Strengthening the Academic Experience
An unstoppable university never ends its quest to improve the academic enterprise, enhance teaching or offer unconventional ways to learn. Our researchers understand the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Libraries across all four institutions serve as interdisciplinary hubs of teaching and research, ensuring our students’ educational programs reflect the nature of the world without borders we live in today. Our students have opportunities to cross disciplines for study, to travel abroad and become more engaged global citizens, and to stretch their minds far beyond even their own expectations. Our best and brightest students may enroll in our Honors College, which provides an intimate, hands-on learning environment. Generous funding to create more interdisciplinary centers and institutes and to support innovative academic enhancements will yield a more talented workforce and will ultimately promote a more peaceful, just and healthy society.
Enhancing Facilities
USF is conducting some of the most sophisticated and complicated research anywhere. We are asking our students to stretch beyond their comfort zones to embrace as many opportunities as possible so they will emerge as well-rounded individuals with a wealth of skills and experience. Our athletics program, a member of one of the nation’s most prominent athletic conferences, requires gifted student-athletes to choose USF over other high profile institutions recruiting them. USF Polytechnic, in Lakeland, is in the midst of building a new campus as it becomes an anchor for Florida’s innovative High Tech Corridor.
Upgrading labs and classrooms, ensuring the latest technologies are available, and creating exceptional spaces for clinical practice, research and innovation are high priorities for the University of South Florida as we seek to take our place among the finest institutions of higher education anywhere.
Supporting Our Faculty
It should come as no surprise that major research institutions grow in prominence based in part upon the productivity of their researchers. Attracting world-class faculty members, however, is extremely challenging and highly competitive. Though the University of South Florida has several advantages when recruiting new researchers—a beautiful metropolitan setting, an already highly regarded and productive faculty, bright and ambitious students—it needs a competitive edge.
Endowed chairs and professorships, funding for professional development and research, and resources for post-doctoral students—made possible through private philanthropy—are essential not only for recruiting exceptional researchers from their current universities but also for retaining the talent already in place. Support for faculty is critical as we continue to elevate USF’s position on the international higher education stage.
Supporting Our Students
The cost of a college education increases with each passing year. Even public universities like the University of South Florida are financially out of reach for many prospective students. At USF, we pride ourselves on our ability to attract students from a wide range of backgrounds and traditions.
In addition, we seek high-performance students who are also being recruited by top universities all over the country. To attract a diverse and talented undergraduate and graduate student population, however, requires a significant financial investment in the form of scholarships and fellowships. Scholarships for undergraduate students and fellowships for graduate students—made possible through the USF: Unstoppable Campaign—are among the keys to making our student body and, by extension, the entire university, unstoppable. .
