Florida State University

"Florida State" redirects here. For the U.S. state, see Florida.

Not to be confused with University of Florida.

Florida State University

Former names	Florida Institute (1854–1857) Tallahassee Female Academy (1843–1858) West Florida Seminary (1857–1860; 1865–1901) The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute (1860–1865) The Literary College of the University of Florida (1883–1885) University of Florida (1885-1902) Florida State College (1901–1905) Florida Female College (1905) Florida State College for Women (1905–1947)
Motto	Vires, Artes, Mores (Latin)
Motto in English	"Strength, Skill, Character"
Type	Public research university
Established	January 24, 1851 (January 24, 1851)
Parent institution	State University System of Florida
Accreditation	SACS
Academic affiliations	ORAU URA Sea-grant Space-grant
Endowment	$947 million (2023)
Budget	$3 billion (2024)
President	Richard D. McCullough
Provost	James J. Clark
Academic staff	5,966
Administrative staff	8,133
Students	45,493 (fall 2021)
Undergraduates	33,486 (fall 2021)
Postgraduates	12,007 (fall 2021)
Location	Tallahassee , Florida , United States 30.442°N 84.298°W / 30.442; -84.298
Campus	Midsize city, 487.5 acres (1.973 km2) (Main Campus) Total, 1,715.5 acres (6.942 km2)
Other campuses	New York City Panama City, Florida Sarasota Firenze London Ciudad del Saber Valencia
Newspaper	The Capital Collegian FSView & Florida Flambeau
Colors	Garnet and gold
Nickname	Seminoles Noles
Sporting affiliations	NCAA Division I FBS – ACC
Mascot	Osceola and Renegade Cimarron
Website	fsu.edu

Florida State University (FSU or, more commonly, Florida State) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Chartered in 1851, it is located on Florida's oldest continuous site of higher education.

Florida State University comprises 17 separate colleges and more than 110 centers, facilities, labs, and institutes that offer more than 360 programs of study, including professional school programs. In 2021, the university enrolled 45,493 students from all 50 states and 130 countries. Florida State is home to Florida's only national laboratory, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and is the birthplace of the anti-cancer drug Taxol. Florida State University also operates the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida and one of the nation's largest museum/university complexes. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

The university is classified "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In 2020, the university had research and development (R&D) expenditures of $350.4 million, ranking it 75th in the nation. The university has an annual budget of over $2.17 billion and an annual economic impact of $14 billion.

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). Florida State's varsity sports teams have won 20 national athletic championships, and Seminole athletes have won 78 individual NCAA national championships.

History

Main article: History of Florida State University

Main entrance to Dodd Hall, built in 1925. Dodd Hall was the location of Florida State's library until 1956. Rendered in gold leaf is the phrase, "The half of knowledge is to know where to find knowledge."

Florida State University is traceable to a plan set by the 1823 U.S. Congress to create a higher education system. The 1838 Florida Constitution codified the primary system by providing for land allocated for the schools. In 1845 Congress passed the law admitting Florida as the 27th state. In a supplementary act to the law granting admission, Congress authorized two townships to host seminaries, one east and one west of the Suwannee River.

In 1851, the Florida Legislature authorized the Seminaries to be awarded to the two towns offering the best school support. 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 instruct in the mechanic arts, in husbandry, in agricultural chemistry, in the fundamental laws, and in what regards the rights and duties of citizens.

While the East Seminary was settled in Ocala in 1853, the West Seminary state institution opportunity created a contentious fight between the towns of Quincy, Marianna, and Tallahassee. Quincy dropped out of the competition in the following years, while Marianna and Tallahassee refused to yield. Failing to resolve the impasse, the conflict was returned to the governor and legislature for resolution. In 1854, as an incentive to the state, Tallahassee re-established an old school for boys, now called the Florida Institute, and combined the school with land and buildings. The legislature finally awarded Tallahassee with the West Seminary in 1856, and the governor signed the law on January 1, 1857. In October of 1858 the school was made coeducational by incorporating the Female Institute, which was located nearby.

The West Florida Seminary was located on the former Florida Institute property. The area, slightly west of the state Capitol, was formerly and ominously known as Gallows Hill, a place for public executions in early Tallahassee.

Civil War and Reconstruction

During 1860–1861, the legislature amended the 1851 law and started military instruction for students, partly due to the desire to protect the instructional staff from conscription, which would have closed the school. During the Civil War, the seminary became "'The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute.'" Enrollment grew to around 250 students. The school arguably became the state's largest and most respected educational institution. In 1865, at the Battle of Natural Bridge south of Tallahassee, cadets from the school joined active-duty Confederate troops in the defensive line.

Cadet William Denham, circa 1860.

The cadets were trained by Valentine Mason Johnson and led into battle by Captain D.W. Gwynn. Some reports show the cadets played a minor role in the battle defending artillery pieces. The combined Confederate forces defeated attacking Union forces leaving Tallahassee as the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to Union forces.

At the surrender of Florida, Union military forces under Brigadier-General Edward M. McCook arrived in Tallahassee, disarmed the cadets, and occupied campus buildings as barracks until September 1865. The school then was allowed to reopen and resume its former academic purpose. The FSU Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) is authorized to display a battle streamer Natural Bridge 1865. FSU is one of four institutions that can display a military battle streamer.

First state university

Chemistry lab in 1900, at what was then known as the West Florida Seminary

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. (In the terminology of the time, schools were divided into seminaries and literary institutions; the name does not imply a focus on literature.) 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.

According to Doak Campbell, Florida State University's fifth president, "During the first 50 years...its activities were limited to courses of secondary-school grade. Progress was slow. Indeed, it was not until the turn of the [twentieth] century that it could properly qualify as a collegiate institution." In 1901, it became Florida State College.

Buckman Act

Florida State College for Women, c. 1930

The 1905 Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the Florida college system into a school for white men (University of the State of Florida), a school for white women (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, 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, stating the change in character 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 US 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.

"Florida State University"

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.

Student activism and racial integration

Student protest in Tallahassee, 1970

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. Student protests against censorship in FSU student publications led to the resignation of President John E. Champion in February 1969. In 1972 Margaret Menzel, a professor in the biology department, led a class-action lawsuit charging discrimination against women in pay and promotion. The case was settled in 1975 with an agreement that the university would establish a task force to investigate bias against women at the university and to revise its anti-nepotism policy so as to not discriminate against the wives of university employees.

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 said to have originated the 1970s fad of "streaking", said to have been first observed on Landis Green.

After many years as a whites-only 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 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 J. 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 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 and spent hours, with little escort or fanfare, on Landis Green discussing politics with protesting students.

The Pride Student Union (PSU), originally LGBSU, was founded in 1969 to represent LGBTQ students. In 1980 a gay man 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.

21st century

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.

Florida State University College of Medicine

The Florida State University College of Medicine was created in June 2000. It received provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in 2002, and full accreditation in 2005. The King Life Sciences Building, which sits next to the College of Medicine, was completed in June 2008.

Following the creation of performance standards by the Florida Legislature in 2013, Florida Governor Rick Scott and the Florida Board of Governors designated Florida State University and the University of Florida as the two "preeminent universities" among the twelve universities of the State University System of Florida. Florida State's new preeminent status called for an increased state commitment of $75 million, which was divided into $15 million increments from 2013 to 2018.

Campus

See also: Landmarks and Monuments of Florida State University

Tallahassee

Landis Green is located in the center of the main campus

The main campus covers 489 acres (2.0 km²) of land including Heritage Grove and contains over 14,800,000 square feet (1,375,000 m²) of buildings. Florida State University owns more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km²). 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 and is the home of Ruby Diamond Auditorium which serves as the university's premier performance venue. Dodd Hall, the campus' original library was ranked as tenth on AIA's Florida Chapter list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places.

The historic student housing residence halls include Broward, Bryan, Cawthon, Gilchrist, Jennie Murphree, Landis and Reynolds, and are located on the eastern half of campus. There are three new residence hall complexes, Ragans and Wildwood, located near the athletic quadrant; and DeGraff Hall, located on Tennessee Street.

On and around the Florida State University campus are nine libraries: Robert Manning Strozier Library, Dirac Science Library named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Florida State University professor Paul Dirac, Claude Pepper Library, College of Music Allen Music Library, Innovation Hub, College of Law Research Center, College of Medicine Maguire Medical Library, Department of Religion's M. Lynette Thompson Classics Library, and the FAMU/FSU Engineering Library. Strozier Library is the main library of the campus and is the only library in Florida that is open 24 hours Sunday-Thursday throughout the Fall and Spring semesters.

A green space near Landis and Gilchrist residence halls, on the main campus. These oak trees were planted by students in 1932

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 FSU Student Union and across from the 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 which encloses Bobby Bowden Field. The arena seats approximately 84,000 spectators, the University Center, Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium, Coyle Moore Athletic Center as well as other athletic buildings. Doak Campbell Stadium is a unique venue in collegiate athletics. It is contained within the brick facade walls of University Center, the largest continuous brick structure in the world. The vast complex houses the offices of the university, the registrar, the Dedman School of Hospitality, and other offices and classrooms.

The Mary B. Coburn Health and Wellness Center

Additional to the main campus, the FSU Southwest Campus encompasses another 850 acres (3.4 km²) of land off Orange Drive. The southwest campus currently houses the Florida A&M University – Florida State University College of Engineering, which is housed in a two-building joint facility with Florida A&M University. In addition to the College of Engineering, The 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 Florida State University Reservation, a student lakeside retreat on Lake Bradford.

James E. King Life Sciences Teaching & Research Center

Panama City

Main article: Florida State University Panama City

The center of campus. Live Oak trees with hanging Spanish Moss are found everywhere on campus

Florida State University Panama City is located 100 miles (160 km) from the main campus, 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.

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.

Organization and administration

See also: List of Presidents of Florida State University

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 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".

Jim Clark became the provost of FSU in January 2022, and is responsible for day-to-day operation and administration of the university.

Florida State University is divided into 16 colleges and more than 110 centers, facilities, labs and institutes offering more than 300 degree programs. The Florida State University College of Medicine operates using diversified hospital and community-based clinical education medical training for medical students. Founded on the mission to provide care to medically underserved populations, the Florida State University College of Medicine 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, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota or in Tallahassee.

Finances

Fitch Ratings affirmed the FSU Issuer Default Rating at "AA+" on February 14, 2022, with a stable outlook. Fitch's Analytical Conclusion states:

As a comprehensive flagship university, FSU has a statewide and even national draw for students and has considerable fundraising capabilities. The Stable Outlook reflects Fitch's expectation that the university will sustain adjusted cash flow margins, as defined in Fitch's criteria, in line with historical trends, and that balance sheet strength will be maintained and improve over time.

As of 2021 FSU's university-wide total financial endowment was valued at $897.8 million. Florida State University receives, in addition to state funding, financial support from the Florida State University Foundation, which had a financial endowment valued at $669 million as of June 30, 2021 The endowment helps provide scholarships to students, support teaching and research, and fund other specific purposes designated by donors.

Seminole Boosters

The FSU Seminole Boosters are the direct support organization for university athletics.. The Boosters raise millions of dollars annually and connect alumni and fans to the university through the promotion of collegiate athletics.

Student Government Association

The D'Alemberte Rotunda, part of the College of Law, is used to host special events and in the past has been used by the Florida Supreme Court to convene special sessions

The Florida State University Student Government Association is the governing body of students. As of 2024, it has a $14.09 million budget, with $12.86 from every academic credit hour taken at the university contributing toward that budget.

The student government was established in 1935 and consists of executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The student government executive branch is led by the student body president and includes the student body's vice president, treasurer, seven agencies, four bureaus, and an executive cabinet responsible for handling an agenda set out by the student body president. The legislative branch includes eighty senators, and the judicial branch consists of a chief justice and four associate justices, who must be in their second or third year of law school.

Academics

Florida State University aspires to become a top twenty-five public research university with at least one-third of its PhD programs ranked in the top 15 nationally. The university is the home of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory among other advanced research facilities. 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.

Florida State University is divided into 16 colleges and schools including the Colleges of Applied Studies, Arts & Sciences, Business, Communication & Information, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Human Sciences, Law, Medicine, Motion Picture Arts, Music, Nursing, Social Sciences & Public Policy, and Social Work, plus the Graduate School, Dedman School of Hospitality, and the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship. Florida State offers 104 baccalaureate degree programs, 112 master's degree programs, an advanced master's degree program, 12 specialist degree programs, 70 doctorate degree programs, and 3 professional degree programs. The most popular Colleges by enrollment are Arts and Sciences, Business, Social Sciences, Education, and Human Science.

Tuition

For the 2018–2019 academic year, tuition costs were:

• Undergraduate :$215.55 per credit hour for in-state students, and $721.10 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Total tuition/fees :$5,616 for in-state and $18,746 for out of state.
• Graduate :$479.32 per credit hour for in-state students, and $1,110.72 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Total tuition/fees :$9,580 for in-state and $22,220 for out of state.
• Law School :$688.11 per credit hour for in-state students, and $1,355.18 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Total tuition/fees :$20,644 for in-state and $40,656 for out of state.
• Medical School :$479.32 per credit hour for in-state students, and $1,110.72 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Total tuition/fees per term :$8,536.86 (Cohort 1), $12,805.30 (Cohort 2), $8,492.86 (Cohort 3 & 4) for in-state students and $20,053.93 (Cohort 1), $30,080.90 (Cohort 2), $19,987.93 (Cohort 3 & 4) for out-of-state students.

Admissions

Fall first-time freshman admission statistics

	2022	2021	2020	2019
Applicants	78,088	65,256	63,691	58,936
Admits	19,552	24,184	20,668	21,202
Enrolls	6,033	7,619	6,009	7,106
Admit rate	25.0%	37.1%	32.5%	36.0%
Yield rate	30.9%	31.5%	29.1%	33.5%
SAT composite*	1220⁠–1360 (68%†)	1200⁠–1330 (65%†)	1230⁠–1350 (65%†)	1220⁠–1330 (70%†)
ACT composite*	26–31 (32%†)	26–30 (35%†)	27–31 (35%†)	26–30 (30%†)
* middle 50% range † percentage of first-time freshmen who chose to submit

The middle 50% of the Fall 2021 freshmen class had a GPA range from 4.1 to 4.5; a SAT total range from 1230 to 1360 and an ACT range from 27 to 31. The acceptance rates for admission in 2020 were 32.4% and 27.9% respectively for 63,691 freshman applicants and less than 20,000 graduate school applicants.

FSU's second-year, full-time freshman retention rate is 95.1%. In 2019, the university achieved a four-year graduation rate of 72%, the highest rate in the State University System of Florida and among the top 10 nationally. The university has over an 83.0% six-year graduation rate compared to the national average six-year graduation rate of 64%.

Enrollment

Enrollment in FSU (2017–2022)

Academic Year	Undergraduates	Graduate	Total Enrollment
2017–2018	33,008	8,354	41,362
2018–2019	32,472	8,533	41,005
2019–2020	33,270	9,180	42,250
2020–2021	32,543	11,026	43,569
2021–2022	33,593	11,537	45,130
2022–2023	32,936	11,225	44,161

Florida State University students, numbering 45,493 in Fall 2021, came from more than 130 countries, and all 50 U.S. states. The ratio of women to men is 57:43, and 22.6 percent are graduate and professional students.

Student body composition as of May 2, 2022

Race and ethnicity	Total
White	59%	59
Hispanic	22%	22
Black	9%	9
Other	5%	5
Asian	3%	3
Foreign national	1%	1
Economic diversity
Low-income	26%	26
Affluent	74%	74

In 2017, 7.1% of FSU students were international students. Of those, the most popular countries of origin were: China (20%), Panama 10.5%, India (6%), South Korea (5.4%), Colombia (5.1%), and Brazil (3.7%). In total, 2,974 international students enrolled at Florida State University.

Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, and Leon County make up the largest Florida counties for in-state students. The Miami metropolitan area accounts for the largest geographic origin of students and makes up 23.41% of the student body. Students from Georgia, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Maryland make up the largest states for out-of-state students.

Rankings

Academic rankings
National
Forbes	67
U.S. News & World Report	55
Washington Monthly	73
WSJ/College Pulse	173
Global
ARWU	201–300
QS	448
THE	251–300
U.S. News & World Report	190

USNWR graduate school rankings
Business	85
Education	21
Engineering	92
Law	47
Medicine: Primary Care	78
Medicine: Research	93–123
Nursing: Doctorate	33

USNWR departmental rankings
Biological Sciences	80
Chemistry	49
Clinical Psychology	27
Computer Science	82
Criminology	5
Earth Sciences	62
Economics	65
English	62
Fine Arts	42
History	81
Library and Information Studies	11
Mathematics	70
Physics	53
Political Science	41
Psychology	62
Public Affairs	46
Public Health	79
Social Work	42
Sociology	49
Speech-Language Pathology	20
Statistics	30

For 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranked Florida State University as the 19th best public university in the United States, and 55th overall among all national universities, public and private.

For 2019, the FSU College of Business was ranked 27th undergraduate program among all public universities and 44th among all national universities.

Florida State is ranked the 16th best doctorate-granting university in the US for the highest amount of African American doctorate recipients by the National Science Foundation.

In 2012, the Princeton Review and USA Today ranked Florida State the fourth "Best Value" public university in the nation. In 2012, Florida State was ranked among universities as having the most financial resources per student. Florida State is ranked the 29th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings(2014).

Florida State University is one of the two original state-designated "preeminent" universities in Florida.

Florida State University receives the highest National Science Foundation research and development award in the state.

Landis Hall dormitory, the traditional home of honors students since 1955.

International programs

Fountain on Landis Green

Florida State University's International Programs (FSU IP) is ranked 11th in the nation among university study abroad programs. Every year Florida State consistently sends over 2,379 students across the world to study in multiple locations.

Florida State has four permanent study centers providing residential and academic facilities in London; Florence, Italy; Valencia, Spain; and Panama City, Panama.

The Dunlap Student Success Center at Florida State University

Center for Academic Retention & Enhancement

The FSU Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement (CARE) provides preparation, orientation, and academic support programming for first-generation college students who are disadvantaged by economical and educational circumstances. CARE provides academic support services such as a dedicated tutoring and computer lab as well as advising and life coaching. It was created in 2000 after combining various minority academic programs, services, and scholarships into one entity which has enrolled over 5,500 students as of 2017.

As of 2017, CARE had a first-year retention rate of 97 percent and had an 81 percent six-year graduation rate. The average first term college GPA of CARE students throughout the inception of the program is 3.1.

The Summer Bridge Program (SBP) is an alternative admission program for disadvantaged first generation students. The Unconquered Scholars Program provides additional support services for students who previously classified and experienced foster care, homelessness, relative care, or ward status.

Florida State University Libraries

The Robert M. Strozier Library

The Florida State University Libraries house one of the largest collections of documents in the state of Florida. In total, Florida State has fifteen libraries and millions of books and journals to choose from. Eight libraries are located on the main Tallahassee campus, with the other seven located all over the world. The collection covers virtually all disciplines and includes a wide array of formats – from books and journals to manuscripts, maps, and recorded music. Increasingly collections are digital and are accessible on the Internet via the library web page or the library catalog. The FSU Library System also maintains subscriptions to a vast number of online databases which can be accessed from any student account on or off campus. The current dean of the Library System is Gale Etschmaier, who oversees a $19.9 million annual budget recorded in 2017.

Dodd Hall

The Robert M. Strozier Library is Florida State's main library. It is located in the historic central area of the campus adjacent to Landis Green and occupies seven floors. Strozier's collections focus on Humanities, Social Sciences, Business, and Education. There has been a library at FSU since the 1880s, and the Main Library has been housed in several buildings. From 1911 to 1924, the Main Library was located in the Main Building, which is now Westcott. Dodd Hall was built as the first dedicated library building for the university, and the Main Library was housed there until the current building was built in 1956. The facility has been renovated several times. When opened, it consisted off three floors; an expansion in 1967 added five floors plus two subground floors to the rear of the original building. In 2008, the lower floor reopened as the graduate- and faculty-focused Scholars Commons. In 2010, the main floor was transformed into an undergraduate-focused Learning Commons. The most recent renovation added smart study rooms, an enlarged computer area, new circulation areas, a tutoring center, and the nation's first double-sided Starbucks. Strozier also houses the Special Collections and Archives division and Heritage Protocol. Strozier Library is open 24-hours on weekdays during the fall and spring semesters. The library closes early on Friday and Saturday nights and maintains decreased hours during the summer semester.

The Paul A. M. Dirac Science Library is the main science library for Florida State University and houses over 500,000 books. Located on FSU's Legacy Walk farther west on campus, Dirac Library is smaller than Strozier at three stories. Dirac offers nearly 800 seats and provides 80 desktop computers (PC and Mac) and 80 laptop computers(PC and Mac) for use by students. The library building is also home to the FSU School of Computational Science and Information Technology. The library also houses a collection of materials principally related to Dirac's times at FSU and Cambridge University.

The Claude Pepper Center on campus is home to a think tank devoted to intercultural dialogue and the Mildred and Claude Pepper Library. It is located in what was originally the Florida State College for Women Library, which served as studios for WFSU-TV prior to construction of its current facility. The library contains a wide collection of documents, books, photographs, and recordings formerly belonging to Claude Pepper which are available to researchers. The center is also home to the Reuben O'Donovan Askew Papers. The center is headed by FSU alumnus Larry Polivka, PhD.

The Warren D. Allen Music Library occupies 18,000 square feet of space within the Housewright Music Building in the Florida State University College of Music and serves as a repository for over 150,000 scores, sound recordings (17,000 albums and over 17,000 CDs), video recordings, books, periodicals, and microforms. The library was founded in 1911.

The Harold Goldstein Library was a library on the main campus that housed a collection of approximately 82,000 books, videos and CDs relating to library and information science, information technology, and juvenile literature. In 2018, the Goldstein Library was replaced with the Innovation Hub, a technology hub, makerspace, and design-thinking center. When the Goldstein Library closed, its collections were split and moved. The juvenile and library information titles were placed in the main library, Strozier, while the IT materials were moved to Dirac. While Goldstein Library was a valuable library for FSU, its lack of a program-specific collection seems to have created an aimless library; its legacy for some, was a place to take great naps.

The Florida State University College of Law Research Center houses the official library of the Florida State University College of Law. Located in B. K. Roberts Hall, the library has holdings consisting of over 500,000 volumes of which contain the basics of US law, English Common Law, and International law. The library also maintains subscriptions to several law-specific databases which can be accessed by students.

In addition to the libraries located on the Tallahassee campus, FSU has five other libraries, museums, and research centers. These include the FSU Panama City, Florida Library and Learning Center, the FSU Panama, Republic of Panama Library, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the FSU Florence, Italy Study Center, and the FSU London Study Center.

Museums

Ringling Museum of Art courtyard

The Ringling, the State Art Museum of Florida, is located in Sarasota, Florida and is administered by Florida State University The museum was established in 1927. 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 are several Peter Paul Rubens paintings. The Ringling Museum collections constitute the largest university museum complex in the United States. In 2014 the Ringling was selected as the second most popular attraction in Florida by the readers of USAToday Travel.

Florida State University also maintains the FSU Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) on its Tallahassee campus.

Research

As one of the two primary research universities in Florida, Florida State University has long been associated with basic and advanced scientific research. Today the university engages in many areas of academic inquiry at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels.

The Hadron Calorimeter

Florida State University was awarded $350.4 million in annual R&D expenditures, in sponsored research in fiscal year 2020, ranking it 75th in the nation. FSU is one of the top 15 universities nationally receiving physical sciences funding from the National Science Foundation.

Florida State currently has 19 graduate degree programs in interdisciplinary research fields. Interdisciplinary programs merge disciplines into common areas where discoveries may be exploited by more than one method. Interdisciplinary research at FSU covers traditional subjects like chemistry, physics and engineering to social sciences.

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

See also: National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory building

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) or "Mag Lab" at Florida State 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. Fourteen world records have been set at the Mag Lab to date. The Magnetic Field Laboratory is a 440,000 sq. ft (40,877 square meter) complex employing 507 faculty, staff, graduate, and postdoctoral students. This facility is the largest and highest powered laboratory of its kind in the world.

MIT Contest of lab award

In 1990 the National Science Foundation awarded Florida State University the right to host the new National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Rather than improve the existing Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory controlled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) together with a consortium of other universities, the NSF elected to move the Lab mainly to Florida State University, with a smaller facility at the University of Florida. The award of the laboratory was contested by MIT in an unprecedented request to the NSF for a review of the award. The NSF denied the appeal, explaining that the superior enthusiasm for and commitment to the project demonstrated by Florida State led to the decision to relocate the lab.

Large Hadron Collider

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 17 mi (27 km) circular 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 Florida State and shipped to CERN for installation. Florida State faculty contributed to several areas of the CMS, especially the electromagnetic calorimeter and the hadron calorimeter.

High-Performance Materials Institute

FSU College of Engineering

The High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI) is a multidisciplinary research institute "in four primary technology areas: High-Performance Composite and Nanomaterials, Structural Health Monitoring, Multifunctional Nanomaterials Advanced Manufacturing and Process Modeling".

Coastal and Marine Laboratory

The FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory (FSUCML) is located about 45 miles (72 km) from the main campus in Tallahassee. It is on the coast of St. Teresa, Florida, between Panacea and Carrabelle, on Apalachee Bay. The FSUCML conducts interdisciplinary research on the coastal and marine ecosystems of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico to solve ecological problems and inform public policy decisions. Research is conducted by faculty in residence and those from the main campus, as well as by faculty, postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate investigators from FSU and other universities worldwide.

Since 1949, when Florida State University established the Oceanographic Institute at Alligator Harbor, FSU has conducted significant research also Mayport, on the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, and on Mullet Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay, which studied red tide.

FSU moved the lab to its current location west of Turkey Point in the 1960s, on land donated by Edward Ball, the founder of the St. Joe Paper Company, and changed its name to The Edward Ball Marine Laboratory. In 2006, the lab was renamed The Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, which better reflects the expanded programmatic base of its research, education, and outreach missions.

Student life

Traditions

It is traditional for students to be dunked in the Westcott fountain on special occasions

The university's colors are garnet and gold. Florida State University's marching band is the Marching Chiefs.

Alma mater

Main article: FSU Hymns

The alma mater for Florida State University was composed by Charlie Carter in 1956.

The most popular songs of Florida State University include:

• Alma Mater – "High O'er Towering Pines"
• Hymn – "Hymn To the Garnet and Gold"
• Fight Song – "FSU Fight Song"

Residential life

Main article: Florida State University student housing

New Dorman & Deviney Halls complex, constructed 2015

Florida State University provides 6,733 undergraduate and graduate students with housing as well as living–Learning Communities (LLC) on the main campus. This number will soon be expanded to 7,283 with new housing projects. 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.

Student clubs and activities

Florida State University has more than 750 Recognized Student Organizations (RSOs) for students to join. They range from cultural and athletic to philanthropy, including Phi Beta Kappa, AcaBelles, Garnet and Gold Scholar Society, Marching Chiefs, Garnet Girls Competitive Cheerleading, Florida State Golden Girls, FSU Pow Wow, FSU Majorettes, Hillel at FSU, Seminole Flying Club, No Bears Allowed, FSU Student Foundation, InternatioNole, Student Alumni Association, Hispanic/Latino Student Union, Relay For Life, The Big Event at FSU, Por Colombia, Quidditch at FSU, and the Men's Soccer Club. All organizations are funded through the SGA and many put on events throughout the year. Students may create their own RSO if the current interest or concern is not addressed by the previously established entities.

Fitness and intramural sports

Construction on the Bobby E. Leach Student Recreation Center was completed in 1991. The Leach Center has three regulation-size basketball courts on the upper level with the third court being designated for other sports such as volleyball, table tennis, and badminton. It also has five racquetball & squash courts for recreational matches and an indoor track overlooking the pool on the third level of the facility.

Florida State University 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, recreational soccer, volleyball, sand volleyball, softball, swimming, kickball, mini golf, team bowling, tennis, ultimate frisbee, wiffle ball, dodge ball, battleship, college pick em, innertube water polo, kan jam, spikeball, and wallyball.

A new area of intramural sports fields, named the 104-acre (0.4 km²) RecSports Plex, was opened in September 2007 on Tyson Road, southwest of the stadium. This intramural sports complex is the largest in the nation with twelve football/soccer fields, five softball fields, four soccer fields, and basketball and volleyball courts.

Entertainment

The new Student Union, opened 2022

A large amount of student life is centered around the FSU Student Union, located on the North side of campus. The Union was originally constructed in 1952 and expanded in 1964. In 2018, renovations of the formerly named Oglesby Union began. The old Union building was demolished that summer and buildings for the renovated Union were completed in the summer of 2022 after a turbulent construction period. During construction, the services that were housed in the Union were moved to temporary locations around campus. Crenshaw Lanes is a twelve lane bowling alley located in the FSU Student Union and it includes ten full sized billiard tables. It has been at FSU since 1964. The Crenshaw Lanes were temporarily closed during construction of the renovated Union, but opened along with the new establishment as "Bowling and Billiards".

Club Downunder hosts 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, She Wants Revenge, Cold War Kids, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Death Cab for Cutie. All shows that take place at Club Downunder are free for FSU students.

The Askew Student Life Center is home to the Student Life Cinema, a large movie theater run primarily by the student body. Films played are free to students and generally fall into one of four categories: midnights, classics, new releases, and co-sponsorships. Students can attend weekly meetings where the slate of upcoming films is voted on. The Student Life Center is also home to a ceramic painting program and video game Cybercafé.

Florida State's Reservation is a 73-acre (300,000 m²) lakeside recreational area located off campus. This university retreat on Lake Bradford was founded in 1920 as a retreat for students when FSU was the state college for women between 1905 and 1947. The original name for the retreat was Camp Flastacowo.

Florida State University is one of two collegiate schools in the country that has a circus. The FSU Flying High Circus, founded in 1947, counts as an extracurricular activity under.

Greek life

Zeta Beta Tau House

About 14% of undergraduate men are in a fraternity and 23% of undergraduate women are in a sorority. The Office of Greek Life at Florida State University encompasses the Interfraternity Council (IFC), Panhellenic Council (NPC), Multicultural Greek Council (MGC), and the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). The Order of Omega and Rho Lambda Honor Societies also have chapters at Florida State.

In 2017, university president John E. Thrasher suspended activities at all of the university's 55 fraternities and sororities, days after two unrelated incidents in which a 20-year-old fraternity pledge died following a party at an off-campus house and a 20-year-old fraternity member was arrested on charges of cocaine trafficking. Thrasher said that Greek activities would be permitted to resume after the university developed new policies, saying "The message is not getting through" and calling for a major culture shift.

Reserve Officer Training Corps

Florida State University's Reserve Officer Training Corps is the official officer training and commissioning program at Florida State University. Dating back to Civil War days, the ROTC unit at Florida State University is one of four collegiate military units with permission to display a battle streamer, in recognition of the military service of student cadets during the Battle of Natural Bridge in 1865.

The Reserve Officer Training Corps offers commissions for the United States Army and the United States Air Force. The Reserve Officer Training Corps at Florida State is currently located at the Harpe-Johnson Building.

The Reserve Officer Training Corps at Florida State University offers training in the military and aerospace sciences to students who desire to perform military service after they graduate. The Departments of the Army and Air Force each maintain a Reserve Officers Training Corps and each individual department (Department of Military Studies for the Army; Department of Aerospace Studies for the Air Force) has a full staff of active duty military personnel serving as instructor cadre or administrative support staff. Florida State University is also a cross-town affiliate with Florida A&M University's Navy ROTC Battalion, allowing FSU students to pursue training in the naval sciences for subsequent commissioning as officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.

Campus and area transportation

The FSU campus is served by eight bus routes of the Seminole Express Bus Service. FSU also provides other campus services, including Spirit Shuttle (during football games), Nole Cab, S.A.F.E. Connection, and Night Nole nighttime service.

Student media

WFSU Public Broadcast Center

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. 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.

FSU 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 primarily independent music as an alternative to regular radio.

The English Department publishes a literary journal, The Southeast Review, founded in 1979 as Sundog.

Athletics

Main article: Florida State Seminoles

Florida State Seminoles alternate athletic programs logo

The school's athletic teams are called the Seminoles, derived from the Seminole people. The name was chosen by students in 1947 and is officially sanctioned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida; the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has taken no official position regarding the university's use of the name. This name, an eponym of Native American warriors, faced controversy after it was thought to be perpetuating Native stereotypes, primarily by using things like spears, war chants and tomahawks in their branding.

Florida State's athletes participate in the NCAA's Division I (Bowl Subdivision for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

FSU's Chief Osceola on Renegade

For the 2017–2018 school year, the Florida State Athletics Department budgeted $103.2 million for its sports teams and facilities and currently brings in over $121.3 million in revenues. Florida State University is known for its competitive athletics in both men's and women's sports competitions. 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. FSU's Intercollegiate Club sports include bowling, crew, rugby, soccer and lacrosse.

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. The Mike Long Track is the home of the national champion men's outdoor track and field team. H. Donald Loucks courts at the Speicher Tennis Center is the home of the FSU tennis team. 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 FSU women's softball team plays at the Seminole Softball Complex; the field is named for JoAnne Graf, the winningest coach in softball history.

Florida State University has been penalized seven times by the NCAA for major infractions for the period 1968 through 2009. These infractions range from improper recruiting of student-athletes, failure to investigate adequately to academic fraud.

Seminole baseball

Main article: Florida State Seminoles baseball

Seminole baseball is one of the most successful collegiate baseball programs in the United States having been to 20 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 No. 11 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.

Seminole football

Main article: Florida State Seminoles football

Doak Campbell Stadium from Langford Green

The Florida State Seminoles football program has played in 49 bowl games, won three consensus national championships, eighteen Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championships, six ACC division titles, produced 218 All-Americans, 47 National Football League (NFL) first-round draft choices, and three Heisman Trophy winners. The Seminoles have achieved three undefeated seasons and finished ranked in the top five of the AP Poll for 14 straight years from 1987 through 2000. The Florida State Seminoles are one of the 120 NCAA Division I FBS collegiate football teams in America.

The Seminoles' home field is Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium, which has a capacity of 79,560.

Florida State University fielded its first official varsity football team in the fall of 1902 until 1904, which were then known as "The Eleven". 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.

Under head coach Bobby Bowden, the Seminole football team became one of the nation's most competitive college football teams. The Seminoles played in five national championship games between 1993 and 2001 and won the championship in 1993 and 1999. The FSU football team was the most successful team in college football during the 1990s, boasting an 89% winning percentage. Bobby Bowden would retire with the record for most all-time career wins in Division I football. Jimbo Fisher succeeded Bowden as head coach in 2010, winning a national championship in 2013 before departing to join Texas A&M after the 2017 season. The current head coach is Mike Norvell. FSU football has introduced a number of successful players into the NFL, including Deion Sanders, Derrick Brooks, LeRoy Butler, and Jameis Winston.

Seminole track and field

Main article: Florida State Seminoles track and 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.

Faculty

See also: List of Florida State University people § Notable faculty and staff

Sir Harold Kroto, a Nobel Prize Laureate, Francis Eppes Professor of Chemistry, FSU

Florida State University currently employs 2,548 faculty members and over 8,133 staff. Florida State is represented by faculty serving in a number of renowned Academies, Voluntary Associations and Societies. Florida State was home to the first ETA10-G/8 supercomputer. Professor E. Imre Friedmann and researcher Roseli Friedmann demonstrated primitive life could survive in rocks, establishing the potential for life on other planets.

Robert A. Holton, a professor of chemistry at Florida State, developed the first total synthesis of the anti-cancer drug paclitaxel, which had previously been obtainable only from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. Florida State University signed a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb to license this and future patents. In 1992, Holton patented an improved process with an 80% yield.

Florida State's Department of Art includes many distinguished faculty. Mark Messersmith, Lillian Garcia-Roig, and Emeritus Professor Ray Burggraf are renowned for environmentally-focused paintings and "color constructions" that continue to inspire debate among scholars. Together, Messersmith, Garcia-Roig, and Burggraf created an exhibition called A Mysterious Clarity. It debuted at the 621 Gallery in 2004 (Tallahassee, Florida), and by popular demand, quickly evolved into a traveling show. To date, A Mysterious Clarity has been featured in at least nine museums and galleries including the Albany Museum of Art, the Gulf Coast Museum, and the Brevard Art Museum.

Alumni

The Pearl Tyner House, located in the heart of the Florida State University Alumni Center

Main articles: List of Florida State University people and List of Florida State University athletes

Florida State University has over 400,000 alumni as of August 2023. Florida State alumni can be found in all 50 states and many countries all over the world. FSU has almost thirty college and university presidents who are alumni. This institution has produced over fifteen members of the United States Congress, Florida Legislature, numerous U.S. ambassadors, four governors, and over twenty generals and admirals for the United States Armed Forces.

Florida State University has been home to five Rhodes Scholarship recipients. These include the state of Florida's first-ever Rhodes Scholar in 1905 and the state's first female Rhodes Scholar in 1977. Garrett Johnson, a Florida State student athlete, and Joe O'Shea, Florida State Student Body President, were recipients of Rhodes scholarships in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Florida State football player Myron Rolle earned the award in 2008. Only thirty-two students in the United States earn the award each year.

At least 15 FSU graduates have served in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, including senators Thomas Gallen, Mel Martinez and Kay Hagan in addition to representatives Jason Altmire, Kathy Castor, Matt Gaetz and Allen Boyd. FSU has four alumni that have been governors including Governors of Florida Charlie Crist and Reubin Askew and Governors of Maryland Parris Glendening and Larry Hogan. Over 12 alumni have been mayors, including Teresa Jacobs, Art Agnos and John Marks. Several have been congressional chiefs of staff, including Benjamin McKay and Dan Berger. Foreign FSU politicians include Mokgweetsi Masisi, the current President of Botswana, Briton Mo Mowlam, and Vietnamese dissident Doan Viet Hoat. Among the many notable lawyers and jurists that have attended FSU are judges Susan H. Black and Ricky Polston, along with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, and lawyer Bruce Jacob. Notable military alumni include generals Frank Hagenbeck and Kenneth Minihan and U.S. Army officer Col. William Wood, the highest ranking United States military casualty in Iraq combat as well as administrator and former POW Orson Swindle.

Among notable alumni who are figures in arts and entertainment is video game designer Neil Druckmann. Others include: musicians John Driskell Hopkins, Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, Marcus Roberts, Rita Coolidge, Sarah Hutchings, Jim Morrison, Scott Stapp, Luis Fonsi, and Mark Tremonti; directors Barry Jenkins, Colleen Clinkenbeard and Greg Marcks; television director Chip Chalmers; television writer/producer Steven L. Sears; playwright and television writer/producer Alan Ball; actors Burt Reynolds, Paul Gleason, Cheryl Hines, Traylor Howard, Faye Dunaway and Robert Urich. WWE superstars Michelle McCool and Ron Simmons attended the university. Alumni also include cartoonists Bud Grace and Doug Marlette.

Other notables include: astronauts Norman Thagard and Winston Scott; scientists Sylvia Earle, Anne Rudloe and Eric J. Barron; inventor Robert Holton; ecologist Thomas Ray; Toni-Ann Singh, crowned Miss World and Miss Jamaica World in 2019; fitness guru Richard Simmons; and model Jenn Sterger. In 1996, Carla Gopher, daughter of FSU's Westcott award winner Louise Gopher, became the first Seminole tribe member to graduate as a Seminole. Writers and journalists have included authors Charles Ghigna, Sharon Lechter and Dorothy Allison, author and historian Royce Shingleton, reporters Stephanie Abrams and Jamie Dukes, sportscaster Lee Corso, novelist Gwyn Hyman Rubio, and historian Tameka Bradley Hobbs.

As a major competitor in college athletics, Florida State University has many notable alumni in related fields. Many notable members are listed in FSU's Hall of Fame and represent all major collegiate sports. A number of FSU alumni have found success in professional sports, with 123 active alumni competing in sports including basketball, football, baseball and golf. In addition, FSU has produced three Heisman Trophy winners in Chris Weinke, Charlie Ward, and Jameis Winston. Notable Seminoles in professional golf include Brooks Koepka, back to back U.S. Open champion (2017, 2018), Jeff Sluman, and Hubert Green, and Paul Azinger, PGA Championship(1993) and Ryder Cup Captain(2008).

• 
  Neil Druckmann
• 
  Rita Coolidge
• 
  Norman Thagard
• 
  Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx
• 
  Gov. Reubin Askew
• 
  Eric Barron
• 
  Deion Sanders, NFL Network Analyst
• 
  Rep. Jason Altmire
• 
  Lee Corso
• 
  Gov. Charlie Crist
• 
  Benjamin Crump
• 
  Rep. Kathy Castor
• 
  Winston Scott
• 
  Sen. Mel Martinez
• 
  Sen. Kay Hagan
• 
  Jameis Winston, NFL Quarterback
• 
  LTG. Franklin Hagenbeck
• 
  Cheryl Hines
• 
  Burt Reynolds
• 
  Barry Jenkins
• 
  Jim Morrison
• 
  Gov. Parris Glendening
• 
  Writer & Director, Alan Ball
• 
  Christine Lahti
• 
  Susan H. Black
• 
  Scott Stapp
• 
  Jake Owen
• 
  Nancy Kulp

See also

• Burning Spear Society
• Florida State University School
• Florida State University Police Department
• List of colleges and universities in Florida
• Marching Chiefs
• Master Craftsman Studio
• National Center for Choreography
• The War Chant

References

Sources

• Adams, Alfred Hugh (1962). A History of Public Higher Education in Florida, 1821‑1961. Florida State University.
• Bush, George G. (1889). History of Education in Florida. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information 1888, # 7.
• Campbell, Doak Sheridan (1964). A University in Transition: Florida State College for Women and Florida State University, 1941–1957. Florida State University.
• Dodd, William George (1948). "Early Education in Tallahassee and the West Florida Seminary, Now Florida State University". Florida Historical Quarterly (XXVII): 1–27.
• Dodd, William George (1952). History of West Florida Seminary. Florida State University. B0007E7WRS.
• Dodd, William George (1952). West Florida Seminary, 1857–1901; Florida State College, 1901‑1905. Tallahassee.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Dodd, William George (1958–1959). Florida State College for Women, Notes on the Formative Years (1905–1920). Tallahassee.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Eisenberg, Daniel (1986). "In Tallahassee" (PDF). Journal of Hispanic Philology. 10 (2): 97–101. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2019.
• Marshall, J.Stanley (2006). The Tumultuous Sixties – Campus Unrest and Student Life at a Southern University. Tallahassee: Sentry Press. ISBN 1-889574-25-2.
• McGrotha, Bill (1987). Seminoles! The First Forty Years. Tallahassee Democrat. ISBN 0-9613040-1-4.
• Rhodes, Barbara (1994). At First – The Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, Florida, 1828–1938. Tallahassee, Florida: First Presbyterian Church.
• Sellers, Robin Jeanne (1995). Femina perfecta: The genesis of Florida State University. FSU Foundation. ISBN 0-9648374-1-2.

External links

• Official website
• Florida State University Athletics website
• Florida State University News
• Florida State University Libraries