, and the university's sports teams had officially adopted the nickname by 1911. The school colors of orange and blue were also officially established in 1911, though the reasons for the choice are unclear. The most likely rationale was that they are a combination of the colors of the university's two largest predecessor institutions, as the East Florida Seminary used orange and black while Florida Agricultural College used blue and white. The older schools' colors may have been an homage to early Scottish and Ulster-Scots Presbyterian settlers of north central Florida, whose ancestors were originally from Northern Ireland and the Scottish Lowlands.
In 1924, the Florida Legislature mandated women of a "mature age" who had completed sixty semester hours from a "reputable educational institution" be allowed to enroll during regular semesters at the University of Florida in programs that were unavailable at Florida State College for Women. Before this, only the summer semester was coeducational, to accommodate women teachers who wanted to further their education during the summer break. Lassie Goodbread-Black from Lake City became the first woman to enroll at the University of Florida, in the College of Agriculture in 1925.
Murphree died in 1928 and John J. Tigert was named UF's third president. Early in his tenure, Tigert helped organize the semi-independent University Athletic Association to plan the construction of Florida Field and operate the school's athletic programs. Disgusted by the under-the-table payments being made by universities to athletes, Tigert established the grant-in-aid athletic scholarship program in the early 1930s, which was the genesis of the modern athletic scholarship plan used by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Inventor and educator Blake R. Van Leer was hired as Dean to launch new engineering departments and scholarships. Van Leer also managed all applications for federal funding, chaired the Advanced Planning Committee per Tigert's request. These efforts included consulting for the Florida Emergency Relief Administration throughout the 1930s.
Post World War II
Beginning in 1946, there was dramatically increased interest among male applicants who wanted to attend the University of Florida, mostly returning World War II veterans who could attend college under the GI Bill of Rights. Unable to immediately accommodate this increased demand, the Florida Board of Control opened the Tallahassee Branch of the University of Florida on the campus of Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee. By the end of the 1946–47 school year, 954 men were enrolled at the Tallahassee Branch. The following semester, the Florida Legislature returned the Florida State College for Women to coeducational status and renamed it Florida State University. These events also opened up all of the colleges that comprise the University of Florida to female students. Florida Women's Hall of Fame member Maryly Van Leer became the first woman to receive from the University of Florida a master's degree in engineering.African-American students were allowed to enroll starting in 1958. From its inception until 1958, only white students were allowed to study at the University of Florida. In 1958, George H. Starke became the first Black student.
Starting in the late 1950s, University of Florida faculty and students were monitored and interrogated by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, also known as the Johns Committee, with the goal of exposing homosexual behavior at the university. University president J. Wayne Reitz cooperated with the investigation, which caused at least 15 faculty and 50 students to leave or be forced out of the university after the committee targeted them. The committee's work culminated in the publication of a report called Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida in 1964. The Johns Committee is considered a late extension of McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare.
Rapid campus expansion began in the 1950s and continues today. The Carleton Auditorium, Century Tower, Little Hall, Beaty Towers, the Constans Theatre, Library West, and the Reitz Student Union were all completed during this period. Shands Hospital opened in 1958 along with the University of Florida College of Medicine to join the established College of Pharmacy. The J. Wayne Reitz Union, the student union of the University of Florida, was completed in 1967. The union was named in honor of J. Wayne Reitz, the fifth president of the university, who served from 1955 to 1967. Library West was constructed in 1967 and was originally designated as the "Graduate Research Library." Library East was at the same time designated as the undergraduate library.