www.ufl.edu

Institutional Purpose

The University of Florida is a public, land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant research university, one of the most comprehensive in the United States. The university encompasses virtually all academic and professional disciplines. It is the largest and oldest of Florida’s 11 universities and is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU). Its faculty and staff are dedicated to the common pursuit of the university’s threefold mission: teaching, research and service.

The University of Florida belongs to a tradition of great universities. Together with our undergraduate and graduate students, UF faculty participate in an educational process that links the history of Western Europe with the traditions and cultures of all societies, explores the physical and biological universes, and nurtures generations of young people from diverse backgrounds to address the needs of our societies. The university welcomes the full exploration of its intellectual boundaries and supports its faculty and students in the creation of new knowledge and the pursuit of new ideas.

Teaching is a fundamental purpose of this university at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Research and scholarship are integral to the education process and to the expansion of our understanding of the natural world, the intellect and the senses. Service reflects the university’s obligation to share the benefits of its research and knowledge for the public good.

These three interlocking elements span all of the university’s academic disciplines and represent the university’s commitment to lead and serve the State of Florida, the nation, and the world by pursuing and disseminating new knowledge while building upon the experiences of the past. The University of Florida aspires to advance by strengthening the human condition and improving the quality of life.

The University of Florida is committed to creating a community that reflects the rich racial, cultural and ethnic diversity of the state and nation. No challenge that exists in higher education has greater importance than the challenge of enrolling students and hiring faculty and staff who are members of diverse racial, cultural or ethnic minority groups. This pluralism enriches the university community, offers opportunity for robust academic dialogue and contributes to better teaching and research. The university and its components benefit from the richness of a multicultural student body, faculty and staff who can learn from one another. Such diversity will empower and inspire respect and understanding among us. The university does not tolerate the actions of anyone who violates the rights of another person.

Through policy and practice, the university strives to embody a diverse community. Our collective efforts will lead to a university that is truly diverse and reflects the state and nation.

The University of Florida traces its beginnings to 1853 when the state-funded East Florida Seminary acquired the private Kingsbury Academy in Ocala. After the Civil War, the seminary was moved to Gainesville. It was consolidated with the state’s land-grant Florida Agricultural College, then in Lake City, to become the University of Florida in 1906. Until 1947, UF enrolled men only and was one of only three state universities. The others were Florida State College for Women (now FSU) and Florida A&M. In 1947, the student body numbered 8,177 men and 601 women.

Today, UF is the fourth largest university in the nation.

A 13-member Board of Trustees governs the University of Florida. The governor appoints six of the trustees, and five are appointed by the 17-member Florida Board of Governors, which governs the State University System as a whole. The university’s student body president and faculty senate chair also serve on the Board of Trustees as ex officio members. Trustees are appointed for staggered five-year terms.

The University of Florida Board of Trustees is a public body corporate with all the powers and duties set forth by law and by the Board of Governors. The University of Florida president serves as the executive officer and corporate secretary of the Board of Trustees and is responsible to the board for all operations of the university. University affairs are administered by the president through the university administration, with the advice and assistance of the Faculty Senate, various committees appointed by the president, and other groups or individuals as requested by the president.

University of Florida students, numbering more than 48,850 in Fall 2003, come from more than 100 countries, all 50 states, and each of the 67 counties in Florida. The ratio of men to women is 48/52. Seventy-one percent of UF students are undergraduates (33,982), 22 percent are graduate students (10,348) and 7 percent (3,528) are in the professional programs of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine.

Approximately 3,574 African-American students, 5,021 Hispanic students and 3,185 Asian-American students attend UF. More than 90 percent of entering freshmen rank above the national mean of scores on standard entrance exams taken by college-bound students. UF consistently ranks among the top five public universities in the nation in the number of enrolled National Merit Scholars, Achievement Scholars, International Baccalaureate graduates and Advance Placement score recipients.

The university has approximately 4,000 distinguished faculty members with outstanding reputations for teaching, research and service. The faculty attracted $458.1 million in research and training grants in 2002-03.

UF currently has 62 eminent scholar chairs, positions funded at more than $1 million each to attract nationally and internationally recognized scholars. A variety of other endowed professorships help attract prominent faculty. More than two dozen faculty are members of the National Academies of Science and/or Engineering, the Institute of Medicine or a counterpart in another nation. Also, in a national ranking of total Fulbright Awards for 2001-02, UF ranks 9th among AAU public universities, with 10 visiting scholars and three American scholars.

A very small sampling of honored faculty and alumni includes a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winners in editorial writing and poetry, inventors of Gatorade and Bioglass (a man-made material that bonds with human tissue), one of the four charter members of the Solar Hall of Fame, and an art faculty with 80 percent of its members in Who’s Who in American Art.

The University of Florida is among the nation’s 151 leading research universities as categorized in 2000 by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. UF is one of 62 members of the Association of American Universities, the nation’s most prestigious higher education organization. The University of Florida is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097; 404-679-4501) to award bachelor, master, specialist and engineer, as well as doctoral and professional degrees. It has 21 colleges and schools and more than 150 interdisciplinary research and education centers, bureaus, and institutes. Almost 100 undergraduate degree programs are offered. The Graduate School coordinates more than 200 graduate programs throughout the university’s colleges and schools. Professional postbaccalaureate degrees are offered in dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine.

Last year, more than 32,000 people took advantage of the many university-sponsored opportunities made available through the Division of Continuing Education. More than 25,000 people participated in non-credit conferences, workshops, institutes, and seminars. More than 7,500 students are enrolled in Independent Study by Correspondence courses for credit and non-credit.

UF operates on a semester system. The academic year begins and ends in August. There are two semesters averaging 15 weeks of instruction, plus a week of final examinations and two six-week summer terms. Semesters begin in August, January, and May, with summer term offered as a whole as Term C, or in two sessions as half terms, with Term A beginning in May and Term B beginning in June.

On 2,000 acres, most of it within the limits of a 100,000-population urban area, the university operates out of 940 buildings, 183 of them equipped with classrooms and laboratories. Facilities are valued at more than $1 billion. Notable among these are the Brain Institute, the physics building, University Art Gallery, a microkelvin laboratory capable of producing some of the coldest temperatures in the universe, a 100-kilowatt training and research nuclear reactor, the second largest academic computing center in the South, and a self-contained intensive-care hyperbaric chamber for treating near-drowning victims.

The Florida Museum of Natural History is the largest natural history/anthropology museum in the Southeast and one of the top 10 in the nation. Its research collections contain nearly 6.5 million specimens.

The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, with 18,000 square feet of exhibit space, is one of the largest museums in the Southeast. The Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts attracts world-class symphony orchestras, Broadway plays, operas, and large-scale ballet productions to Gainesville.

The Stephen C. O’Connell Center and the J. Wayne Reitz Union provide space for a myriad of student and faculty activities. One thousand persons can participate simultaneously in eight recreational activities in the O’Connell Center, which is home to the Gator basketball, volleyball, swimming and gymnastics teams. More than 20,000 use the Reitz Union daily for various activities.

The University of Florida is one of the largest institutions of higher education in the nation. The university community is not unlike many other municipalities, and as such, has the same safety and security concerns as "any-town" USA.

The University of Florida Police Department (UFPD) recognizes that it must maintain the safest and most secure environment possible for all students, faculty and staff, and campus visitors. The UFPD has the utmost concern for personal and property safety, but with an open campus environment, safety becomes a shared responsibility.

The UFPD is a State of Florida and Nationally Accredited Law Enforcement Agency. There are more than 90 fully certified and sworn officers who patrol the UF campus and its surrounding properties 24 hours per day, every day. The department has its own Criminal Investigations Division employing highly trained detectives to investigate any reported crime on campus. The officers of the Uniformed Patrol Division are highly trained campus law enforcement professionals who are equipped with the most contemporary crime-fighting techniques and tools. The Community Services Division is proactive in providing everyone in the campus community with the very latest information regarding personal and property protection through classes, programs and documents.

For more information, contact Lt. Joe Sharkey, public information officer, at 352-392-1114, or visit www.police.ufl.edu.

Honesty, integrity and caring are essential qualities of an educational institution, and the concern for values and ethics is important to the whole educational experience. Individual students, faculty and staff members, as well as the university’s formal organizations, must assume responsibility for these qualities. The concern for values and ethics should be expressed in classes, seminars, laboratories and in all aspects of university life. By definition, the university community includes members of the faculty, staff and administration as well as students.

Education at the University of Florida is not an ethically neutral experience. The university stands for, and seeks to inculcate, high standards. Moreover, the concern for values goes well beyond the observance of rules.

A university is a place where self-expression, voicing disagreement and challenging outmoded customs and beliefs are prized and honored. However, all such expressions need to be civil, manifesting respect for others.

As a major sector in the community, students are expected to follow the university’s rules and regulations that, by design, promote an atmosphere of learning. Faculty, staff and administrators are expected to provide encouragement, leadership and example. While the university seeks to educate and encourage, it also must restrict behavior that adversely affects others. The Standard of Ethical Conduct summarizes what is expected of the members of the university community.

In 1995 the UF student body enacted a new honor code and voluntarily committed itself to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. When students enroll at the university, they commit themselves to the standard drafted and enacted by students.

Preamble: In adopting this honor code, the students of the University of Florida recognize that academic honesty and integrity are fundamental values of the university community. Students who enroll at the university commit to holding themselves and their peers to the high standard of honor required by the honor code. Any individual who becomes aware of a violation of the honor code is bound by honor to take corrective action. The quality of a University of Florida education is dependent upon community acceptance and enforcement of the honor code.

The Honor Code: We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.

On all work submitted for credit by students at the university, the following pledge is either required or implied:

The university requires all members of its community to be honest in all endeavors. A fundamental principle is that the whole process of learning and pursuit of knowledge is diminished by cheating, plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty. In addition, every dishonest act in the academic environment affects other students adversely, from the skewing of the grading curve to giving unfair advantage for honors or for professional or graduate school admission. Therefore, the university will take severe action against dishonest students. Similarly, measures will be taken against faculty, staff and administrators who practice dishonest or demeaning behavior.

Student Responsibility. Students should report any condition that facilitates dishonesty to the instructor, department chair, college dean or Student Honor Court.

Faculty Responsibility. Faculty members have a duty to promote honest behavior and to avoid practices and environments that foster cheating in their classes. Teachers should encourage students to bring negative conditions or incidents of dishonesty to their attention. In their own work, teachers should practice the same high standards they expect from their students.

Administration Responsibility. As highly visible members of our academic community, administrators should be ever vigilant to promote academic honesty and conduct their lives in an ethically exemplary manner.

Information on procedures is in the Student Guide at www.dso.ufl.edu/stg/ and is set forth in Florida Administrative Code.

Students enjoy the rights and privileges that accrue to membership in a university community and are subject to the responsibilities that accompany that membership. In order to have a system of effective campus governance, it is incumbent upon all members of the campus community to notify appropriate officials of any violations of regulations and to assist in their enforcement. The university’s conduct regulations are available to all students at the Web address above and are set forth in Florida Administrative Code. Questions can be directed to the Dean of Students Office, Peabody Hall, Room 202, 352-392-1261.

The use of alcohol and other drugs can have a negative impact on judgments and reactions, health and safety, and may lead to legal complications as well.

The University’s Role. The university’s principal role is to engage in education that leads to high standards and respectful conduct. When those are compromised, the university will take disciplinary action against organizations and individuals violating either the law or the unreasonable use of alcohol. It also must provide help for students who are alcohol-dependent. The university will deal severely with students convicted of the illegal possession, use, or sale of drugs.

What the University Community Can Do to Prevent Alcohol Abuse and Drug Use: Students can help control substance abuse by declining to use or to condone the use of drugs and by insisting that organizations and individuals use alcohol within the bounds of the law and reasonable conduct. Students should make an effort to prevent persons who have abused alcohol or used drugs from harming themselves or others, especially while driving a motor vehicle. They should encourage those needing professional help to seek it. The same standards and regulations apply equally to faculty, staff and administration.

One of the major benefits of higher education and membership in the university community is greater knowledge of and respect for other religious, racial and cultural groups. Indeed, genuine appreciation for individual differences and cultural diversity is essential to the environment of learning.

Another major aspect of university life involves sexual relationships. Sexual attitudes or actions that are intimidating, harassing, coercive or abusive, or that invade the right to privacy of the individual are not acceptable. Organizations or individuals that adversely upset the balance of communal living are subject to university disciplinary action. Only in an atmosphere of equality and respect can all members of the university community grow.

An important outcome of a University of Florida education should be a commitment to serving other people. This sense of service should be encouraged throughout the institution by faculty, administration, staff and students. Through experience in helping individuals and the community, students can put into practice the values they learn in the classroom.