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Florida State University (commonly referred to as Florida State or FSU) is a public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation. The university comprises 16 separate colleges and 39 centers, facilities, labs and institutes that offer more than 300 programs of study, including professional programs. In 2005 Florida State University's President launched "Pathways of Excellence", a major academic initiative that was proposed by a faculty committee to hire hundreds of new faculty to help position FSU for future membership in the Association of American Universities.
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Encyclopedia
Florida State University (commonly referred to as Florida State or FSU) is a public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation. The university comprises 16 separate colleges and 39 centers, facilities, labs and institutes that offer more than 300 programs of study, including professional programs. In 2005 Florida State University's President launched "Pathways of Excellence", a major academic initiative that was proposed by a faculty committee to hire hundreds of new faculty to help position FSU for future membership in the Association of American Universities. Cheating university, you are all done, bye bye, go Gators!!!
Florida State is a flagship university in the State University System of Florida. As one of Florida's primary graduate research universities, Florida State University awards over 2,000 graduate and professional degrees each year. In 2007, Florida State was placed in the first tier of research universities by the Florida Legislature, a distinction allowing FSU, along with the University of Florida, to charge 40% higher tuition than other institutions in the State University System of Florida. While FSU was officially established in 1851 and is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the state of Florida, at least one predecessor institution may be traced back to 1843, two years before Florida was admitted as a state in the United States.
Florida State University is also home to nationally ranked programs in many academic areas, including the sciences, social policy, film, engineering, the Arts, business, political science, social work, medicine, and law. Florida State is home to Florida's only National Laboratory - the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and is the birthplace of the commercially-viable anti-cancer drug Taxol. The Florida State University athletics programs are favorites of passionate students, fans and alumni across the United States, especially when led by the Marching Chiefs of the FSU College of Music. Florida State is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference and has won twelve national athletic championships as well as multiple individual competitor NCAA championship awards.
History
Florida State University traces its origins to a plan set by the 1823 Territorial Legislature of Florida to create a system of higher education. The 1838 Florida Constitution codified the basic system by providing for land allocated for the schools. In 1851 the Florida Legislature established two seminaries of higher education on opposite banks of the Suwannee River. Francis W. Eppes and other city leaders established an all-male academy called the Florida Institute in Tallahassee as a legislative inducement to locate the West Florida Seminary in Tallahassee. The eastern seminary, located in Ocala, FL, began operations in 1853 but closed during the American Civil War. It reopened in 1866 in Gainesville, FL and would eventually be combined with other schools to form what would be called the University of the State of Florida in 1906.
In 1856, the land and buildings in an area formerly known as Gallows Hill – where the Florida Institute was built – was accepted as the site of the state seminary for male students. Two years later the institution absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy founded in 1843 as the Misses Bates School and became coeducational. The West Florida Seminary stood near the front of the Westcott Building on the existing FSU campus, making this site the oldest continually used location of higher learning in Florida.
Student soldiers
During the Civil War, the seminary became the The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute. Cadets from the school defeated Union forces at the Battle of Natural Bridge in 1865, leaving Tallahassee as the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to Union forces. The students were trained by Valentine Mason Johnson, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, who was a professor of mathematics and the chief administrator of the college. After the fall of the Confederacy, campus buildings were occupied by Union forces for over a month and the West Florida Seminary reverted to its former academic role.
First state university
The seminary was chartered as the Florida University by the governor in February, 1883 and was the first state university in Florida. The university included a medical and surgical college but lasted in practice to 1885 due to lack of legislative support. The name was later changed to the University of Florida which was held by the institution from 1885 to 1903.
By the turn of the century, the seminary increasingly focused on post-secondary education and became the first liberal arts college in Florida after it was reorganized into the Florida State College with four departments (the College, the College Academy, the School for Teachers and the School of Music) in 1901. The 1905 Buckman Act, named after Henry Holland Buckman, reorganized the Florida college system into a school for Caucasian males, a school for Caucasian females (Florida State College for Women), and a school for African Americans. By 1933 the Florida State College for Women had grown to be the third largest women's college in the United States and was the first state women's college in the South to be awarded a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, as well as the first university in Florida so honored.
The influx of G.I. Bill students after World War II stressed the state university system to the point that a Tallahassee Branch of the University of Florida (TBUF) was opened on the campus of the Florida State College for Women with the men housed in barracks on nearby Dale Mabry Field. By 1947 the Florida Legislature returned the FSCW to coeducational status and renamed the college Florida State University. The FSU West Campus land and barracks plus other areas continually used as an airport later became the location of the Tallahassee Community College. The post-war years brought substantial growth and development to the university as many departments and colleges were added including Business, Journalism (discontinued in 1959), Library Science, Nursing and Social Welfare. Strozier Library, Tully Gymnasium and the original parts of the Business building were also built at this time.
Student activism
During the 1960s and 1970s Florida State University became a center for student activism especially in the areas of racial integration, women's rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. The school acquired the nickname 'Berkeley of the South' during this period, in reference to similar student activities at the University of California, Berkeley and is also purported to be the site of the genesis of "streaking," which is said to have first been observed on Landis Green. Governor Claude Kirk once spent a night on Landis Green, in the center of campus, discussing politics with protesting students.
After many years as a segregated university, in 1962 Maxwell Courtney became the first African American undergraduate student admitted to Florida State. In 1968 Calvin Patterson became the first African American player for the Florida State University football team. Florida State today has the highest graduation rate for African American students of all universities in Florida, including the historically black Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
Today, Florida State University aspires to become a top American research university with at least one-third of its graduate programs ranked in the Top-15 nationally. Florida State University owns more than 1,530 acres (6.2 km˛) and is the home of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory among other advanced research facilities. The university continues to develop in its capacity as a leader in Florida graduate research. Other milestones at the university include the first ETA10-G/8 supercomputer, capable of 10.8 GFLOPS in 1989, remarkable for the time in that it exceeded the existing speed record of the Cray-2/8, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by a substantial leap and the development of the anti-cancer drug Taxol.
The Jefferson-Eppes Trophy is exchanged between the University of Virginia and Florida State University after each football competition in recognition of the common roots shared between the two schools.
Academics
The FSU Honors Program is a specially designed program for the most accomplished incoming undergraduates. Undergraduates in Honors participate in smaller classes with faculty, including individual research programs or assigned research in the area of the sponsoring faculty member. Admission to Honors is competitive. The FSU Honors Medical and Law early-admission, professional-track programs are designed to facilitate faster access to professional programs for the limited number of students who meet required standards. Honors students are eligible for the Honors residence hall and associated administrative benefits.
A number of undergraduate academic programs at Florida State University are termed "Limited Access Programs". Limited Access Programs are programs where student demand exceeds available resources thus making admission to such programs sometimes extremely competitive. Examples of limited access programs include The Florida State University Film School, the College of Communication, several majors in the College of Visual Arts, Music, Theatre and Dance and all majors in the College of Business.
FSU Young Scholars Program is a residential science and mathematics program for 40 Florida high-school students with potential for careers in the sciences, engineering, and health professions.
Demographics
Florida State University enrolled 31,058 undergraduates and 9,416 graduate and professional students in 2006. Tuition was $3,748 (in-state) and $17,916 (out-of-state) per term. The Fall 2008 enrolled freshmen class had an average GPA of 3.84; an average SAT of 1265 and an average ACT of 28. The freshman acceptance rate for the Fall 2008 semester was 42%. FSU has a 69% six-year graduation rate compared to the national average six-year graduation rate of 53%. FSU's freshman retention rate is 90%. Overall Florida State has one of the highest retention rates in the state of Florida.
Rhodes Scholars
In 2008, FSU undergraduate and football player Myron Rolle earned the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship award. Rolle is the fourth FSU student overall to earn this award and the third since 2005. Joe O'Shea, an FSU Student Body President, and Garrett Johnson, an FSU student athlete, earned the award in 2007 and 2005, respectively. Only thirty two students in the United States earn the award each year.
Rankings
In 2009 Florida State University was rated the fifth Best Value College of public universities in the United States by USA Today and The Princeton Review. Florida State University is currently ranked 49th among public universities and 102nd overall in Tier 1 for National Universities by U.S. News and World Report. In addition U.S. News in 2009 ranked FSU as 32nd overall amongst the most popular colleges in the United States, this ranking is determined by institutions with the highest yield rates.
This institution ranks in the top 200 among world universities, among the top 100 American universities, and in the top 90 among universities in the United States by The Academic Ranking of World Universities, 30th among U.S. publics and 76th among all U.S. universities by Forbes magazine, Florida State University was ranked 15th nationally in the February 2008 edition of Kiplinger's Best Values in Public Colleges. FSU is the second-least-expensive flagship university in the United States, according to USA Today. Florida State ranks as the 155th university worldwide and the 80th in the United States in the 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities and is placed 300th university worldwide in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement rankings.According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities in 2009, Florida State University ranks 54th best in the world.
Many of FSU's academic programs rank among the nation's top twenty-five public universities, including programs in Business (Accounting, Real Estate, Management Information Systems, Risk Management/Insurance, Entrepreneurial Studies), Chemistry, Creative Writing, Criminology, Dance, Education, Film, Human Sciences, Hospitality, Information Technology, Law, Meteorology, Music, Oceanography, Physics, Political Science, Public Administration and Policy, Social Work, Spanish, Theatre, Urban Planning, and Visual Art.
Organization
As a part of the State University System of Florida, Florida State University falls under the purview of the Florida Board of Governors. However, a 13-member Board of trustees is "vested with the authority to govern and set policy for The Florida State University as necessary to provide proper governance and improvement of the University in accordance with law and rules of the Florida Board of Governors." Thomas Kent "T.K." Wetherell was appointed president in 2003, succeeding Talbot D'Alemberte, and is responsible for day-to-day operation and administration of the university. Florida State University has a $570 million endowment.
Florida State University offers Associate, Bachelor, Masters, Specialist, Doctoral, and Professional degree programs through its sixteen colleges. The most popular Colleges by enrollment are Arts and Sciences, Business, Social Sciences, Education, and Human Science.
The Florida State University College of Medicine operates using diversified community-based clinical education medical training for medical students. Founded on the mission to provide care to underserved communities, the Florida State University College of Medicine is the pinnacle of education for patient-centered care. The students spend their first two years taking basic science courses on the FSU campus in Tallahassee and are then assigned to one of the regional medical school campuses for their third- and fourth-year clinical training. Rotations can be done at one of the six regional campuses in Daytona Beach, FL, Fort Pierce, FL, Orlando, FL, Pensacola, FL, Sarasota, FL or stay in Tallahassee if they so choose.
Colleges at Florida State include:
Faculty and research
Florida State University employs 2,291 faculty members and 5,942 staff. The faculty of Florida State University include recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, Guggenheim Fellowships, Academy Awards, and other accolades. Florida State is represented by faculty serving in a number of renowned Academies, Associations and Societies. Florida State was home to the first ETA10-G/8 supercomputer. Professor E. Imre Friedmann and researcher Dr. Roseli Friedmann demonstrated primitive life could survive in rocks, establishing the potential for life on other planets.
Florida State developed the anti-cancer drug Taxol. A number of US groups, including one led by Robert A. Holton, attempted a total synthesis of the molecule, starting from petrochemical-derived starting materials. By late 1989, Holton's group had developed a semisynthetic route to paclitaxel with twice the yield of the Potier process. Florida State University, where Holton worked, signed a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb to license this and future patents. In 1992, Holton patented an improved process with an 80% yield. Taxol remains the best-selling anti-cancer drug ever manufactured, and the most commercially viable product ever created by a Florida University.
High Energy Physics
After decades of planning and construction the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is a next generation detector for the new proton-proton collider (7 TeV + 7 TeV) called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is now operational in the existing 27 km circular underground tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Florida State University faculty members collaborated in the design, construction and operation of the LHC, with some components assembled at FSU and shipped to CERN for installation. FSU faculty contributed to several areas of the CMS, especially the electromagnetic calorimeter and the hadron calorimeter.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
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The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) or "Mag Lab" at Florida State University develops and operates high magnetic field facilities that scientists use for research in physics, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, geochemistry, biochemistry, materials science, and engineering. It is the only facility of its kind in the United States and one of only nine in the world. Eleven world records have been set at the Mag Lab to date. The NHMFL is a 30,658 square meter (330,000 sq. ft) complex employing 300 faculty, staff, graduate, and postdoctoral students. This facility is the largest and highest powered laboratory of its kind in the world and produces the highest continuous magnetic fields. FSU and the University of Florida won the laboratory from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a consortium of other universities in 1990.
International programs
For over 50 years Florida State University has operated a broad curriculum program in Panama City of the Republic of Panama. Students have full facilities, including the largest English-language library in the Republic of Panama, academic counseling, computer facilities, housing, research facilities, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria. The student population is generally international and comes from the United States, the Republic of Panama and other countries.
Florida State University also operates international programs in Florence, Italy; London, England and Valencia, Spain. It also offers international programs abroad in Cairns, Australia; Salvador, Brazil; Tianjin, China; San José, Costa Rica; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Prague, Czech Republic; Napo, Ecuador; London, England and Oxford, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; Florence, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Panama City, Panama; Moscow, Russia; Valencia, Spain; and Leysin, Switzerland.
Collections
Florida State University maintains and operates The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art located in Sarasota, FL, which is recognized as the official State Art Museum of Florida. The institution offers twenty-one galleries of European paintings as well as Cypriot antiquities and Asian, American, and contemporary art. The museum's art collection currently consists of more than 10,000 objects that include a wide variety of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, and decorative arts from ancient through contemporary periods and from around the world. The most celebrated items in the museum are 16th, 17th, and 18th century European paintings, including a world-renowned collection of Peter Paul Rubens paintings. The Ringling Museum collections constitute the largest university museum complex in the United States.
Florida State University also maintains the FSU Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) in Tallahassee. The MoFA permanent collection consists of over 4000 items in 18 sub-collections ranging from pre-Columbian pottery to contemporary art.
Campus
Going onto the main campus of Florida State University from any of the governmental buildings in downtown Tallahassee, Florida is not difficult, as the main campus is located to the west of this downtown area. The main campus covers of land including Heritage Grove and contains over of buildings. Florida State University owns more than 1,500 acres (6 km˛). The campus is bordered by Stadium Drive to the west, Tennessee Street (U.S. Route 90) to the north, Macomb Street to the east, and Gaines Street to the south. Located at the intersection of College Avenue and S. Copeland Street, the Westcott building is perhaps the school's most prominent structure. The Westcott location is the oldest site of higher education in Florida.
The historic student housing residence halls include Broward, Bryan, Cawthon, Gilchrist, Jennie Murphree, Landis and Reynolds are located on the eastern half of campus. There are three new residence hall complexes; Ragans and Wildwood that are located near the athletic quadrant and DeGraff hall located on Tennessee Street. On and around the Florida State University campus are seven libraries; Dirac Science Library named after the Nobel Prize winning physicist and Florida State University professor Paul Dirac, Strozier Library, Maguire Medical Library, Law Library, Engineering Library, Allen Music Library and the Goldstein information library. Strozier Library is the main library of the campus and is open 24 hours Sunday-Thursday, as is the Starbucks coffee stand situated in the entrance to the library.
Right next to the Donald L. Tucker Center, the College of Law is located between Jefferson Street and Pensacola Street. The College of Business sits in the heart of campus near the Oglesby Student Union and across from the new Huge Classroom Building (HCB). The Science and research quad is located in the northwest quadrant of campus. The College of Medicine, King Life Science buildings (biology) as well as the Department of Psychology are located on the west end of campus on Call Street and Stadium Drive.
Located off Stadium Drive in the southwest quadrant are Doak Campbell Stadium, now named Bobby Bowden Field at Doak S. Campbell Stadium, which seats approximately 84,000 spectators, the University Center Buildings, Dick Howser Stadium as well as other athletic buildings. Doak Campbell Stadium, The University Center Buildings, Dick Howser Stadium as well as other athletic buildings and fields are located off Stadium Drive in the southwest quadrant. Doak Campbell Stadium is a unique venue in collegiate football. It is contained within the brick facade walls of University Center, a vast complex that houses the offices of the University, the Registrar, Dedman School of Hospitality as well as numerous other offices and classrooms.
The historic student housing residence halls include Broward, Bryan, Cawthon, Gilchrist, Jennie Murphree, Landis and Reynolds are located on the eastern half of campus. There are three new residence hall complexes; Ragans and Wildwood that are located near the athletic quadrant and DeGraff hall located on Tennessee Street. Being a major university campus, the Florida State University campus is also home to Heritage Grove, Florida State's Greek Community, located a short walk up the St. Marks Trail.
Additional to the main campus, the FSU Southwest campus encompasses another of land off Orange Drive. The southwest campus currently houses the College of Engineering which is housed in a two building joint facility with the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. In addition to the College of Engineering, The Dave Middleton Golf Complex Don Veller Seminole golf course and club are located here and the Morcorm Aquatics Center. The FSU Research Foundation buildings as well as the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory are located in Innovation Park and the Alumni Village, family style student housing are located off Levy. Flastacowo Road Leads to the FSU Reservation, a student lakeside retreat on Lake Bradford.
In August, a new RecSports Plex opened located on Tyson Road. This intramural sports complex will become the largest in the collegiate world with twelve Football fields, five Softball fields, four club (Soccer) fields as well as Basketball and Volleyball courts. The addition of the Southwest Tallahassee campus in recent years has expanded campus space to over .
Florida State University has seen considerable expansion and construction since T. K. Wetherell came into office in 2003. Numerous renovations as well as new constructions have been completed or are in the process of completion. These projects include student athletic fields, dormitories, new classroom space as well as research space. Currently the campus is undergoing a revival and beautification of the campuses main spaces.
Satellite campus
Located just from the main campus in Tallahassee. Continuing its pledge to academic excellence, FSU Panama City is committed to providing area students with a quality education from a nationally-accredited university. Beginning in the early 1980s. Since that time the campus has grown to almost 1,500 students supported by 15 bachelor's and 19 graduate degree programs.
FSU Panama City began offering full-time daytime programs in fall 2000. This scheduling, coupled with programs offered in the evenings, serves to accommodate the needs of its diverse student population. Over 30 resident faculty were hired to help staff the programs. Nestled among oaks along the waters of North Bay and only three miles from the Gulf of Mexico the Florida State University Panama City campus offers upper-division undergraduate courses as well as some graduate and specialist degree programs.
Since opening in 1982, over 4,000 students have graduated from FSU Panama City with degrees ranging from elementary education to engineering. All courses are taught by faculty members from the main FSU campus. The satellite institution currently has a ratio of 25 students to each faculty member.
Student life
Traditions
The school's colors are garnet and gold. The colors of garnet and gold represent a merging of the university's past. While the school fielded a football team as early, or earlier than 1899, in 1902, 1903 and 1905 the team won football championships wearing purple and gold uniforms. When FSC became Florida State College for Women in 1905, the football team and fraternity system was forced to attend the now all male school in Gainesville, thus marking the beginning of the football program at the University of Florida. The following year, the college student body selected crimson as the official school color. The administration in 1905 took crimson and combined it with the recognizable purple of the championship football teams to achieve the color garnet. When football returned to the school about 42 years later the now famous garnet and gold colors were first used on an FSU uniform in a 14-6 loss to Stetson University on October 18, 1947.
FSU is also the home of the Marching Chiefs, the FSU marching band. The Marching Chiefs are the band behind the famous "War Chant." The War Chant is derived from "Massacre" which was first played during the 1960s. Chiefs still play "Massacre" during pregame to honor the start of the War Chant.
The FSU fight song was written by Florida State music professor, Thomas Wright, who grants rights to the song in exchange for two season tickets every year. The 1950 Florida State University Homecoming half-time show included a dedication ceremony naming the stadium in honor of university President Doak Campbell. There was also a special performance by the band, christening it the Marching Chiefs and premiering the Florida State University Fight Song. Thirty-three years later, the FSU Fight Song was used by Mission Control to awaken alumnus and current professor Norm Thagard one morning in 1983 while he was aboard the Challenger spacecraft.
Housing
Florida State University is a traditional residential university wherein most students live on campus in university residence halls or nearby in privately-owned residence halls, apartments and residences. Florida State currently has 17 residence halls on campus, housing undergraduate, graduate and international students. Residence halls offer suite style, apartment style, and corridor style accommodations. On-campus housing is generally preferred by many students as automobile parking on or near campus can become a competitive effort. There are many off-campus housing options throughout Tallahassee for students to choose from. All on-campus housing at Florida State University has high-speed Internet access included in the rent, except for Alumni Village. This high-speed Internet access is necessary for students for academic and administrative activities. Students who are active members of the FSU Greek System may live in chapter housing near campus.
Renovated historic student housing residence halls located on the eastern half of campus include Broward, Bryan, Cawthon, Gilchrist, Jennie Murphree, Landis and Reynolds. These halls also have mandatory meal membership requirements. Deviney and Dorman are also located on the eastern half of campus. There are three new residence hall complexes; Ragans and Wildwood that are located near the athletic quadrant and Degraff hall located on Tennessee Street. Kellum, Smith, McCollum and Salley halls are located in the northwestern quadrant. Graduate and married students may live in off-campus housing known as Alumni Village located in the Southwest campus. On-campus housing for single graduate students includes Rogers hall and Ragans hall.
Dining
Florida State University currently operates fifteen different dining facilities on campus. The Suwannee Room dining hall in the William Johnston Building, built in 1913, was recently restored to its original early 1900s condition. The Suwannee Room is a buffet style dining facility. Fresh Food Company is a buffet style dining facility located across from the College of Medicine to the west end of campus. In the center of campus there is Park Avenue Diner which is open 24 hours a day during fall and spring semesters. Located in the student union are Chili's, Hardee's, Pollo Tropical, Miso Chinese, Quiznos, and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Some residence halls require students to participate in a campus meal plan. During the summer of 2007, a Starbucks location was added to the FSU campus, located near the Park Avenue Diner and the Woodward pedestrian mall.
Activities
Crenshaw Lanes is a twelve lane bowling alley and includes ten full sized billiard tables. It has been at FSU since 1964.
Club Downunder includes entertainment acts such as bands and comedians. Past bands that have come through Club Downunder include The White Stripes, Modest Mouse, The National, Girl Talk, Spoon, Soundgarden, Cold War Kids, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Death Cab for Cutie. All shows that take place at Club Downunder are free for FSU students In addition, bigger concerts take place at The Moon, an off-campus venue, so house more people. The shows at The Moon are still free for FSU students. Past acts that have performed at The Moon include Spoon, Queens of the Stone Age, Wilco, The Decemberists, Ying-Yang Twins, Cat Power, Broken Social Scene, The Bravery, and Method Man
The Askew Student Life building is home to the Student Life Cinema. It features five to six nights a week playing movies, documentaries, indies, foreign films, and restored cinema movies. Movies are selected by an all-student committee and are free to all currently-enrolled FSU students.
The Student Life Building offers a cybercafe with computers for Internet surfing and computer games, as well as board games. A coffee shop called Reel Coffee sells snacks and drinks in the cybercafe. The cybercafe hosts Super Smash Bros. tournaments and other gaming tournaments.
Florida State is home to a thriving and historically proud Greek system that is open to every undergraduate student who wishes to participate. The FSU Greek system is often considered a great acclamatory atmosphere both socially and academically for incoming students in a school with a large student population, and was home to some of FSU's most prestigious alumni such as Governor Charlie Crist and Coach Bobby Bowden of Pi Kappa Alpha, actor Burt Reynolds and university President T.K. Wetherell of Phi Delta Theta, and Senator Mel Martinez and ESPN's Lee Corso of the former Alpha Tau Omega chapter on campus.
Florida State also has an Intramural Sports program. Sports clubs include equestrian and water sailing. the clubs compete against other Intercollegiate club teams around the country. Intramural sports include flag football, basketball, wiffle ball, and dodge ball.
A new area of intramural sports fields, named the RecSports Plex, was opened in September 2007. This intramural sports complex is the largest in the nation with twelve Football fields, five Softball fields, four Soccer fields as well as Basketball and Volleyball courts.
The Florida States Reservation is located off campus. This lakeside retreat on Lake Bradford has canoe and kayak rentals as well as a rock climbing wall and a challenge course consisting of both high and low rope elements.
Media
The campus newspaper, the FSView & Florida Flambeau, publishes weekly during the summer and semiweekly on Mondays and Thursdays during the school year following the academic calendar. (No issues are published during Spring Break or Winter Break.) After changing hands three times in 13 years, the FSView was sold to the Tallahassee Democrat in late July 2006, making it part of the Gannett chain. This exchange was allowed because the FSView had been for a long time a for-profit business that was not legally associated with Florida State University. Since most collegiate newspapers are supported by their colleges, this was also among the very first time that a major corporation acquired a college newspaper. (Gannett had acquired the local Tallahassee paper, The Democrat in the few years preceding the acquisition of the FSView.)
FSView also produces Edge Magazine, geared towards students, advertisements for local establishments, and a "Tally Girl" model.
Florida State University, through its Broadcast Center, operates two television stations, WFSU and WFSG, and three radio stations, WFSU-FM, WFSQ-FM and WFSW-FM.
FSU operates a fourth radio station, WVFS (V89, "The Voice", or "The Voice of Florida State"), as an on-campus instructional radio station staffed by student and community volunteers. WVFS broadcasts experimental music as an alternative to regular radio.
Athletics
The school's athletic teams are called the Seminoles. 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 (Bowl Subdivision for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Florida State University is known for its competitive athletics for both men's and women's sports. The men's program consists of baseball, basketball, cross country running, football, golf, swimming, tennis, and track & field. The women's program consists of basketball, cross country running, golf, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track & field, and volleyball. In the 2007-08 season the FSU's Women's Cross Country team won the ACC championship, which took place at the University of Virginia. FSU's Intercollegiate Club sports include Bowling, Crew, Rugby, Soccer and Lacrosse. Harkins Field is an artificial turf field that is home to the Lacrosse team as well as the Marching Chiefs of the College of Music. Harkins Field is also used as a practice field for the FSU Football team.
There are two major stadiums and an arena within FSU's main campus; Doak Campbell Stadium for football, Dick Howser Stadium for men's baseball, and the Donald L. Tucker Center for men's and women's basketball. Mike Long Track is the home of the three-time back-to-back-to-back national champion men's outdoor track and field team. Following their championship on 2007, a new three building complex broke ground on the corner of Spirit Way and Chieftain Way on the southern end of the track. H. Donald Loucks courts at the Speicher Tennis Center is the home for FSU tennis. By presidential directive the complex was named in honor of Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher, a graduate of Florida State University and the first American casualty during Operation Desert Storm. The Seminole Soccer Complex is home to women's soccer. It normally holds a capacity of 1,600 people but has seen crowds in excess of 4,500 for certain games. The home record is 4,582 for the 2006 game versus the University of Florida. The Seminole softball team plays at the Seminole Softball Complex; the field is named for JoAnne Graf, the winningest coach in softball history.
Florida State's traditional rivals in all sports include the University of Florida Gators, the University of Miami Hurricanes, the Bowden Bowl with the Clemson University Tigers as well as the University of Virginia Cavaliers and the battle for the Jefferson-Eppes Trophy. Rivalries in some other sports also exist, including the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in baseball and the Duke University Blue Devils in basketball.
Seminole Baseball
Seminole baseball is one of the most successful collegiate baseball programs in the United States having been to 19 College World Series, and having appeared in the national championship final on three occasions (falling to the University of Southern California Trojans in 1970, the University of Arizona Wildcats in 1986, and the University of Miami Hurricanes in 1999). Under the direction of Head Coach Mike Martin (FSU 1966), Florida State is the second-winningest program in the history of college baseball. Since 1990, FSU has had more 50 win seasons, headed to more NCAA Tournaments (19 Regional Tournaments in 20 years), and finished in the top 10 more than any team in the United States. Since 2000, FSU is the winningest program in college baseball with more victories and a higher winning percentage in the regular season than any other school. Despite their regular-season success, Florida State is still chasing their first College World Series Championship.
Seminole Football
Florida State University football is one of the 120 NCAA Division I FBS collegiate football teams in America. The first Florida State football team was fielded in the 1899 season and lasted until the 1904 season. The team went (7-6-1) over the 1902-1904 seasons posting a record of (3-1) against their rivals from the Florida Agricultural College in Lake City. In 1904 the Florida State football team became the first ever state champions of Florida after beating both the Florida Agricultural College and Stetson University. The football team and all male students subsequently moved to the newly opened University of Florida in Gainesville in 1906 as a result of the 1905 Buckman Act.
Under head coach Bobby Bowden, currently in his 33rd year, the Seminole football team became one of the nation's most competitive football teams, 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, in 1993 and 1999. The FSU football team was the most successful team in college football during the 1990s, boasting an 89% winning percentage. FSU Football head coach Bobby Bowden is one win shy of Joe Paterno for the most all-time career wins inDivision I with 379 career wins. FSU football is well-known for introducing talented players into the NFL; see list of Florida State University athletic alumni.
Men's Track & Field
The FSU men's Track & Field team won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship four times running, in addition to winning the NCAA National Championship three consecutive years. In 2006 Head Coach Bob Braman and Associate Head Coach Harlis Meaders helped lead individual champions in the 200 m (Walter Dix), the triple jump (Raqeef Curry), and the shot put (Garrett Johnson). Individual runners-up were Walter Dix in the 100 m, Ricardo Chambers in the 400 m, and Tom Lancashire in the 1500 m. Others scoring points in the National Championship were Michael Ray Garvin in the 200 m (8th),Andrew Lemoncello in the 3000 m steeplechase (4th), Raqeef Curry in the long jump (6th), and Garrett Johnson in the discus (5th). In 2007, FSU won its second straight men's Track & Field NCAA National Championship when Dix became the first person to hold the individual title in the 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m at the same time.
Florida State has had 34 athletes compete at the Olympics in their respective events. Most recently having ten athletes compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Those athletes included Gonzalo Barroilhet (Chile), Ricardo Chambers (Jamaica), Refeeq Curry (USA), Walter Dix (USA), Brian Dzingai (Zimbabwe), Tom Lancashire (England), Andrew Lemoncello, (England), Ngoni Makusha (Zimbabwe), Barbara Parker (England), and Dorian Scott (Jamaica). Walter Dix earned two bronze medals (100m & 200m) at the Olympic games.
Alumni & Athletes
Florida State University has more than 280,000 alumni worldwide FSU has almost thirty College and University Presidents who are alumni. This institution has produced seven members of the U.S. House of Representatives, numerous U.S. Senators, numerous U.S. Ambassadors, three Governors, and over twenty Generals & Admirals for the United States Military. Florida State University graduates have served at the head of such diverse and important institutions as the United States Treasury, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Hurricane Center, Pfizer, Raytheon, University of Michigan, the United States Air Force Academy, the United States Military Academy, the State University System of Florida, and Washington University in St. Louis. In addition, FSU graduates have held leadership positions at the National Academy of Science, the United Nations, the United States Department of Defense, the New York Yankees, the Detroit Lions, the Los Angeles Raiders, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Orlando Magic, Bank of America, Sandia Laboratories, NOAA, Columbia University, Omnicom Group, Outback Steak House, and General Electric to name just a few.
Major corporations run by graduates include Flower Foods, the Federal Reserve Bank, Texaco, Deloitte & Touche, Welch's, and the National Cancer Institute. Major regulatory bodies such as the General Services Administration, the Federal Reserve Bank and the American Council on Education have had Florida State University alumni at the helm in recent years.
Among the most notable individuals who have attended or graduated from Florida State University are musicians Jim Morrison and Scott Stapp, actors Burt Reynolds and Robert Urich, fitness guru Richard Simmons, senators Mel Martinez and Kay Hagan, actresses Cheryl Hines and Traylor Howard, authors Sharon Lechter and Dorothy Allison, generals Frank Hagenbeck and Kenneth Minihan, governors Charlie Crist and Reubin Askew, ecologist Thomas Ray, astronauts Norman Thagard and Winston Scott, reporters Stephanie Abrams and Jamie Dukes, directors Colleen Clinkenbeard and Greg Marcks, cartoonist Bud Grace, congressmen Jason Altmire and Allen Boyd, sportscaster Lee Corso, novelist Gwyn Hyman Rubio, judges Susan Black and Ricky Polston, scientist Sylvia Earle, administrator Orson Swindle, inventor Robert Holton, lawyer Bruce Jacob, mayors Art Agnos and John Marks, congressional chiefs of staff Benjamin McKay and B. Dan Berger, WWE superstars Michelle McCool and Ron Simmons, and Col. William Wood, the highest ranking United States military casualty in Iraq combat.
As a major competitor in college athletics, Florida State University has many notable student athletes, coaches and staff members. Many of the most notable members are listed in FSU's Hall of Fame and represent all major collegiate sports. Currently, 75 FSU alumni compete in professional basketball, football, baseball and golf. In addition, FSU has produced two Heisman Trophy winners in Chris Weinke and Charlie Ward.
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