University of North Florida: 50 years of learning and growing and a look ahead (2024)

Driving along the aptly named University of North Florida Drive, cars are dotted with student parking passesas they pass light poles donning 50th Anniversary flags and pull into campus.

In many ways, UNF is a radically different campus than when the school initially opened its doors five decades ago — the growth has been significant.

When UNF first launched, it was intended as a pipeline for non-traditional, older college students who lived and worked in the Jacksonvillearea and wanted to pursue higher education.

Most had already established families, careers and homes close by. Today, the students aremuch younger.The school offers seven on-campus residence complexes, which this year, proved to be not enough with on-campus residence waitlists hitting an unprecedented high.

Students can often be seen longboarding to class, throwing discs in grassy fields and listening to music while tubing down the school's iconic lazy river — a novelty available within one of the residence halls' patios.

Looking back at UNF:Enrollment and significant events in its first 50 years

It took a mix of factors to get here — land, political compromise, money and trust—those involved over the years say.

"Jacksonville was the last mid-sized city without a state university in Florida," former city mayor and UNF president John Delaney said. "Jacksonville University and Florida State College at Jacksonville didn't want it to come to town. There was a lot of pushback. There was also a location debate over where it should go."

Its opening marked Jacksonville’s first public university and Florida'sninth state-supported college.

When the school welcomed its first class on Oct. 2, 1972, the goal was to accommodate about 2,000 students that first year.The first phase was a $4.7 million effort, to design and build the school with four buildings, reports show.

At the time, theschool's buildout was deemed a "fast-tracked" effort, as speedy construction readied a 1,000-acre plot ofundeveloped, greenwoodland that was purchased from the city and area landowners in 1969for student life. Today, the campus sits on 1,300 acres in total andhouses dozens of major buildings.

The university's inaugural president,Dr. Thomas G. Carpenter— who died last year at age 94 — scrambled until mere weeks before the school was set to open to recruit the best faculty and staff for his school. A press release from August of 1972 announced when he locked in the school's inaugural teaching staff of 117 along with 150 employees. Today, the school hosts more than 1,800 faculty and staff members.

The school has seen seven presidents at its helm, including the newly selectedMoez Limayem.

In an interview with the Times-Union, Limayem discussed the importance of retainingfaculty. He said factors including UNF's atmosphere and small average class size ratios play a large part in why educators choose to stay at the school. Still, he calls their current salaries "a challenge."

According to this year's edition of the annual National Education Association Faculty Salary Analysis, the average UNF faculty salary is tied at the second lowest out of Florida's 10 state schools offering doctoral programs.

The university originally housed 25 undergraduate programs and two graduate degree programs within its three colleges: Arts and Sciences, Business Administration and Education.

The following year, a $4.2 million expansion that added a library and student services area expanded the capacity to 2,300 students. Every few years, the school began to outgrow its footprint, continuing to build.

"I cannot remember a time ... that we have not had construction on campus," said Dale Clifford, one of the school's founding faculty members who retired in 2012 following 40 years at the school. "Growth has been a constant."

Today, the school serves about 17,000 students and offers dozens of undergraduate and graduate programs within six colleges. Nearly 6 percent of its students are from out of the state or country.

Growing campus, younger students

At the school's groundbreaking ceremony in September of 1971,Gov. Reubin Askew said the school's aim was to make public higher education more accessible.

"[The opening] will mark the departure of the old rivalry between the town and the gown,” he said. “The majority of the students who will come here will already have jobs, families, debts, responsibilities. It is not a simple thing for them to break out of such an environment, to pull up roots and satisfy their hunger for knowledge.”

From the start, the school was slated as a place for non-traditional studentsin an effort to level the playing field for locals looking to make a later-in-life career change, or as a 1971 Times-Union archive put it, the schoolplaced "an emphasis onthe needs of the working man."

The average age of the faculty members was two years younger than the average age of the school'sstudents, records show. Today, the majority of UNF students range in age from 18 to 24 years old. About 27 percent are older than 25 and 7.5 percent are older than 35 years old. Thirty-six percent of this year's freshman class are first-generation college students — a point of pride for Limayem, who was one himself.

"I was exactly like that," Limayem said."So to hear that story and to know that they came to us with that big smile and a dream for the future, we're going to work so hard — all of us — so that we can give thema great education and prepare them for that great job shortly after graduation."

The school would not welcome a freshman class until 1984 — 12 years after opening its doors —following approved funding fromthe Florida Legislature to expandinto a full four-year institution, something Delaney said wasn't originally part of the school's plan.

"The students, by and large, were either transfers or went away to school, got homesick and came back," he said. "By the eighties, the decision came to expand. The school started without the intention to add but then it just became inevitable."

Still, leaders proceeded with caution — they didn't want the school to grow too quickly.

"There wasintentionality about that from the very founding," Delaney said."You wanted faculty to know students’ names. There weren’t that many majors. Students knew each other. It was like a high school."

Jay Coleman, UNF's Vice President of Data Analytics, started at UNF in 1988 when he was 25 as an entry-level faculty assistant professor. He is one of the university's most veteran current faculty and staff members.

Coleman said the school is still considered an underdog in many respects.

"We're still maturing, but we're not a newborn anymore," hesaid, pointing to some national rankings."Even at 50, we're a baby. But we're moving up in the academic world and moving up in the terms of the impact we're having on this region and state."

Among the U.S. News and World Report rankings — which scores schools based on a mix of factors including student-faculty ratio, tuition costs, majors offered, campus life and more — UNF sits at No. 263 out of about 400 universities across the country and tenth statewide. It rankedNo. 140, on the group's Top Institutions list.

Earlier this year, the school earned its R2 distinction, a destination given to universities with a certain amount of doctoral programs with high research activity.

"We've talked about this [receiving R2 designation] for a long time," saidPamela Chally, a longtime UNF faculty and staff member who served as the school's interim president this year between the time former PresidentDavid Szymanski stepped down and President Limayem was appointed this year.

The school was also included in the U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Colleges.

Delaney says those accolades have contributed to Jacksonville's growth and development over the years.

"When I was mayor, inevitably whenthe Chamber of Commerce brought an employer to the city, they would turn to FSCJ for welders, medical technicians, etcetera — things a community college was adept at providing," he said.

"But in my later years, companies were looking for more advanced degrees adapted to more modern offerings. To that extent, it's hard to envision Jacksonville's economy if it were without a mid-sized university. When you're at 17,000 [enrollment] and the bulk of your graduates stay in the region, that's hard to ignore."

Limayem told the Times-Union that the school's ongoing relationship with the city is critical for future progress.

"If you look at all vibrant citiesin the country, each one of them has in its backyard, a very vibrant public university," he said. "We realize that Jacksonville region is growing, it's really growing. And it requires and earns the right for a very vibrant university. So that's what UNF has been. And we will strengthen that."

'They didn't want an urban campus': Building among nature

Walking through the school library's special collections wing, librarians Susan Swiatosz and Jenn Bibb along with their team have been working for months on endto pay tribute to the school's half-century milestone.

Photos and memorabilia are dotted behind glass cases for members of the public to view.

"Look at all the green space," remarkedMedia Relations Director Ginny Walthour as she pointed at an early photo of campus amid woodlands. "There was nothing!"

Times-Union archives show an emphasis placed on honoring the school's surroundings while staying committed to economic progress.

“We have to find a way to balance social and economic developmentwith the preservation of the environment,” said the school's architect, Hilton Meadows. Meadows was also responsible for developing the University of West Florida campus, which UNF officials drew a lot of inspiration from.

When it was first built, the school prioritized trees and national vegetation remaining in each parking lot to avoid "a sea of asphalt."

In fact, faculty and students were fiercely protective of the school's setting, staging a number of protests throughout the late eighties when university officials announced a plan to extend the school's main road, UNF Drive, which at the time served as the only road visitors could take in or out of campus with a single, abrupt dead end.

"When you left campus, everyone went off one road. It's hard to imagine functioning without that road," Delaney said. "There wasa real sensitivity. They didn’t want an urban campus."

President Carpenter was sensitive to that, Delaney said. He set aside large swaths of wetlands and the school's nature preserve which would not be developed on. The connecting roads eventually built contain critter walkthroughs and retained their natural vegetation.

"It's one of the prettier schools for that reason," Delaney. added.

Today, some lots may be grayer than they are green, but the school continues to commit itself to environmentalism, with nature trails open as early as 1973 andexpanding with assets like the Sawmill Slough, a 382-acre natural area that was deemed a preserve in 2006 by then-president Delaney. To this day, the school's Alma Mater includes a verse about being "nestled midst the lakes and pine."

Other portions of the school's buildout — like the bamboo garden outside J.J. Daniel Hall — have grown taller and flourished over the years. Limayem says it's one of his favorite spots on campus as he settles in.

"I've never seen anything like it on any campus," he said. "And I've been in many campuses in different continents. It's a paradise."

Documenting UNF's history

It's not just photos that librarians Swiatosz andBibb have been gathering. They've collected and cataloged hundredsof artifacts, photographsand documents — all windows into the years past.

Letters and papers from Dr. Christine Rashe — one of the school's founding female faculty members who focused on criminal justice and women's studies;rare books focused on Jacksonville-centric topics, an early-pressing Jacksonville Green Book — the guides from the thirties through sixties that advised Black travelers what hotels,restaurants and other businesses would serve them;even a Black heritage stamp collection from local activist Rodney Hurst.

Throughout the next year, the library will be rotating exhibits and guest lecturesin honor of the 50th anniversary centered around different themes. Earlier this year, there wasLGBTQ+, Black and women'shistory at UNF exhibits.

In the coming months, the library will host exhibits centered around campus development and "campus memories."

In a back room that is temperature-controlled,the librarians continue to catalog items, includingthe first set of wooden gonfalons carried by the school's first set of deans. They held white and baby blue ribbons, the school's original colors before swapping to a darker "Osprey Blue" and "Osprey Gray" some years later.

At the bottom of one of the spires, you can see lightly penciled in, "FIRST UNF BY DEAN R.K & W. TOMLIN - 1974."

In a large gray archival box rests the school's original mascot — not a turtle — the first Ozzie the Osprey. A product of the eighties, Ozzie's feathered oversized mascot head has large yellow eyes, brown irises and deep black pupils surrounded by bold black outlines. His head and neck span Bibb's entire torso.

He's, in truth, a little scary. Old photos of him looming over a child are kept close by.

"He was meant to scare you," saidSwiatosz. "It's thefightingospreys."

Ozzie was decided upon in 1979 following a passionate campus-wide election with other candidates including the fighting armadillos and seagulls.

At a November of 1979 news conference, President Carpenter announced the Osprey would be UNF's official mascot, even if there was no sports team to represent yet.

Four years later, the school joined the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The school newspaper, the Spinnaker, unveiledits first look at Ozzie in 1988, reporting that the costume cost over $800.

For a brief moment in the school's history, Ozzie even had himself a girlfriend, Harriet. But by 2009, when Ozzie received a more current makeover, Harriet was phased out.The year 2009 would also mark the school's transition from NCAA Division II to Division Isports.

The future of UNF

When Limayem is asked about the future of UNF, he describes what he calls "his dream."

He paints a picture of a young couple, newly-wed and planning to start a family, buying a UNF onesie.

"When they have that baby or adopt a baby, my dream is for them to say 'we want our child to go to UNF,'" he said. "Because that explains everything."

UNF's campus continues to grow, along with the number of degrees and programs offered.

Last year, the school launched UNF MedNexus — billed as the nation’s first comprehensive, university-based medical and healthcare training and simulation center.

This year, UNF and CSI signed a seven-year, $2.1 million deal —the largest corporate partnership in the school’s history — to benefit UNF athletics, particularly the school's arena which will undergo renovations.

"This is a major milestone in the life of our institution here," Limayem said. "We earned the right after 50 years, to aspire to go to a much higher level for our school, to be a top destination for bright and diverse students from all over the state and all over the country, maybe even all over the world."

Emily Bloch is a youth culture andeducation reporter for The Florida Times-Union. Follow her on Twitteror email her. Sign up for her newsletter.