Florida State University

Florida State University is a comprehensive, national graduate research university that puts research into action for the benefit of our students and society. With an impressive breadth of leading graduate, professional and undergraduate programs, and an international reputation in the sciences and humanities, Florida State University is a demanding and intellectually stimulating environment for students and faculty.

The Florida State University, one of the largest and oldest of the ten institutions of higher learning in the State University System of Florida, had its beginning as early as 1823 when the Territorial Legislature began to plan a higher education system. In 1825 the Federal Government reserved two townships for the purpose of maintaining institutions of higher education in the territory, and on March 3, 1845, the U.S. Congress, in an act supplemental to the act admitting Florida as a state in the Union, added two more townships. These townships were granted to be located east and the other west of the Suwannee River. The Legislature of the State of Florida in a Legislative Act of January 24, 1851, provided for the establishment of the two institutions of learning, their first purpose to be “the instruction of persons, both male and female, in the art of teaching all the various branches that pertain to a good common school education; and next to give instruction in the mechanic arts, in husbandry, in agricultural chemistry, in the fundamental laws, and in what regards the rights and duties of citizens.”

In each succeeding decade, Florida State University has added to its academic organization and presently is comprised of seventeen independent schools and colleges. It has expanded from the original few acres and buildings to 513 buildings on 1,432 acres, including the downtown Tallahassee main campus of 463 acres, a farm which for many decades supplied the Florida State College for Women with food, the Seminole Reservation – a recreational facility, the Marine Laboratory on the Gulf Coast, the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering facility, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Division of Research at Innovation Park, and the branch campus in Panama City, Florida. One hundred fifty-two years after its founding Florida State University started the 2003-04 academic year with a student population of almost 38,000 and recognition as a major graduate research institution with an established international reputation.

Florida State University generated more than $160 million in external grant support in the fiscal year ending June 2005. Its library holdings rank among the top 30 public universities in the U.S., based on 2003-04 data. In addition to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, funded by the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, funded by the National Science Foundation, the University is at the cutting edge of research and its application to industry with research centers such as the Center for Advanced Power Systems, supported by the Office of Naval Research; the Reading Research Center; and the School of Computational Science. Also notable is FSU’s Antarctic Research Facility, the largest repository of Antarctic sedimentary core samples in the world.

Florida State’s 16 schools and colleges offer more than 300 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, professional and specialist degree programs, including medicine and law, covering a vast array of disciplines critical to society today. The new College of Medicine graduated its first class in 2005.

Many units have programs that consistently rank among the nation’s top 25 public universities, including physics, chemistry, oceanography, statistics, ecology and evolutionary biology, meteorology, political science, psychology, sociology, criminology, information, creative writing, public policy, business and law.

Florida State University’s arts programs – dance, film, music and theatre – rank among the finest in the world.

The College of Criminology and Criminal Justice is the oldest program of its kind. It offers bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees. The College’s graduate program emphasizes the importance of scientifically rigorous research that advances the knowledge of the discipline and informs public policy. The master’s program prepares students for an administrative or research career in the criminal justice system and other related areas. The doctoral program trains individuals as critical scholars and prepares them for a career of teaching and research or for a higher-level research or administrative career in the criminal justice system.

Home to some of the nation’s premier scholars in criminology, the College’s faculty members lead the nation in funding for education and delinquency research, they conduct the most recognized research on fear and crime, they are known internationally of state-of-the-art law enforcement research, they are the most cited for national gun control research, and they are prominent scholars in the areas of self-control and crime and juvenile sentencing.

With $11 million in externally funded research projects, the College’s Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research conducts ground-breaking research that promotes evidence-based policy-making and practice at state and national levels. It also provides unique hands-on research opportunities for graduate students.

The Florida State Seminole’s school colors are garnet and gold. The colors were a merging of the University’s past. In 1904 and 1905 the Florida State College football championships wearing purple and gold uniforms. When FSC became Florida State College for Women in 1905, the football team was forced to attend an all male school in Gainesville, thus marketing the beginning of the football program at the University of Florida. The following year, the FSCW student body selected crimson as the official school color. The administration in 1905 took crimson and combined it the recognizable purple of the championship football teams to achieve the color garnet. The now famous garnet and gold colors were first used on an FSU uniform in a 14-6 loss to Stetson on October 18, 1947.

A significant achievement at the university was done by chemistry professor and synthetic organic chemist, Robert A. Holton’s synthesizing of Taxol on December 9th, 1993. The chemical has been used as an effective breast cancer and ovarian cancer treatment.

Holton’s and his Organic Chemistry team finished a race to develop a cheaper semisynthetic version. In 1993, Bristol-Myers Squibb began marketing it. Just like other chemotherapy drugs, it had side effects, but it also prolonged lives, and in many cases, defeated cancer.

Before the drug company’s exclusive license expired, Florida State earned $350 million in royalties, vaulting the school into the ranks of Columbia University and California’s state universities in research profits. By comparison, Taxol has earned Florida State more than three times what the popular beverage Gatorade earned the University of Florida.

The school’s athletic teams are called the Florida State Seminoles. Most FSU community members respectfully refer to the Seminoles as the school symbol – no longer a mascot. This Native American name is used with official sanction of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. They participate in the NCAA’s Division I and in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Their traditional rivals include the Florida Gators and Miami Hurricanes.

Under head coach Bobby Bowden, currently in his 31st year, the Seminole football team became one of the nation’s perennial powers, greatly expanding the tradition of football at Florida State. The Seminoles played in five national championship games between 1993 and 2001, and have claimed the championship twice. The Florida State Seminoles were the most successful team in college football during the 1990s, boasting an 89% winning percentage. FSU also set an NCAA record for most consecutive top 5 finishes in the AP football poll, 14 years in a row. The Seminoles also has the record for most consecutive Bowl game victories with 11.