State University System
Networking group anchors at start-up hub
Sun-Sentinel
A technology networking group that hosts events and provides programs and education has located its base at the Technology Business Incubator, located in the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. The move is a boost for the South Florida Technology Alliance and TBI tenants that comprise 23 early stage high-tech companies that seek mentoring and to build deeper relationships within the industry…
Come fly with the ‘Noles
Florida Flambeau
Step right up and witness the Florida State University’s own Flying High Circus, the best show it has to offer! A self-funded organization from its inception, the Flying High Circus was originally founded at FSU in 1947…
‘Florida High’ Ranked Among Nation’s Best High Schools
WCTV
Florida State University Schools’ (FSUS) high school, better known as “Florida High,” has been ranked among the nation’s best high schools by two nationally recognized organizations. Newsweek and the Daily Beast ranked the FSUS high school No. 472 nationally and 30th in Florida in its America’s Best High Schools rankings. The Newsweek/Daily Beast rankings highlight the nation’s best 2,000 public high schools — those that have proven to be the most effective in producing college-ready graduates…
DataSite
Florida Trend
The University of Central Florida is a client, and school officials say the secure off-site storage gives them an added level of comfort that critical records and data can be retrieved in the event of storm damage or other disaster at the school…
St. Petersburg will get an incubator, but much more may be coming
Tampabay.com
The downtown incubator will focus on helping small businesses in innovative industries already anchored in St. Petersburg. We’re talking about the marine sciences niche owned by the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and adjacent SRI International…
Notable National Report:
The Next Generation University
New America Foundation
With the economy stuck in neutral, tuition prices and student loan debt skyrocketing, and parents and students increasingly questioning the value of a college degree, our public institutions urgently need a different approach to the challenge or educating an increasingly diverse mix of students at a reasonable cost. Today, New America’s Education Policy Program released The Next Generation University, a policy report about the future of public higher education. The report comes at a time when too many public universities are failing to respond to the nation’s higher education crisis. Rather than expanding enrollment and focusing limited dollars on the neediest of students, many institutions are instead restricting enrollments and encouraging the use of student-aid dollars on merit awards. But, according to the report, some schools are breaking the mold by boldly restructuring operating costs and creating clear, accelerated pathways for students. The report focuses on six public research universities: Arizona State University, University at Buffalo, University of California at Riverside, University of Central Florida, Georgia State University, and the University of Texas at Arlington. These universities are continuing their commitment to world class research while increasing enrollment and graduation rates, even as the investments from their states have declined…
New America Foundation names UT Arlington one of six national “Next …
The Herald | HeraldOnline.com
Others on the Next Generation Universities list include Arizona State University, University at Buffalo, University of California at Riverside, University of Central Florida and Georgia State University…
State College System
Ocala Wins State Hoops Tourney Bid Away from Chipola
WJHG-TV
Chipola’s bid to continue hosting the juco state basketball tournament was voted down Wednesday by the Florida College System’s Activities Association…
College launches hospitality, tourism program
KeysNet
Florida Keys Community College on Monday formally announced the launch of its Hospitality and Tourism Management Initiative, to be undertaken with various lodgings and restaurants Keyswide…
Though Enrolling More Poor Students, 2-Year Colleges Get Less of Federal Pie
New York Times
The largest, each with tens of thousands of students, include Miami Dade College; Northern Virginia Community College; City College of San Francisco; Lone Star College, in Houston; and Kingsborough Community College, in Brooklyn…
Back to the drawing board for PBSC after veto of state funding for Loxahatchee …
Palm Beach Post
In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. In the criminal justice system, it’s three strikes and you face more prison time. But administrators say three vetoes in three years by a Florida governor won’t stop Palm Beach State College from building its planned campus here. Instead, it will merely make the school consider all its options about how to pay for it…
SPC begins inviting students to $10,000 degree program
Tampa Bay Times
St. Petersburg College is moving forward with plans to offer a $10,000 degree, the higher-ed version of a unicorn frolicking in the Fountain of Youth. SPC was one of 23 state colleges in January to accept Gov. Rick Scott’s “$10,000 Degree Challenge.”Immediately questions arose as to how a college could slash the price tag without sacrificing the degree’s quality…
Independent Colleges and Universities
Student teams compete in NASA’s Lunabotics competition
Florida Today
Team Persistence from Florida Institute of Technology also is making some adjustments based on its trial run…
Gas leak evacuates Rollins College again
Central Florida News 13
For the second time in three days, a gas leak has forced the evacuation of several buildings on the Rollins College campus in Orange County…
Rollins College gas leak prompts evacuations
Orlando Sentinel
A gas leak at Rollins College has prompted the evacuation of about half a dozen campus buildings on its Winter Park campus, according to an alert sent out by the college this morning…
City, Rollins research bike share for SunRail
Winter Park/Maitland Observer
With one year left until SunRail is set to take to the tracks passing through Winter Park, the city is teaming up with students from Rollins College to address a lingering loose end in the system’s planning: the last mile…
UCR Professor: Ethicists’ Behavior Not More Moral
CBS Local
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside and Stetson University in Florida found that ethics professors were no more likely than professors or scholars in other areas of study to respond to student email…
Florida selected as one of five regions to partcipate in the National Lacrosse Classic
Bay News 9
…The Pride of Florida High School Lacrosse Showcase will take place on June 1-2 in Kissimmee, Florida. One hundred of the top high school boys and 50 of the top high school girls have been selected from the Brine regional tryouts. Players will be coached by NCAA lacrosse coaches from University of Tampa, Lynn University and Florida Tech. Bright House Sports Network will broadcast both the boys and girls showcase final games to more than 10 million homes in the Southeast, USA…
For-Profit and Career Colleges
Keiser University College of Golf Special Olympics efforts honored
WorldGolf.com
Keiser University College of Golf & Sport Management (COGSM) students and faculty have been officially recognized by St. Lucie County Special Olympics for their generous and selfless work with Special Olympics golfers throughout 2012…
Yip Yap: Noted and Quoted FLHE Voices from Around the State
Sachs: Invest in Broward’s higher education
Sun-Sentinel
I believe the only true pathway to prosperity is through education. Over the past several years, our colleges and universities have been caught in a budget vise that has squeezed students and programs at every level. As a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, I made it a priority to fight to bring home dollars for our local colleges — and I’m pleased to report that we did. Broward College, Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach State College all saw significant increases in state appropriations. Broward College received a 15 percent increase over last year’s base funding. This moves the Broward College appropriations from $71.1 million last year to this year’s $81.5 million…Sen. Maria Sachs is the recently elected State Senator for District 34 and she sits on the Education Policy Committee and the Education Appropriation Committee.
Smith: FAU’s Not-Soon-Enough-Forgotten Mary Jane Saunders
Sunshine State News
I always stand up for strong women in high places. Ask anybody. Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno, Paula Dockery, Marion Hammer — in times of adversity, I’ve gone to bat for all of them and more. But Mary Jane Saunders? Not in this lifetime. Turns out the $200,000-a-year Florida Atlantic University president was just a woman in a high place. It’s bad enough that she ran down a student protester with her car and failed to quell controversies over two professors’ lessons — one involving stepping on the name Jesus, and the other claiming the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and Boston Marathon bombing were hoaxes. What sends Saunders to the top of the wuss list for me is the stunning lack of backbone she showed by failing to defend a $6 million naming rights contract for the university’s new stadium…
Editorial: No good reason for $500,00 difference among salaries of …
Palm Beach Post
The wide variation in the salaries of Florida’s 28 public college presidents is not a surprise. Each school has a governing board that sets a president’s pay. The surprise in the new report is that nine presidents, including Palm Beach State College’s Dennis Gallon, had contracts that violate state law. Dr. Gallon’s severance package allowed him to receive a year’s compensation or the remainder of his contract, whichever is less. A 2011 state law limits college presidents to 20 weeks’ pay. David Talley, chairman of the Palm Beach State College Board of Trustees, said the board was unaware of the change and has amended Dr. Gallon’s contract. Randy Hanna, chancellor of the Florida College System, said the critical review has prompted other boards to do the same…
An Ode to Florida’s Summer — And a Time to Remember
Huffington Post (blog)
It is summer in Florida again, when I always think back to my first summers here and why I still love this time of year. When I arrived in Orlando 13 years ago from Texas to teach at UCF, we unpacked all the stuff from the van into the new rented condo and headed straight for the beach. Along the way, traveling on the Bee Line Expressway, I saw palmettos in the thick roadside jungles alongside tall pine trees… UCF Forum columnist Carla Poindexter is an associate professor of fine art at the University of Central Florida…
Breakthrough comes at perfect time for Barry’s Nancy Vergara
MiamiHerald.com
Barry University sophomore Nancy Vergara, who never had won a college golf tournament, picked a great time for her first title — the 2013 Division II national championship. Her stroke average for the year was 76.60. But this past weekend in Daytona Beach, she averaged 72.75 to become the first Barry student — male or female — to win an individual golf national title…
Former B-CU football coach Alvin Wyatt awarded $771K
Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH — Alvin Wyatt, who won more football games than any other Bethune-Cookman University coach, was awarded nearly $771,000 because the university breached his contract after it fired him in 2009, a judge ruled Wednesday…
New study of academic success shows how kids can succeed
Ocala
…The PPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group housed at the College of Central Florida. The institute, founded in 1999, is dedicated to improving the Marion County’s quality of life. Marybeth Kyle, a retired CF associate professor of early childhood learning and the PPI’s coordinator, brought together three of her former students to chair the study last September. On Wednesday, the group shared its basic findings with a group of educators and businesspeople at CF’s Klein Center…
Student poet runs down a dream
Winter Park/Maitland Observer
“Running On Saint George Street,” a poetry book written by Flagler College students and compiled by long-time Winter Park resident and Flagler College student Jenni Sujka, takes its inspiration from everywhere…
Champions slam FAMU’s priorities, hiring of new band director
Orlando Sentinel
In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Robert and Pamela Champion also questioned why Florida A&M University hired a new band director who acknowledged he was hazed while he was a FAMU student…
Eastside students touched by Rosewood
Gainesville Sun
They were led by Marvin Dunn, a retired professor at Florida International University and a forefront historian on racial violence in Florida. He took the group of AP U.S. history students into the woods, onto a 5.69-acre patch of land that he owns along with a friend, James Cornett. It is the first piece of land to be owned by a black person since Rosewood burned down 90 years ago, Dunn said. ”There are a lot of folks who don’t want us out here,” he told the students at the first stop off the highway, where they peered across privately owned property at the raised strip of land where a railroad used to run.
Florida Tech University Online Honors Law Enforcement and Public Safety …
The Herald | HeraldOnline.com
“Florida Tech is proud to honor a group of people who are real heroes in the communities they serve,” said Brian Ehrlich, Assistant Vice President, Director of Online Learning, Florida Institute of Technology…
Key witness in Rilya Wilson case out of prison
Palm Beach Post
Justice Department attorneys filed a brief in the Florida Supreme Court, which has been mulling the case of Jose Godinez-Samperio, who came to the United States at age 9 from Mexico and later graduated from law school at Florida State University…
‘Florida High’ Ranked Among Nation’s Best High Schools
WCTV
For the family and friends of a kayaker who disappeared last Monday, the search is just beginning. Joseph Kane set out on the afternoon of May 13 in a yellow 6-foot kayak from Sherman Cove at Pensacola Naval Air Station, taking his family’s springer spaniel, Frannie, along with him. After failing to call and check in at 5 p.m. as agreed, Kane’s parents reported him missing. No one has seen or heard from him since. The Coast Guard, state, federal and county responders searched Pensacola Bay, the Gulf and Intracoastal Waterway for 74 hours using two cutters, helicopters and patrol boats before suspending the operation. But family and friends of the popular 21-year-old Florida State University senior have no plans to give up…
Golf: International team puts Lynn in position at DII tournament
NCAA.com
HERSHEY, Pa. – Forget the Bad News Bears. Lynn University is the United Nations of NCAA Division II men’s golf. Five different countries are represented on the Fighting Knights roster here this week, and they’re quite literally from all across the globe: Filip Timmerman is from Santiago, Chile.
• Ernesto Vitienes, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
• Jose Andres Miranda, Quito, Ecuador.
• Roberto Francioni, Zurich, Switzerland.
• And, finally, Daniel Young, Perth, Scotland.
Counting head coach Andrew Danna of Baton Rouge, La., and assistant coach Diego Polo, who hails from Guatemala City, Guatemala, a total of seven — count ‘em, seven — nations are represented. Those are just the players who are here. Lynn’s overall roster also features players from the Netherlands, Italy, Mexico and Colombia…
Business buzz: Beruff chairs board; college staffer leaving …
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
New College of Florida‘s director of communications and marketing, Jake Hartvigsen, is leaving at the month to launch a new business called Brand Underground. The company will help small- to medium-sized businesses analyze and improve their marketing and communications strategies and build greater brand awareness, Hartvigsen said.
9 Investigates examines gun ownership and violent crime rates
WFTV Orlando
University of Central Florida professor Jay Corzine argues that poverty, urbanization and population age impact violent crime rates more directly than do gun ownership rates and said gun ownership doesn’t really have much impact on crime at all…
Brevard’s home sales continue spring upswing
Florida Today
No question,” said Joshua Harris, director of the Dr. Phillips Institute for Research and Education in Real Estate at the University of Central Florida. “But the demand out there for homes is real.” Next month’s sales numbers could be even better…
MLB improves diversity among senior administration
WDTN
That’s according to the annual report by Richard Lapchick‘s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida. Racial diversity among senior team administrators improved to nearly 20 percent from 17 percent…
NEW: Southwest Florida population growth triples, census finds
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
“A big part of that is the recovery in the financial markets, the restoration of trillions of dollars of lost wealth,” said Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida.
City Notes
Jacksonville Daily Record
University of North Florida alumnus Jack Bisase was awarded the 2013 Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation…
Ponce De Leon Never Searched for the Fountain of Youth
Smithsonian
J. Michael Francis, a historian at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg who has spent decades studying the Spanish colonies in the Americas , says no mention of a Fountain of Youth occurs in any known documents from Ponce’s lifetime …
Expert weighs in on smart phone sleep apps
KSN-TV
University of South Florida sleep specialist, Dr. Robert Geck, said sleep apps can be very helpful in diagnosing sleep problems, such as insomnia, snoring, difficulty falling asleep and sleep walking…
USF Bulls add basketball assistant with NBA experience
Northwest News and Tribune
The remaking of the University of South Florida men’s basketball staff began Wednesdaywith the hiring of assistant coach Mike Wells, who spent the past two years at George Mason but also worked for 17 years in the NBA…
Releases and Web Stories
Flagler sociology students provide research to reopen local pool
ReadMedia (press release)
AUGUSTINE, FL (05/22/2013)(readMedia)– Research done by Flagler College students and Associate Professor Casey Welch played a role in helping the City of St. Augustine reopen the Galimore Center and Pool.
Valencia Student Tuition to Stay the Same for Third Straight Year
Valencia News
Today, Valencia College trustees agreed to hold tuition for associate-degree classes at its current level for next fall. At $99.06 per credit hour for Florida residents, Valencia’s tuition and fees are the lowest among Central Florida’s state colleges, including Seminole State College and Polk and Brevard community colleges, and are about half the cost of a state university.
