Florida State University Informations

Florida State University (Florida State or FSU) is a public space-grant and sea-grant research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the state of Florida.

The university is classified as a Research University with Very High Research by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university comprises 16 separate colleges and more than 110 centers, facilities, labs and institutes that offer more than 360 programs of study, including professional school programs. The university has an annual budget of over $1.7 billion and an annual economic impact of over $10 billion. 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. Florida State University also operates the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida and one of the largest museum/university complexes in the nation. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

For 2020, U.S. News and World Report ranked Florida State as the 18th best public university in the United States in the national university category. Florida State University is one of Florida's three state-designated "preeminent universities."

FSU's intercollegiate sports teams, commonly known by their "Florida State Seminoles" nickname, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In their 113-year history, Florida State's varsity sports teams have won 20 national athletic championships and Seminole athletes have won 78 individual NCAA national championships.

In 1819 the Florida Territory was ceded to the United States by Spain as an element of the Adams–Onís Treaty. The Territory was conventionally split by the Appalachicola or later the Suwannee rivers into East and West areas. Florida State University is traceable to a plan set by the 1823 U.S. Congress to create a system of higher education. The 1838 Florida Constitution codified the basic system by providing for land allocated for the schools. In 1845 Florida became the 27th State of the United States, which permitted the resources and intent of the 1823 Congress regarding education in Florida to be implemented.

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 on opposite sides of the Suwannee River. The Legislature declared the purpose of these institutions 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." By 1854 the City of Tallahassee had established a school for boys called the Florida Institute, with the hope that the State could be induced to take it over as one of the seminaries. In 1856, Tallahassee Mayor Francis W. Eppes again offered the Institute's land and building to the Legislature. The bill to locate the Seminary in Tallahassee passed both houses and was signed by the Governor on January 1, 1857. On February 7, 1857, the first meeting of the Board of Education of the State Seminary West of the Suwannee River was held, and the institution began offering post-secondary instruction to male students. Francis Eppes served as President of the Seminary's Board of Education for eight years. In 1858 the seminary absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy, established in 1843, and became coeducational.

The West Florida Seminary was located on the former Florida Institute property, a hill where the historic Westcott Building now stands. The location is the oldest continuously used site of higher education in Florida. The area, slightly west of the state Capitol, was formerly and ominously known as Gallows Hill, a place for public executions in early Tallahassee.

In 1860–61 the legislature started formal military training at the school with a law amending the original 1851 statute.During the Civil War, the seminary became The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute. Enrollment at the school increased to around 250 students with the school establishing itself as perhaps the largest and most respected educational institution in the state. 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 military forces for approximately four months and the West Florida Seminary reverted to its former academic purpose.In recognition of the cadets, and their pivotal role in the battle, the Florida State University Army ROTC cadet corps displays a battle streamer bearing the words "NATURAL BRIDGE 1865" with its flag. The FSU Army ROTC is one of only four collegiate military units in the United States with permission to display such a pennant.

In 1883 the institution, now long officially known as the West Florida Seminary, was organized by the Board of Education as The Literary College of the University of Florida. Under the new university charter, the seminary became the institution's Literary College, and was to contain several "schools" or departments in different disciplines. However, in the new university association the seminary's "separate Charter and special organization" were maintained. Florida University also incorporated the Tallahassee College of Medicine and Surgery, and recognized three more colleges to be established at a later date. The Florida Legislature recognized the university under the title "University of Florida" in Spring 1885, but committed no additional financing or support. Without legislative support, the university project struggled. The institution never assumed the "university" title, and the association dissolved when the medical college relocated to Jacksonville later that year.

However, the West Florida Seminary, as it was still generally called, continued to expand and thrive. It shifted its focus towards modern-style post-secondary education, awarding "Licentiates of Instruction", its first diplomas, in 1884, and became Florida's first liberal arts college in 1897. and by 1891 the Institute had begun to focus on modern post-secondary education; seven Bachelor of Arts degrees were awarded that year.

In 1901 it became Florida State College, a four-year institution organized in four departments: the College, the School for Teachers, the School of Music, and the College Academy. Florida State College was empowered to award the degree of Master of Arts, and the first master's degree was offered in 1902. That year the student body numbered 252 men and women, and degrees were available in classical, literary and scientific studies. In 1903 the first university library was begun.

The 1905 Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the Florida college system into a school for white males (University of the State of Florida), a school for white females (Florida Female College later changed to Florida State College for Women), and a school for African Americans (State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students). The Buckman Act was controversial, as it changed the character of a historic coeducational state school into a school for women. An early and major benefactor of the school, James Westcott III (1839–1887), willed substantial monies to the school to support continued operations. In 1911 his estate sued the state educational board contending the estate was not intended to support a single-sex school. The Florida Supreme Court decided the issue in favor of the State of Florida stating the change in character (existing from 1905 to 1947) was within the intent of the Westcott will. 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. Florida State was the largest of the original two state universities in Florida until 1919.

Returning soldiers using the G.I. Bill 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 designated it 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.

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. The school is also purported to have originated the 1970s fad of "streaking", said to have been first observed on Landis Green.

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.

On March 4, 1969 the FSU chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, an unregistered university student organization, sought to use university facilities for meetings. The FSU administration, under President Stanley Marshall, subsequently decided not to allow the SDS the use of university property and obtained a court injunction to bar the group. The result was a protest and mass arrest at bayonet point of some 58 students in an incident later called the Night of the Bayonets. The university Faculty Senate later criticized the administration's response as provoking as an artificial crisis. Another notable event occurred when FSU students massed in protest of student deaths at Kent State University causing classes to be canceled. Approximately 1000 students marched to the ROTC building where they were confronted by police armed with shotguns and carbines. Joining the all-night vigil, Governor Claude Kirk appeared unexpectedly with a wicker chair and spent hours, with little escort or fanfare, on Landis Green discussing politics with protesting students.

LGBTQ activism at FSU is unusual in that it was actually a fight against the school itself. The Pride Student Union (PSU), originally LGBSU, was founded in 1969 to represent LGBTQ students. In 1980 a gay male named William Wade won the title of Homecoming Princess under the pseudonym "Billy Dahling" causing controversy. In 2006 the Union Board added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy causing several student organizations to be zero-funded for noncompliance. Christian Legal Society had the student senate reverse the freezing after threatening a lawsuit which resulted in the founding of The Coalition for an Equitable Community (CFEC) to advocate for an inclusive nondiscrimination policy. In 2008 CFEC filed suit with the FSU Student Supreme Court against the Union Board for failing to uphold the policy though they ruled they lacked jurisdiction after hearing the case. In November 2009 CFEC placed an editorial in the FSView to provide perspective on the issue. In June 2010 the University Board of Trustees passed a resolution protecting students based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

In March 2002, FSU students pitched "Tent City" on Landis Green for 114 days to compel the university to join the fledgling Worker's Rights Consortium (WRC). The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is an independent watchdog group that monitors labor rights worldwide. At the time, FSU earned $2 million a year from merchandising rights. FSU administration initially refused to meet with the WRC, reportedly for fear of harming its relationship with Nike. At the outset of the protest 12 activists were arrested for setting up their tents outside the "free speech zone." The protest ended in July, when administration met student demands and met with the WRC.

The Florida State University College of Medicine was created in June 2000. It received provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education on October 17, 2002, and full accreditation on February 3, 2005. The King Life Sciences Building, which sits next to the College of Medicine, was completed in June 2008, bringing all the biological sciences departments under one roof.

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