('''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 .
The founding of FIU began with Senator
Ernest 'Cap' Graham (the father of former Florida governor and current 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 passed away 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.
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. From the very beginning FIU was a stealth operation, planning to become a great university while always appearing to be close to complete failure. 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.
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. 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.
The University offers more than 190
Bachelor's Degree ,
Master's Degree and
Doctorate programs in 20 colleges and schools:
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.
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, 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.
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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.
- 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.
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.
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 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.
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 Government s.
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.
The
National Hurricane Center (NOAA) is located at the University Park campus.
FIU now has over 100,000 alumni, including:
- Liz Balmaseda , two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
- Richard Blanco , Cuban-American poet
- Michael Chiarello , celebrity Chef
- Andy Garcia , actor
- Dennis Lehane , author of '' Mystic River ''
- Campbell McGrath , poet, '' The Bob Hope Poem ''
- Danny Pino , actor, '' Cold Case '' on CBS
- Nadia Turner , singer, '' American Idol '' contestant
