Campus expansion, research highlight a transformative year at USF Sarasota-Manatee
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The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee continued on a path of transformative growth in 2023, highlighted by the start of construction of its first student center and residence hall, which is set to open for the fall 2024 semester, and USF’s admission into the elite Association of American Universities.
Six months after construction started, USF Housing this fall began accepting applications from current students wanting to be among the first to live in a new six-story, $42.3 million student center and residence hall going up along the campus courtyard. The first two floors of the 100,000-square-foot building will include a dining hall, ballroom, bookstore and lounges and meeting rooms, as well as offices for student government and USF World. The top four floors will include suite- and apartment-style residences for up to 200 students, offering unprecedented views of Sarasota Bay, Longboat Key and other environs.
“The student center and residence hall are designed entirely to help our students create a new type of experience, a new type of community on the Sarasota-Manatee campus,” Regional Chancellor Karen Holbrook said. “I am thrilled that we are now able to offer our students this wonderful opportunity.”
The building means USF Sarasota-Manatee will no longer be just a “commuter school.”
“I really like the community here a lot. Everyone knows everyone,” said Natalia Chersia De Leon, a sophomore psychology major from Miami. “Being among the first to live on campus is super cool because you’re making history.”
USF also selected architects and a general contractor for a new $61.7 million Nursing/STEM building that will allow USF to grow the campus’s nursing program, increase new majors in the health disciplines, and fill the need on campus for more classrooms, teaching and clinical labs and research facilities.
Faculty research highlights
Other major stories at USF Sarasota-Manatee in 2023 include the awarding of a $2.6 million federal grant to the campus-based Florida Center for Partnership in Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT) to train social studies teachers in elementary and middle schools that serve low-socioeconomic status households and communities.; the naming of a new director for the Baldwin Risk Partners School of Risk Management and Insurance at the Sarasota-Manatee campus; a donor-supported College of Education literacy and mentorship program at a Sarasota middle school; and notable research by faculty in business management, criminology, cybersecurity, education, hospitality and tourism management, and refugee studies.
A highlight was Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Michelle Arnold’s work as part of a team that found that strong hearing intervention efforts, including use of hearing aids, slowed the deterioration of mental awareness and acuity in older adults with heightened vulnerability for cognitive decline. The findings were published The Lancet, the world’s oldest medical journal.
Faculty and student success at USF was key to the university’s invitation to join the Association of American Universities this past summer. Holbrook said AAU membership recognizes USF’s success in growing as a research institution over the past decade and a half.
“The AAU’s recognition fits perfectly with our campus’s goal of creating a more vigorous, more prestigious academic experience for our faculty and for our students, and for supporting groundbreaking research,” Holbrook said.
For a complete list of the top stories of 2023, visit the USF Sarasota-Manatee website.
Submitted by Marc Masferrer
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: At USF Sarasota-Manatee, a year of expansion, recognition and research
