Board of Governors approves UF plans for Jacksonville campus (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — The Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida on Wednesday approved plans for the opening of a University of Florida campus in Jacksonville.
The approval was granted without additional conditions having to be met, something UF Board of Trustees Chairman Mori Hosseini asked for, saying conditional approval could scare off donors.
With the go-ahead, UF will move forward with plans to rent temporary space for a downtown campus at JEA headquarters on Pearl Street, with goals to enroll 1,500 new students in the next five years.
It will also look to build a permanent space for the new campus, although a site has not yet been selected.
In Jacksonville, the university plans to offer programs in several different sectors. including artificial intelligence and machine learning, precision medicine and smart manufacturing, data analytics and information security.
On Wednesday, the number of degrees that the program will offer was trimmed from 10 to nine, with the removal of the Master of Health Administration for Executives degree.
While the university said in its proposal that “UF has unparalleled faculty expertise in healthcare leadership and management,” that program overlaps with the two health administration graduate programs offered by the University of North Florida.
More programs might be added, the administration said in its proposal: “UF will build on its most successful programs, and will launch additional programs to be identified in the coming months and years. We are optimistic for growth.”
UF has been in talks with Jacksonville’s existing institutions of higher education, with UNF President Moez Limayem saying during the meeting that he and his colleagues are looking forward to collaborating – adding that per his count, “collaboration” was said 50 times during the meeting.
“I cannot tell you how excited we are about this collaboration,” Limayem said. “My colleagues always hear me say W, W, W, and that’s not world wide web that’s win, win, win. We want this to be a big win. For our community in Northeast Florida but also for our state. We want this to be a win for the University of Florida and of course we want this to be a win for UNF.”
Board Member Aubrey Edge, who is a Jacksonville resident, highlighted how the collaboration can benefit both schools
“I think we’re at a really pivotal moment where we need to memorialize this type of collaboration,” Edge said. “Because in the future if there’s another university coming in someone’s backyard, we just need to be aware and cognizant that it is in the best interest of the state of Florida and certainly North Florida, for UNF to be a very, very vibrant university that continues to grow and get better and stronger as that area grows.”
The go-ahead vote comes about a year after UF announced its intention to add a satellite campus in Jacksonville, offering graduate programs in medicine, business and engineering.
Since then, the focus has been on fundraising, including $62.5 million in donations, an initial $75 million from the state and $50 million from the city. This year’s budget, recently passed by the state legislature, includes another $75 million for the project.