UCF Today Winter 2010

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FACULTY PROFILE Meet Joan McCain, Ad/PR Instructor

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COMMUNITY Doing work that matters

COLLEGE NEWS A guide to what’s new

UCF todAy

Winter 2010

f o r Fa m i ly a n d f r i e n d s o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C e n t r a l F l o r i da

Record Highs

This fall’s freshman class boasted an average high school GPA of 3.8 and an average SAT score of 1237, both UCF records. The class also includes 45 National Merit Scholars, which ranks UCF among the top 50 in the nation. UCF is now home to 56,235 students, the most in the university’s history, making UCF the second-largest university in the nation.

UCF

10.29.10 10am

The Veterans Commemorative Site at UCF was dedicated to honor the service and many sacrifices of all veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces.

School of Performing Arts

Killing Diseases That Kill Bill Gates Praises UCF

Lowering the Chances of Strokes

UCF researchers teamed up with Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in a first-of-its-kind study—and may have discovered a way to drastically reduce postheart-surgery strokes. The key may be shifting a device, called a ventricular assist device (VAD), which manages failing hearts before surgery to keep blood clots away from the brain.

“The change in technique could reduce the stroke rate from 20 percent to seven percent,” said Dr. William M. DeCampli, a professor of surgery at UCF’s College of Medicine and chairman of surgery at Arnold Palmer Hospital.

VADs manage patients’ failing hearts until heart transplants UCF Today is updated daily at today.ucf.edu

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can be performed. VADs help the heart’s ventricles pump blood to the body, easing the stress on the organ.

By adjusting the way the device is implanted, DeCampli and his team say the blood clots can be redirected toward areas of the body where the potential damage is likely to be less severe. The clots would travel down the aorta, away from the patient’s head, instead of traveling up the carotids toward the head.

“We just assume the blood clots will form,” DeCampli said.

“We’re trying to modify blood flow patterns so the clots will not go to the brain.”

For the latest news, visit news.ucf.edu

UCF

TV

Bill Gates understands the importance of education—and, in a recent PC Magazine interview, recognized UCF’s online efforts to broaden access to higher education.

The topic of conversation was the Bill and Melinda Gates F o u n d a t i o n’s $ 2 0 m i l l i o n g r a nt prog r a m— c a l le d t he “Nex t Generat ion L ea rning Challenges”—to raise college g raduat ion rates t hroug h technolog y oriented around online education and learning programs. The grants will be ha nded out i n $250,0 0 0 to $750,000 increments.

“Education is t he biggest priority for our foundation here in the United States,” Bill Gates said. “We think it’s the most important thing for the future of the country.”

UCF ALUMS TELL TALL TALES Artists Christopher Davison and Kristofer Porter met as students at UCF in 1997. Recently, they joined forces to show their work at Fred Torres Collaborations in New York City.

Knightly entertainment on UCF.tv

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Gates said the program’s goal is to develop better methods for education, and that the primary means was by tapping into the most effective educators and sharing that knowledge with others.

Gates said he envisioned a future where students can choose between completing nearly all of their coursework online or a blend of face-to-face and online interaction, a choice UCF already provides many of its students.

Music Maestro

David Brunner, a UCF professor of music, received his 15th consecutive award for original concert music compositions from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The New York Times describes him as a “prolific choral writer whose name figures prominently on national repertory lists.”

What’s Happening On Campus?

Online Distinction

Check out UCF’s new events calendar at events.ucf.edu

Dr. Glenda Gunter, associate professor in the College of Education, received the 2010 Sloan-C Award for Excellence in Online Teaching from the Sloan Consortium. She has created and taught more than 70 fully online or blended courses at UCF.

New Diabetes Program UCF Health Services’ new program for students with Type 1 diabetes provides entertaining and interactive education, and is being steered by a committee of i nterd i sc ipl i na r y he a lt h professionals from the Health Center, Wellness Center, Pharmacy and Counseling Center.

Young adults can often feel isolated and frustrated when they are dealing with a chronic disease such as diabetes. The program gives them the tools and information they need to successfully enjoy their college experience while managing their diabetes in a healthy way.

To lea r n more about t he program, visit the Health Services website at www.hs.ucf.edu.

NFL Score

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at UCF released its 2010 Racial and Gender Report Card, giving the NFL its highest-ever score for racial hiring (an A)—but the NFL is still lagging behind in the inclusion of women in its league and team offices.

“The NFL is now on par with the NBA, which has been there for a long time, and Major League Baseball, which got there a year ago,” said Dr. Richard Lapchick, TIDES director and ucf professor. “But in terms of gender, they’re still behind the other major professional sports.”

Network at

68,000 fans at

UCF videos at

UCFalumni.com

facebook.com/UCF

youtube.com/UCF

University of Central Florida UCF Marketing P.O. Box 160090 Orlando, FL 32816-0090

Professor Henry Daniell of the College of Medicine’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences was invited to spend a day at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.

For the past several years, Dr. Daniell’s research at the Burnett school has centered on developing genetically modified plants to create low-cost vaccines and biopharmaceuticals. That work has yielded potential vaccines for a variety of the world’s most common infectious diseases such as the black plague, cholera, malaria and metabolic disorders including diabetes and hemophilia.

The Gates Foundation’s “top brass” attended Dr. Daniell’s presentation (including the science advisor to Bill Gates and the Director of the Foundation’s Global Health Program). He concluded his visit with a one-hour meeting with the Director of the foundation’s Global Health Program. Upon his return, he has been invited to submit a special project to develop low-cost vaccines against global diseases.

“I felt honored that the director, program officers and science advisor to Bill Gates took a lot of time from their busy schedule to meet with me and understand our technology,” Dr. Daniell said.

UCF formed the School of Performing Arts, combining the music and theater departments.

The school is housed in the new 75,000 square-foot Performing Arts Center.

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Faculty Profile ucf todAy

Joan McCain

J

oan McCain is an instructor in and program coordinator for the Advertising/Public Relations major in

the Nicholson School of Communication.

She began teaching full-time in 2005 after spending 25 years as an advertising writer in agencies and corporations. She studies and speaks on creative thinking, often giving keynote presentations to groups nationwide.

Here she shares tips for coming up with new ideas to solve the same old problems.

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Where I Find Inspiration

For me, it’s the beach. It’s where I can unplug (cell phones and computers are creative inhibitors) and truly let my mind follow random thought. We are all creative because we are all capable of random thought. But, too many of us don’t take time to pause, to let our subconscious mind take over to solve our problems. So even if I can’t get to the beach, I find creative opportunity doing laundry or mowing the lawn. Mindless work leads to a gold mine of ideas.

The most abused technique is brainstorming in a group. Huge mistake, and so many companies make it. Ideas come in solitude. Plus, so many people are intimidated to share thoughts in a group setting. Let your employees think about the problem, or send out the challenge in an email, with background. Then let them submit ideas anonymously and evaluate the ideas as a group. The next culprit is hostile, angry or negative people and influences. I avoid them at all costs. They will drain you of emotional energy and shut down the pathways in your brain.

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Creativity Myths

That ideas must be “out of the box” to have value. This term is so silly and places undue pressure on the workforce. The best ideas, the greatest accomplishments are ideas that

“ I seek fun and humor in everything I do.”

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create positive change given parameters we must work and live in. Finding the wiggle room in confining spaces is as innovative as coming up with the next graphic interface for a hand-held personal communication device. And, more importantly, the type of idea that 99 of us need to make. I have found the greatest reward in finding ways to accomplish change in places and situations others would find impossible to change. It’s small things, really. But those small things added together have a huge impact.

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Creativity Hall of Fame

Three men top my list. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, and Ted Turner, specifically for his development of CNN. What impresses me about these two is they didn’t make their decisions by creating spreadsheets and looking at bucket loads of data. They did it on gut instinct. And they changed the world. Going back, you have to give it to Leonardo daVinci. He really showed us keys to creativity: use different senses to change your perspective, look around the natural world constantly for inspiration, and write it down. daVinci’s hundreds of pages of sheep skin tablets were doodles, but they contained the early ideas for helicopters, armored tanks, even contact lenses. He was a real Renaissance man.

(All puns intended.)

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Nearby. Online. re g i o nal camp use s. ucf.e d u

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VALENCIA OSCEOLA • VALENCIA WEST •

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I seek fun and humor in everything I do.

I only take in enough news to stay barely informed on what’s important. I keep a very lopsided balance of stimuli that make me laugh versus stimuli that make me sad, angry, depressed. Science has proven the pathways in the brain used to process humor are the same pathways to process creative thought. So watching comedy, having fun, is mental aerobics for creative thinking. Laugh more to think more. It’s really that simple.

Another way I’ve grown is to experience new things. Travel, for one. Cooking is another. Spending an afternoon perfecting a béchamel or mastering Julia Child’s Beouf Bourguignon recipe is the same rush as writing an award-winning video. Cooking is an incredible creative outlet, a breeding ground of experimentation. And my family doesn’t seem to mind taking part in the end product.

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Creativity Killers

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ucf todAy 24-Hour Knights

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A ph o t o d o c u m e n ta r y

UCF

is a great university, but it is much more. It is an economic engine, a cultural gem, a research powerhouse. It’s more than just students and

professors. It’s one of the largest employers in the region, with campuses from Palm Bay to Daytona Beach to Ocala, requiring the dedication of thousands of people to keep the university safe, clean, beautiful and moving forward. And it does this 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week, 365 days a year.

To show you the breadth and diversity of UCF’s people and activities, we documented a week in the life of the university—from September 20th through the 25th, 2010—with photos highlighting the people, places and things that make UCF special. We hope the following pages will give you a snapshot of what we’re doing, all day, every day.

12:30 PM UCF vs. KSU game.

Submitted by Leigh Torbin

10:50 AM Landscaping

6:45 PM Students reviewing lines in the theatre

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24-Hour Knights ucf todAy A DAY WITH PRESIDENT HITT What’s it like to be UCF President John C. Hitt? We followed him around for a day to see him in action.

1:11 PM President Hitt chats in

the hallway after his meeting

6 :32 AM UCF ROTC runs practice drills on campus 9:48 AM Sculptor Don

Reynolds works on the Veterans Commemorative Site

10:05 AM Students learn about the machine lathe in

the Precision Metrology Lab

9:16 AM A student gets his

hair cut at the on-campus barber shop

A DAY WITH SARA REX

2:30 PM Volleyball practice

As a volleyball player for the Knights and an event management major, Sara Rex shows up for the black and gold in and out of the classroom. Not only is she ranked 11th by Conference USA in attack percentage, she’s also on its academic honor roll.

1 0:34 AM Theatre student designs a costume

11:54 AM Visiting with friends before class

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ucf todAy 24-Hour Knights 1:33 PM President Hitt walks outside of the

Student Union with Provost Waldrop

9:05 AM President Hitt

at a meeting in his office

2:18 PM UCF ROTC run drills in preparation for the Ranger Challenge

2:00 PM Boys watching basketball at the Recreation

and Wellness Center. Submitted by India Asunto

1:54 PM A Fine Art student

carves a wood sculpture

12:23 PM Students practice their dance skills in Beginner Tap

2:27 PM A student volunteers by

tutoring elementary children at Pineloch

6:48 PM Athletics meeting

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24-Hour Knights ucf todAy

A DAY WITH YAN FERNANDEZ

2:55 PM Teaching Astronomy

UCF Assistant Professor and researcher Yan Fernandez is the director of UCF’s Robinson Observatory, where he focuses on asteroids, comets and more. The observatory is open to the public.

8 :24 PM A graduate student shows off the night sky at the UCF Observatory Open House night

1 :06 PM Preparing for class

4:18 PM UCF student

volunteers with Mending Hearts

7:14 PM Actors getting

ready backstage before a show at the UCF Theatre

3:17 PM Student volunteer

washes donated clothes in the Knight’s Pantry

7:00 PM Swimmer in the UCF

pool. Submitted by Eileen Butler

Behind the Scenes Unless otherwise noted, all images were taken

by UCF Marketing photographer Jason Greene, a graduate 10:23 PM Ceramics students

work late in the studio

of UCF’s photography program.

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ucf todAy Community Preparing for Natural Disasters UCF ’s C enter for P ubl ic and Nonprof it Management received a grant to study how 87 rural communities from 11 of Central Florida’s counties— Brevard, Citrus, Flagler, Lake, Levy, Marion, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia— prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters.

The university’s researchers’ goal is to identify strategies for rural communities to minimize the impact of natural disasters.

The communities were chosen because they are located in a region prone to natural disasters—a location considered ideal to examine the strategies currently

used by individuals, government agencies, community groups and other organizations in rural communities and the surrounding areas. The best practices will be shared with organizations n a t i o nw i d e a s m o d e l s f o r emergency management.

“Ru ra l com mu nit ies face unique challenges in dealing with disasters,” said principal i nvest igator Na i m K apuc u, d i rec tor of t he c enter a nd associate professor of public administration. “They’re spread out and not heavily populated, making communication more difficult. They also tend to have limited resources.”

Visit our campus from Nov. 12 - Jan. 2 and enjoy Light Up UCF! Orlando’s newest holiday tradition offers a free holiday light show, free outdoor Holiday Film Festival and Orlando’s largest outdoor skating rink.

Knights Give Back More than 1,000 volunteers participated in Knights Give Back, UCF’s annual campuswide day of service. They worked at more than a dozen sites in Orange, Seminole, Volusia and Brevard counties.

Since the tradition began in 2007, UCF volunteers have provided several thousand hours of service on behalf of social services, the arts, the environment and other causes.

“The event was a success, and everyone had a great time,” said Marlon Gutíerrez, a senior business major and the student director for Volunteer UCF, which coordinates Knights Give Back. “We look forward to adding new sites and increasing the number of volunteers next year.”

This year, volunteers: • Canoed and cleaned the Wekiva River • Cleaned and painted the auditorium at the Chiles Academy, a public charter school for pregnant and parenting teens in Volusia County • Played sports with youths served by Boys Town Central Florida. Most of the volunteers in this group were UCF student-athletes • Helped Pet Rescue With Judy coordinate a pet adoption fair at Waterford Lakes • Built homes with Habitat for Humanity in Cocoa

Young Lives on the Mend UCF’s Heart at Work

For four years, UCF students have helped children at Mending Hearts with their homework and entertained them with games and crafts.

Students are offering nearly 20 children from low-income families more than tutoring and fun—they’re instilling in them hope for brighter futures. “ It ’s i m p o r t a n t f o r t h e children to know that young adults care about whether they’re successful in life, and it gives them someone to look up to,” said Stephanie Richards, Mending Hea r t s’ exec ut ive d i rec tor.

“Our UCF volunteers are good role models. They’re dependable, and they love our kids.”

The UCF students’ weekly visits are part of a partnership between Volunteer UCF and Mending Hearts, a nonprofit organization

that provides affordable housing to low-income families and people with disabilities in Sanford and in Holden Heights, a community south of downtown Orlando.

“We are the dawn of something new for them,” said Rachel Brill, a sophomore who volunteers every week.

R icha rd s , a si ng le mom, created Mending Hearts in 2000 to help other families in need.

The nonprofit runs on an annual budget of less than $100,000 and relies on partnerships such as the one with Volunteer UCF. “The support of the community and volunteers is huge for us, because we wouldn’t be here without it,” Richards said.

To learn more about Volunteer UCF’s community outreach, go to http://vucf.getinvolveducf.com.

When people from across Central Florida gathered in Orlando’s Loch Haven Park on the first Saturday in October for “The Start! Heart Walk,” almost 400 of the 11,000 walkers were wearing buttercup-yellow UCF team t-shirts.

Students and faculty and staff members have taken part in the American Heart Association’s annual fundraiser for some time, but UCF participation has reached new levels the past few years. In addition to the growing incidence of heart disease in the U.S., the importance of helping fight the disease struck home five years ago when university President John Hitt experienced a cardiac incident. And the UCF College of Medicine continues to contribute to increased awareness of the benefits of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Add to that the leadership of walk coordinator Maritza Martinez, assistant vice president of community relations, and company leader, Deborah German, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine, and you have the ingredients for success.

Early reports indicate that this year’s $1 million broke the record for a single-day fundraising effort for a local nonprofit. UCF’s 30 teams and more than $25,000 were important factors in that accomplishment. The Heart Walk is the American Heart Association’s la rgest Orla ndo f u nd ra iser each year.

College Prep for Elementary School Students “ We’re putting the Stepha nie Gopa l is one of 140 UCF freshmen in the Honors program participating in a national college readiness program called Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). The program will touch the lives of more than 2,500 elementary school students from several of Orange County’s most underserved schools.

Gopa l understands t he importance of pursuing higher education—her parents were immigrants from Guyana who did not attend college.

At Palmetto Elementary School, Gopal is teaching a class of fourthgraders that they can aspire to be whatever they want to be.

“Many of their parents didn’t go to college, and most of the kids don’t know it’s even an option,” Gopal says of the students she’s helping.

idea in their heads that if they want to go to college, they can.”

In its 30-year history, the prog ra m ha s ser ved nea rly 400,000 middle and high school students at more than 4,500 schools across the country. Of the 239 recent Orange County high school graduates involved with AVID, 100 percent were accepted to a four-year university or two-year college or enlisted in the military.

In the nine elementary schools selected, freshmen from The Burnett Honors College will be working with third-, fourthand fifth-grade classes, teaching students social and life skills, such as goal setting, organization and time management.

Helping Kids Just be Kids Members of the UCF cheer and dance squads brought smiles and spirit to the children at Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital. UCF mascot Knightro was the big hit of the morning visit, giving high-fives and hugs to all the children in attendance.

The children got the chance to step away from their life at the hospital, engaging in arts and crafts, reading books, and even playing games like bowling and tennis on the Nintendo Wii with the Knights.

Each child displayed a little bit of their personality in the short time with the spirit squad. Some children were laughing, all were smiling, but most importantly the kids were able to spend time being kids for a few hours enjoying the festivities of Halloween.

“It’s so important for the children in the hospital to not only know, but experience how much the community cares for them. The interactions between UCF representatives and the children was a perfect way to accomplish this. For an hour, patients who have been through so much were able to escape from their hospitalization and enjoy just being a kid,” commented Jennie Cerny, a certified child life specialist.

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Colleges ucf todAy

College News Arts and Humanities How can UCF better prepare graduates for success in a complex, changing workforce? In response to this question, President Hitt and the college created a Department of Writing and Rhetoric to promote, coordinate, and support writing at all levels and across the curriculum.

The department’s initiatives include improving first-year writing, increasing support through the University Writing Center, developing writing-intensive courses across all majors, offering writing certificate and degree programs, and expanding UCF’s partnerships through corporate and community consulting.

Business Administration Location, location, location...the Dr. P. Phillips School of Real Estate moved up in the rankings. The school tied for sixth place out of 40 programs, according to rankings released by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). The school began offering a Professional Master’s Degree in Real Estate (PMRE) in June and continues to expand programs, conduct research, and gain recognition. Last year, the ICSC ranked the school ninth.

Optics and Photonics The college offers graduate degrees in optics and photonics, and recently a new program has been launched, in collaboration with the College of Engineering and Computer Science, for a BS degree in Electrical Engineering with a photonics specialization.

Engineering and Computer Science UCF has t he t hird-best graduate engineering program in the country, according to rankings released by Hispanic Business Magazine’s 2010 Best Schools for Hispanics list, which ranks the top 10 graduate programs in the country.

Graduate programs at Georgia Tech and Purdue University ranked first and second, based on school questionnaires, enrollments, percentage of Hispanic faculty, the number of programs recruiting Hispanic students, retention rates and student services.

Graduate Studies UCF welcomed all new and returning fellowship students at a Fellowship Reception sponsored by the College of Graduate Studies. Recruited to UCF from among over 7,000 applicants, the 40 merit fellows and 22 diversity fellows recently began graduate programs in all colleges. The average GRE score for our doctoral fellowship recipients was 1394 and their average GPA was 3.7. The college also awarded $108,070 in graduate travel awards to 302 students.

Health and Public Affairs Individuals with aphasia, or the loss of speech and language resulting from neurologic injury, may participate in innovative therapy at a new facility in the Central Florida Research Park established with an anonymous $25,000 donation.

The Aphasia House provides speechlanguage therapy in settings outfitted to resemble familiar spaces in a home.

It is the only intensive program for persons with aphasia in Central Florida.

For more call 407-882-0468 or visit www.ucfspeechlanguagetherapy.com.

Education Students from the college’s language arts program joined 70 children from UCF’s Creative School to participate in “Read for the Record,” a world-record breaking campaign that brought children and adults together to read the same book, on the same day, in homes and communities all over the world. After reading Ezra Jack Keats’ “The Snowy Day,” the children cooled down by making artificial snow. Knightro was on -hand to spark interest in reading for fun and learning.

Rosen college of Hospitality Management Prospective employers were welcomed from more than 30 companies during a Career Knights event. Hosted by Career Services and planned by Event Management majors, Career Knights connected Rosen students and alumni with recruiters to conduct interviews for management in training, internship and hourly positions locally and nationwide. Hundreds of participants came face-to-face with professionals in the hospitality, tourism and event industries. Rosen College strives to develop and strengthen relations with industry recruiters, setting our graduates up for success.

Sciences Biology’s new Professional Science Master’s in Conservation Biology teaches relevant skills, provides STEM (Science, Technolog y, Engineering and Math) workforce expertise, and prepares graduates for the public and private sector. A new Statistics’ undergraduate minor in Actuarial Science satisfies the Society of Actuaries Validation by Education Equivalence requirements in the areas of Economics, Corporate Finance, and Applied Statistics, and prepares students for various actuary exams. This new minor also meets many requirements of the Statistics B.S. degree.

Medicine This fall, the college accepted 60 new M.D. students, bringing total enrollment to 100. It employs 480 faculty and staff members, while 1,346 Central Florida physicians serve as volunteer faculty. The college’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences has more than 2,400 undergraduates and more than 130 graduate students. By 2017, the College of Medicine, combined with an emerging life sciences cluster at Lake Nona, are expected to create 30,000 jobs.

More than 1,100 guests celebrated the opening of the College of Medicine’s facilities at Lake Nona with an event that included fireworks and interactive tours.

Nursing UCF honored Orlando Health’s recent grant of $250,000 to the College of Nursing for the establishment of the Orlando Health Distinguished Professorship in Nursing and paid tribute to one of UCF’s most recognized faculty members—Nursing Professor Mary Lou Sole. During the reception, Anne Peach, vice president of Nursing at Orlando Health, named Sole, who is also a clinical nurse specialist and clinical research scientist at Orlando He a lt h, a s O rl a ndo He a lt h ’s f i r s t Distinguished Professor.

The Burnett Honors College This fall, the college enrolled 474 freshmen with an average SAT score of 1376 and an average high school weighted GPA of 4.19. A total of 45 National Merit Finalists were among this freshman class.

Last year, several students received prestigious awards including the Astronaut’s Scholarship, Jack Kent Cooke, Critical Languages Scholarship, Next Generation Non-Profit Leaders Scholarship, Phi Kappa Phi Emerging Scholar Award, and the NSF Graduate Fellowship. Learn more about us at honors.ucf.edu.