Board of Governors to celebrate university success

By: Patricia Menendez/Staff Writer

 

Florida’s state universities have been climbing up in national rankings, and to celebrate, the Florida Board of Governors is launching the “Our Success Is Your Success” campaign.

“’Our Success Is Your Success’ is an initiative intended to thank students, elected leaders, business partners and researchers for their dedicated hard work and continuing partnerships,” Ilani Fernandes, social media coordinator of the State University System, said to Student Media.

Set to begin in 2019, the initiative is supposed to thank the 12 public institutions in the State University System through media columns, press releases, social media posts and the capstone event: SUS Day.

SUS Day is a component of the initiative and will be taking place Feb. 6, 2019 at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee. Brittany Wise, director of communications of SUS, said that this will be the first time all 12 public universities will be in the capitol to showcase their work.

“Florida’s universities prepare students for today’s workforce and are behind ground-breaking discoveries and inventions, from cutting-edge medicines to advances in energy,” Fernandes said.

These breakthroughs and impacts will be exhibited on SUS day.   

Both Wise and Fernandes said that the reason behind the initiative is Florida’s recent achievements with higher education, such as Florida’s number one ranking in higher education in U.S. News and World Report of 2018 and 2017. Rankings are based on the state’s two-year and four-year graduation rate, education attainment, low student debt at graduation, and tuition and fees.

“On average, a four-year degree from Florida’s public universities costs less than $15,000 and is on a downward trend. Even as quality increases, Florida offers the second lowest tuition in the country,” Wise said. Wyoming offers the lowest tuition in the U.S.

The implementation of the Board of Governors’ Performance Funding Model also improved the State University System, according to Fernandes. The model consists of 10 metrics that are used to evaluate a university’s performance.

If a university earns more than 50 points in their evaluation they will receive both state and institutional funding as a reward for their achievements.

Wise said that when the performance funding first began, many universities protested because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to raise their metrics quickly, but once it took effect, institutions took “extraordinary measures” to help students graduate on time.

“…they expanded their course offerings, they hired advisors and counselors, and they invested in software that allowed students to better map out their path to a degree,” Wise said.

FIU ranked number two in this year’s model.

Florida universities have also been recognized nationally for online education, as Best Colleges Association named four Florida institutions as having the Gold Standing for online education excellence in 2018, including FIU, the University of Florida, University of Central Florida, and the University of South Florida.

“’Our Success Is Your Success‘ serves to show all that the universities have done to make Florida a better state. If we are not talking about, people are not going to know about it,” Wise said.