The University of Florida is a public, land-grant research university, one of the most comprehensive in the United States and it encompasses virtually all academic and professional disciplines. It is the oldest and largest of Florida’s ten 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: education, research and service.

Teaching—undergraduate and graduate through the doctorate—is the fundamental purpose of the university. Research and scholarship are integral to the education process and to expanding humankind’s understanding of the natural world, the mind and the senses. Service is the university’s obligation to share the benefits of its knowledge for the public good.

These three interlocking elements span all of the university’s academic disciplines and multidisciplinary centers and represent the university’s obligation to lead and serve the needs of the nation, all of Florida’s citizens, and the public and private educational systems of Florida by pursuing and disseminating new knowledge while building upon the past.

The University of Florida is committed to providing knowledge, benefits and services with quality and effectiveness. It aspires to further national and international recognition for its initiatives and achievement in promoting human values and improving the quality of life.

The university belongs to an ancient tradition of great universities. We participate in an elaborate conversation between scholars and students that extends over space and time, linking the experiences of Western Europe with the traditions and histories of all cultures, that explores the limits of the physical and biological universes, and that nurtures and prepares generations of educated people to address the problems of our societies. While this university recognizes no limits on its intellectual boundaries, and our faculty and students remain free to teach and learn, to explore wherever the mind and imagination lead, we live in a world with limits and restraints. Out of the conflict between intellectual aspirations and the limitations of environment comes the definition of the university’s goals.

Teaching. American colleges and universities share the fundamental educational mission of teaching students. The undergraduate experience, based in the arts and sciences, remains at the core of higher education in America. The formation of

educated people, the transformation of mind through learning and the launching of a lifetime of intellectual growth: these goals remain central to every university. This undergraduate foundation of American higher education has grown more complex as the knowledge we teach has grown more complex. Where once we had a single track through the arts and sciences leading to a degree, we now have multiple tracks leading to many degrees in arts and sciences as well as in a variety of professional schools. Yet even with many degrees, American university undergraduate education still rests on the fundamental knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences.

In our academic world we recognize two rather imprecisely defined categories of higher education: colleges and universities. The traditional American college specializes in a carefully crafted four-year undergraduate program, generally focused on the arts and sciences. Universities extend the range of this undergraduate education to include advanced or graduate study leading to the Ph.D. Most American universities also include a variety of undergraduate and graduate professional programs and master’s degree programs. The University of Florida shares these traditions. As an American university, we have a major commitment to undergraduate education as the foundation of our academic organization, and we pursue graduate education for the Ph.D. and advanced degrees in professional fields.

We are, in addition, a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. Each of these adjectives defines one characteristic, and, through frequent repetition, this description takes on the style of ritual incantation: rhythmic, reverent and infrequently examined. What, then, does each of these key words mean?

Major. Here is one of our most important aspirations. We will be, we must be and we are a major university. We define ourselves in comparison to the best universities we can find. We do not need to be the absolute best, but we must be among the best universities in the world. Exact ranking of the best universities is a meaningless exercise, but most of us can name 62 great universities. By whatever indicator of quality we choose, our university should fall into this group. If we define a group of universities that shares our adjectives (major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research), then we fall into a group of perhaps the best 15 in this country.

Public. We exist thanks to the commitment and investment of the people of the state of Florida. Generations of tax dollars constructed the facilities we enjoy and have paid the major portion of our operating budget. The graduates of this institution, educated with tax dollars, provide the majority of our private funding. Our state legislators created the conditions that permit our faculty

to educate our students, pursue their research, conduct their clinical practice and serve their statewide constituencies. We exist, then, within the public sector, responsible and responsive to the needs of the citizens of our state. The obligations we assume as a public university determine many of our characteristics.

We have many more undergraduates than graduates; we respond quickly to the needs of the state’s economy; we accommodate complex linkages with other state universities, community colleges and K-12 public and private institutions; and we operate in cooperative symbiosis with our state’s media. We also experience close interaction with the political process. Private universities, which have a different profile, do not respond in the same ways to these issues. As a public university, we must maintain close, continuous and effective communication with our many publics.

Comprehensive. This adjective recognizes the universal reach of our pursuit of knowledge. As a matter of principle, we exclude no field from our purview. We believe that our approach to knowledge and learning, to understanding and wisdom, requires us to be ready to examine any field, cultivate any discipline and explore any topic. Resource limits, human or financial, may constrain us from cultivating one or another academic subspecialty, but we accept, in principle, no limit on our field of view. Even when we struggle with budget problems and must reduce a program or miss an intellectual opportunity, we do so only to meet the practical constraints of our current environment. We never relinquish commitment to the holistic pursuit of knowledge.

Land-grant. Florida belongs to the set of American universities whose mandate includes a commitment to the development and transmission of practical knowledge. As one of the land-grant universities identified by the Morrill Act of 1862, Florida has a special focus on agriculture and engineering and a mandate to deliver the practical benefits of university knowledge to every county in the state. In our university, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and the College of Engineering respond to this definition most obviously; but over time, the entire university has come to recognize its commitment to translating the benefits of abstract and theoretical knowledge into the marketplace to sustain the economic growth that supports us all.

This commitment permeates the institutional culture and defines us as one of 72 such institutions in America. The land-grant university is, of course, a peculiarly American invention and captures one of the powerful cultural beliefs of our country: that knowledge passes the test of utility by remaining vitally connected to industry and commerce.

Research. Research defines this university. Our faculty dedicate themselves not only to the bedrock function of education, not only to the land-grant function of service, but equally to the essential activity of research.

By research we mean the effort to expand our understanding of the natural world, the world of the mind and the world of the senses. We define research to include the theoretical abstractions of the mathematician, the experimental discoveries of the geneticist, the insights of the semiotician, the re-creations of the historian or the analysis of the anthropologist. We define research to capture the business professor’s analysis of economic organization, the architect’s design and the musician’s interpretation or the artist’s special vision. Research by agronomists improves crops, and research by engineers enhances materials. Medical and clinical research cures and prevents diseases. The list of research fields continues as endlessly as the intellectual concerns of our faculty and the academic vision of our colleges.

We must publish university research, whatever the field. The musician who never performs, the scientist whose work never appears for review by colleagues, the historian whose note cards never become a book may have accomplished much, but their accomplishments remain incomplete. When we say research, we mean research and creative activity that contribute to the international public conversation about the advancement of knowledge.

Florida’s oldest and largest university, 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 ninth largest university in the nation.

Direct supervision over the university, its policies and affairs is vested in the Board of Regents, a body composed of 12 citizens who are appointed by the governor for six-year terms, one student appointed for one year, and the State Commissioner of Education. University affairs are administered by the president with the advice and assistance of university administration, the University Senate and various committees elected by the Senate and appointed by the president.

University of Florida students—numbering more than 42,000 in Fall 1998—come from more than 100 countries (4,174 international students), all 50 states, and every one of the 67 counties in Florida. The ratio of men to women is 51/49. Seventy-four percent of UF students are undergraduates (31,477), 19% are graduate students (8,060) and 7% (2,799) are in the professional programs of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine.

Approximately 2,700 African-American students, 3,900 Hispanic students and 2,550 Asian-American students attend UF. Ninety 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 4,050 distinguished faculty members with outstanding reputations for teaching, research and service. The Teaching Improvement Program (TIP), a nationally recognized program to enhance and reward undergraduate teaching, has provided a major emphasis on the quality of instruction. The newly developed Professorial Excellence Program (PEP) rewards faculty based on their accomplishments and continuing productivity since promotion to the rank of professor, including excellence and high merit in scholarship or creative achievement, teaching, service and extension. The faculty attracted $256 million in research and training grants in 1997-98.

UF currently has 54 eminent scholar chairs, positions funded at more than $1 million each to attract nationally and internationally recognized scholars. A variety of other endowed professorships helps 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 1996-97, Florida stands 12th among all universities, with six visiting scholars and nine American scholars.

A very small sampling of honored faculty
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 88 leading research universities as categorized in 1994 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 is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools – Commission on Colleges to award the degrees of bachelor, master, specialist and engineer, as well as doctoral and professional degrees. UF is one of the nation’s top three universities offering more academic programs on a single campus than any of the nation’s other universities. It has 21 colleges and schools and more than 100 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. And more than 7,500 students enrolled in Independent Study by Correspondence courses, both 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 917 buildings, 159 of them equipped with classrooms and laboratories. Facilities are valued at approximately $760 million. Notable among these are the new Brain Institute, the new 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 Center for the Performing Arts attracts world-class
symphony orchestras, Broadway plays, opera, 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 different 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 student union daily for dining, meeting, bowling, pool and other games, arts and crafts, music listening and TV viewing.

The University of Florida is an open campus and can rightly be considered a city within a city. As such, the campus is not immune to the same security issues that affect other parts of the Gainesville community.

The university recognizes that it must develop and maintain a safe and secure environment for its students, faculty and staff.

The university has the utmost concern for the safety of each student, and it strives to give each student maximum freedom. With this freedom, however, comes the responsibility to exercise personal safety.

No community’s security plan can attain maximum effectiveness unless everyone in the community contributes to making it work. Safety and security are personal and shared responsibilities. Only by accepting this responsibility can members of the university community maintain a safe and secure campus environment.

The University Police Department has close to 100 sworn officers, with the addition of a dozen new officers since 1990. UF also has instituted a voluntary apartment safety program, in cooperation with local law enforcement, to advise students of those apartment complexes that have been inspected by police for safety.

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 fact, 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 administration 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.

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 are 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.

The use of alcohol and other drugs can have a negative impact on judgments and reaction, 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, it will take disciplinary action against organizations and individuals violating either the law or the reasonable 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 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 in 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.
• Relations Between People and Groups

One of the major benefits of higher education and membership in the university community is greater knowledge of and respect for other groups, religious, racial and cultural. 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 will be subject to university disciplinary action. Only in an atmosphere of equality and respect can all members of the university community grow.

Service to Others

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.

Education at the University of Florida is not an ethically neutral experience. The entire university community should dedicate itself to realizing the vision that a center of learning is a beacon that, by directing itself to the highest values, guides and encourages society