University of South Florida

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University of South Florida

University of South Florida Seal
Motto "Truth and Wisdom"
Established 1956
Endowment $310.2 million
President Judy Genshaft
Faculty 2,503
Undergraduates 34,077
Postgraduates 9,961
Location Tampa, Florida, USA
Campus 1,913 acres (7.74 km²)
Colors Green and Gold
Nickname Bulls
Mascot Rocky D. Bull
Website http://www.usf.edu

The University of South Florida (USF) is a public university system located in Tampa, Florida, USA, with an autonomous campus in St. Petersburg, and branch centers in Sarasota and Lakeland. The main campus is located in North Tampa, near the City of Temple Terrace. It is bordered on the south by Fowler Avenue and on the north by Fletcher Avenue with Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to the east and 50th Street on the west side. The university is in close proximity to the Museum of Science and Industry as well as Busch Gardens and the University Mall shopping center.

The university is the third largest in the state of Florida, with a total enrollment of 44,038 for the 2006 academic year. USF is currently ranked ninth in the country in terms of enrolled students.

USF is also one of three public universities in the State (with the University of Florida and Florida State University) to have received first-tier research university status by the Carnegie Foundation, a mission first started by former USF president Betty Castor in the 1990s. As such, the university takes great pride in advancing its position as a research university in promotional advertisements and brochures.

USF's mascot is the Bull and its colors are green and gold. The university's sports teams participate at the NCAA Division I-A level. In 2005, USF joined the Big East Conference. USF previously belonged to Conference USA, the Metro Conference, and the Sun Belt Conference.

USF is currently the national headquarters for Phi Alpha Theta, a history honor society.

Contents

[edit] History

USF's "Iconic Bull" logo was introduced in 2003, replacing the gold-colored "USF" script. Since then, sales of athletic merchandise have skyrocketed.
USF's "Iconic Bull" logo was introduced in 2003, replacing the gold-colored "USF" script. Since then, sales of athletic merchandise have skyrocketed.

USF was founded in 1956, though it was not even named until the next year and classes didn't commence until 1960. Some of the original proposed names included "University of the Western Hemisphere", "Citrus State University", "Sunshine State University" and "The University of Florida at Temple Terrace." [1] Former US Representative Sam Gibbons was instrumental in the school's creation when he was a state representative and is considered by many to essentially be the school's founder. It was built on the site of Henderson Air Field, a World War II airstrip. Although located in west-central Florida, at the time of establishment USF was the southernmost public university in the State of Florida, a geographic situation that lent USF its sometimes confusing name.

The university first grew under the leadership of John Allen, who was the president from 1957 until 1970. During this time, the university expanded rapidly, due in part to the first graduate degree programs commencing in 1964. Allen elected to resign and retire in the early 70's. Today, the main administration complex is called The John and Grace Allen Center, named after him and his wife.

USF emerged as a major research institution during the 1980s under the presidency of John Lott Brown, Ph.D. [2] President Brown appointed scholarly administrators such as Jim Strange, Ph.D., Dean of Arts and Letters, and Andor Szentivanyi, Dean of Medicine. Two university hospitals, The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and USF Psychiatry Center, as well as the college of public health were built during Brown's presidency.

Currently, USF is considered one of the top universities in Florida, being named a first-tier research university in 1998. Recently USF surpassed the $300 million mark in research grant funding [3]. In addition to a heightened emphasis on research and academia, the university played its first football game in 1997, with its marching band, the Herd of Thunder, forming in 1999.

WUSF-TV
WUSF-TV

[edit] University media

USF's first student newspaper was the Campus Edition of The Tampa Times, a now defunct local afternoon newspaper. It was succeeded by The Oracle which was first published on September 6, 1966 as a weekly. Today The Oracle is published five times a week and has a circulation of more than 12,000. The student radio station, WBUL, is located in the Phyllis P. Marshall Center, the student union named for an administrator who spent 40 years at USF. [4] The school also operates WUSF, an FM station which offers classical and jazz music and National Public Radio (NPR) programming.

USF is home of the WUSF-TV studios. The station is funded by local corporate and private contributors as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and is affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It has been serving the Tampa Bay area for nearly 50 years. Full-time employees as well as part-time student trainees and those seeking Mass Communication course credit staff the state-of-the-art facility.

[edit] Current events

2006 was the fiftieth anniversary of USF's existence, and with it brought special events, plans for a bigger student union, and famous guest lecturers, such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Fernando Chavez, Judy Shepard (mother of Matthew Shepard), and Ann Coulter, with the latter speaker coming under fire from many students due to her controversial conservative beliefs.

[edit] Art

USF's Contemporary Art Museum features regular exhibitions of contemporary art, including a show of faculty work every three years and an annual juried student show. USF also operates Graphicstudio, an art studio and printshop which has hosted artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist. Regular exhibitions of student work are featured in the William and Nancy Oliver Gallery and the student-run Centre Gallery in the Marshall Center. The art department puts on an event called "art house" that happens the same night as the annual juried student show where all of the studios are open with current work on display for people to walk through.

[edit] Music

USF's School of Music has been steadily growing since the university opened in 1956. The school now boasts some of the finest, world-renowned faculty who travel internationally as performers, clinicians and lecturers in their respective fields.

In 2005 the School of Music held the first annual Robert Helps Festival and Composition Competition. The festival and competition is named for the beloved late Piano and Composition professor Robert Helps and is held the 2nd week in February. The international composition competition is for young adult composers and features a $10,000 prize and premieres of the winning work both during the festival at USF and in New York City's Merkin Hall. The festival includes clinicians and lectures from renowned musicians in addition to nightly concerts performed by students and faculty, including the traditional Valentine's Day concert started by Robert Helps featuring the USF faculty.

The School of Music will be moving to a new building in 2009, a project the students and faculty have been pursuing for years. The new building will feature two recital halls, state-of-the-art classrooms, large rehearsal rooms, chamber music rehearsal rooms, private studios and practice rooms.

[edit] Athletics

See also: South Florida Bulls football

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This article has been tagged since January 2007.
The USF Athletic Facility, opened in May of 2004, totals over 103,000 square feet. The building contains locker areas for nine USF teams, a 10,900 square foot weight room, a sports medicine clinic, and an academic center for studying and tutoring.
The USF Athletic Facility, opened in May of 2004, totals over 103,000 square feet. The building contains locker areas for nine USF teams, a 10,900 square foot weight room, a sports medicine clinic, and an academic center for studying and tutoring.

There has been unprecedented growth in the school's football program. USF began football play as a 1-AA independent in 1997, moved to 1-A in 2001, then to Conference USA in 2003, and now competes in the Big East conference (as of 2005) with its Bowl Championship Series (BCS) tie-ins.

USF's rapid advancement to the Big East Conference and the associated gains in recruiting have been helped greatly by its facilities. The Bulls recently opened a $18 million athletic facility on campus, and the football team plays its home games in Raymond James Stadium, also the home field of the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Old USF athletic logo
Old USF athletic logo

Coach Jim Leavitt has enjoyed success in the first nine seasons, and the program is seen as a program on the rise, and a model for establishing a football program at other colleges. On September 24, 2005, USF defeated ninth-ranked University of Louisville, for its first victory over a Big East rival as well as a Top Ten opponent. As a result, USF received its first-ever votes in the AP college football poll. USF saw only its second win over a ranked opponent by beating widely favored #7 West Virginia University on November 25, 2006.

USF, which was passed up for bowls in 2001 and 2002, was extended an invitation to play in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on December 31, 2005 against N.C. State from the ACC. The bowl game was only the 100th football game in school history, a feat unmatched in NCAA Division 1-A history. In 2006, the team was invited to the PapaJohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama to play against East Carolina University. They won the bowl game 24-7.

[edit] Housing

Beta Hall, which houses first-year "University Experience" students, was built in the early 1960s, and is the largest residence hall on the Tampa campus.
Beta Hall, which houses first-year "University Experience" students, was built in the early 1960s, and is the largest residence hall on the Tampa campus.

Most students live off-campus and commute to the campus. Despite the rise in demand for on-campus housing, thirteen percent of USF's student body, which is approximately 5,600 students, lives in a university residence hall. Many students find it more cost effective and desirable to live in area apartment complexes that cater to students. These "resident commuters" make up the majority of the student body.

In recent years, Residence Services acquired the houses of various fraternities and sororities on campus and relinquished control of Fontana Hall, a high rise residential hall located outside campus boundaries.

Most on-campus housing was built from 1960 to 1965, and each hall was named after a Greek letter. During this period, an ambitious fundraising campaign called "Dollars for Dorms" was initiated and appealed to individual and business interests in the Tampa Bay area. Older residence halls, such as Beta Hall (which houses freshmen only), Betty Castor Hall (formerly Gamma Hall, women-only), and Kosove Apartments (formerly Alpha Hall, upperclassmen) received extensive remodeling in the early 2000s. The other Greek letter residence halls (named in order from Delta to Mu) are built in a confined community area known as the Andros Complex.

Newer housing subdivisions, such as the Cypress Suites and Apartments, Maple Hall, Holly Apartments, and the Magnolia Apartments, were built in the late 1990s. The last of them, the Cypress complex, was completed in the summer of 2004.

[edit] Fraternities and sororities

USF has a very large community centered around Greek life, comprising of a number of fraternities and sororities. Listed below are the fraternities and sororities sponsored by USF, and the years in which they were founded on the campus.

All nine of the "Divine Nine" black Greek fraternities and sororities also have chapters on the USF campus.

[edit] Fraternities

[edit] Sororities

[edit] Points of interest

The USF Sun Dome, where many sporting and live entertainment events are held.
The USF Sun Dome, where many sporting and live entertainment events are held.
Palm Ave. and the water tower, the tallest structure on campus. In 2005, the logo on the water tower was changed from the older version (seen here) to the "iconic bull" font (seen below).
Palm Ave. and the water tower, the tallest structure on campus. In 2005, the logo on the water tower was changed from the older version (seen here) to the "iconic bull" font (seen below).
The new water tower design.
The new water tower design.

[edit] School Songs

Golden Brahman March (Fight Song)

USF Bulls are we,
We hold our standard upright and free.
For Green and Gold we stand united.
Our beacon lighted and noble to see.
USF Bulls are we,
For USF will always be.
With all our might we fight the battle
here and now, and we will win the victory!
(shout!) S-O-U-T-H F-L-O-R-I-D-A
South Florida, South Florida
Go Bulls!

Alma Mater

Hail to Thee, our Alma Mater
May thy name be told,
Where above thy gleaming splendor,
Waves the green and gold.
Thou our guide in quest for knowledge.
Where we all are free
University of South Florida,
Alma Mater, Hail to thee!
Be our guide in truth and wisdom
As we onward go,
May thy glory, fame and honor
Never cease to grow;
May our thoughts and prayers
be with thee through eternity,
University of South Florida,
Alma Mater, Hail to thee!

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Graduates

Bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. in MLK Plaza at USF
Bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. in MLK Plaza at USF

[edit] Former students

[edit] External links

State University System of Florida
Florida A&M University • Florida Atlantic University • Florida Gulf Coast University • Florida International University • Florida State University • New College of Florida • University of Central Florida • University of Florida • University of North Florida • University of South Florida • University of West Florida


Big East Conference
Football: Cincinnati • Connecticut • Louisville • Pittsburgh • Rutgers • South Florida • Syracuse • West Virginia
Non-football: DePaul • Georgetown • Marquette • Notre Dame • Providence • St. John's • Seton Hall • Villanova
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