Future of Florida International University

[brickell]

Also since we're talking about it here's the rankings of the "national universities" in Florida.

University of Miami - #38
University of Florida - #58
Florida State University - #101
Florida Institute of Technology - #164
University of Central Florida - #177
University of South Florida - #181

-------------------------------------
Alphabetical

Barry University - Tier 2
Florida A&M University - Tier 2
Florida Atlantic University - Tier 2
Florida International University - Tier 2
Lynn University - Tier 2
Nova Southeastern University - Tier 2
University of West Florida - Tier 2

[PeterSmith]

No worries, I probably should have tempered my negative comments towards the SEC a bit more, as well. I think we’re both on the same page that an improving FIU means an improving South Florida, and I think the conference move continues us on that path somewhat. If anything, it adds more fire to the story that FIU is a school with momentum and a school on the rise that deserves investment and respect.

Regarding the rankings you posted, I had no idea that Florida Tech was ranked so highly. Very surprising to me. I’d like to see FIU break into the top 200 of the US News rankings this year. It would be even better for South Florida if FIU could surpass USF and UCF, but that may take a bit longer.

[brickell]

Yeah, FIT was a surprise to me. I don't tend to hear much about them. I'll claim ignorance on Lynn too. I've seen signs for them, but had no idea they were a "real" school.

I tend to think of UCF and USF as a step ahead still, but there's certainly no reason FIU shouldn't be on that level soon. And now that I look at the list again I'm noticing almost half of the programs are in our Metro area. Not bad.

[Miami High Rise]

Don't get too used to all the ongoing and planned construction projects at FIU:

South Florida’s private sector getting less help from the public

As companies bounce back, governments continue to retrench. University of Miami announces big cuts, and blames public dollars. FIU goes from windfall to “nothing” for construction.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/0...#storylink=cpy

Florida International University saw $24 million in state aid cut this year, and plans on making up the difference to a large degree by deferring maintenance projects and equipment purchases in its $1 billion budget, said CFO Kenneth Jessell.
But the more troubling trend may be FIU’s plan for major construction projects. Two are underway now: new public-health and science buildings costing about $40 million each to build. They were funded with state dollars approved before the economy tanked, and Jessell sees no hope of FIU spending that kind of money in the years to come.
“We had lots of money coming in,’’ he said. “Now there’s nothing.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/0...#storylink=cpy

[CF221]

FIU will hike tuition to compensate.... at least that's what their plan seems to be. So much for "accessibility."

[PeterSmith]

New renderings of FIU's football stadium. Work is currently finishing up on enclosing the lower bowl. These renderings are what the next few phases should look like:

[theEmbarcadero]

When did they become the Panthers....when I was growing up there they were the Sunblazers...?

[PeterSmith]

About 25 years ago. Changed from Sunblazers to the Golden Panthers in the late 80s, and then Golden was dropped about two years ago. Now, it's just Panthers; although, I'm not entirely sure there's ever been an official name change on that. It just seems like all the apparel/merchandise/etc. gradually shifted towards just saying Panthers instead of Golden Panthers. Too bad, I liked Golden Panthers better, and I liked Sunblazers even more than that.

Although, the new fight song inaugurated a month or two ago uses the phrase Golden Panthers. That could be meaningless, however, given that the old fight song referenced "the green fields of Tamiami," of which there are none.

[dave8721]

Judging by the background it looks like its being built in suburban Georgia somewhere. Going to be quite a long trip for the fans to watch the games.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Could be worse, where i went to school, this was our Law building :

While loathed by the masses, this building is critically considered a brutalist masterpiece. I always found it exceptionally graceful when casting shadows over the Charles River.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

Originally Posted by brickell

Also since we're talking about it here's the rankings of the "national universities" in Florida.

University of Miami - #38
University of Florida - #58
Florida State University - #101
Florida Institute of Technology - #164
University of Central Florida - #177
University of South Florida - #181

-------------------------------------
Alphabetical

Barry University - Tier 2
Florida A&M University - Tier 2
Florida Atlantic University - Tier 2
Florida International University - Tier 2
Lynn University - Tier 2
Nova Southeastern University - Tier 2
University of West Florida - Tier 2

Florida fares well in the "regional" categories:

Regional Colleges:
Florida Southern College - #2
Flagler College - #10

Regional Universities:
Rollins College - #1
Stetson University - #3

[spellbound]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Judging by the background it looks like its being built in suburban Georgia somewhere. Going to be quite a long trip for the fans to watch the games.

Yeah, I was wondering how Sweetwater was magically transformed into a leafy, upper middle class suburb well north of Florida. Talk about your commuter college!

[spellbound]

Originally Posted by SkyDiveJunkee

While loathed by the masses, this building is critically considered a brutalist masterpiece. I always found it exceptionally graceful when casting shadows over the Charles River.

I remember it well!

Emerson (where I went) occupies mostly a series of brownstones along both sides of Beacon St. but few know just how much real estate they actually own in Boston. Huge amount and obviously given the locale it's worth a ton.

They once considered selling and building an entirely new campus up in Lawerence, but the alumni and students howled in protest and the idea was quietly dropped. What on Earth were they thinking? Going to school IN Boston is a huge part of the attraction in the first place.

[PeterSmith]

Washington Monthly just released its 2012 college rankings. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/col...rsity_rank.php

FIU ranks as the 53rd best school among national universities. It also ranks second in the state of Florida, behind only UF, which ranked 21st nationally.

Unlike the more infamous U.S. News rankings, which measures schools based on private good criteria, Washington Monthly selects public good criteria for its rankings.

[Hia-leah JDM]

FIU is vital for Miami's future.

AMERICA’S 7TH-LARGEST UNIVERSITY CONTINUES TO GROW

With over 50,000 students (50,394 as of Fall 2012, to be exact), Florida International University is not just “Miami’s Public Research University,” but now also Florida’s second-largest university and America’s seventh-largest university. This is not your parents’ FIU. What started in the 1960s as a small university with four buildings in the city’s periphery in western Miami, is now a major research university, and it’s building like crazy to accommodate for years of continued growth.

Buildings under construction at FIU:

Science Classroom Complex- 6 story building of science auditoriums, classrooms and laboratories. Completion date: February 2013, Architects: Perkins + Will

Satellite Chiller Plant- Boring, but hey, who doesn’t want some air conditioning? Completion date: May 2013, Architects: SGM

Parkview Hall- Two 6-story residence halls for 620 undergraduate students. This housing complex is adjacent to FIU Stadium and includes an awesome public plaza in front of the stadium. Perfect for football tailgating! A second phase of this project would add an additional 620 beds in 2015. Completion date: July 2013, Architects: HKS HADP
College of Business Building III (MANGO)- 6-story building of classrooms and offices for the College of Business Administration.
Completion date: July 2013

Stocker AstroScience Center- Astronomy observatory tower. Completion date: August 2013, Architect: Saddiq Khan

School of Architecture Environmental Structures and Technology Lab- Structural systems and materials testing facilities for Architecture students. Completion date: August 2013

Academic Health Center V- 5-story building of science and research laboratories for the Stempel College of Public Work and Social Work. Includes research labs for the Earth and Environment Department for research on natural disasters. Completion date: January 2014, Architects: Perkins + Will

Ambulatory Care Clinic- Public clinic for the FIU Medical School, Nursing and Miami-Dade County Health Department. Completion date: May 2014

Student Academic Support Center- Office for student support- financial aid, bursars, admissions, advising, etc. Completion date: December 2014


What’s nice about FIU’s architecture is that every building is unique. In an architect’s perspective, this allows maximum opportunities to design a building that is more unique. Many American universities, especially older ones with a prescribed “historic” architectural style, usually Collegiate Gothic, constrain architects to build future buildings to that same style, replicating the look of the campus circa 1850. At FIU, where the oldest buildings have a 1960s Brutalist architectural style, there is no prescribed style, so every building on campus is a completely different experience from the one next to it. It makes for walking to class all the more interesting. Not to mention finding the right building for class is a lot easier (“that classroom is over in the building with the multicolored tiles on the wall and the weird columns sticking out”).

Metro Atlantic

[CF221]

I'd say FIU does have a prescribed style, and it is modernism. All of the buldings show it in one way or another. Even their failed attempts at classical collegiate architecture have marked modernist lines (example: the colonnade south of GC). The parking lots seem to have been designed with a classical look, but really have very, very watered-down clacissism.

As to "it makes for walking to class all the more interesting," I don't know if I'm the only one to notice, but the roofs of most of these modernist "masterpieces" (Deuxieme Maison, Primera Casa, Owa Ehan, and Viertes Haus) are chock-full of a disgusting black mass of dead insects, dust, and spider webs that is about a foot thick and just hangs from the roof. It really makes you think about how "efficient" these buildings can really be.

"finding the right building for class is a lot easier:" for an FIU student for a year or more, it is, but for a visitor, I had trouble pointing out primera casa from the other buildings because my description of "modernist building with huge stairway" did not cut it. So I just told him to look for the stairway.

[xerxesjc28]

If I could continue the complaint.

Going to Miami-Dade College yeah the buildings are uglier (buy hey since when has brutalist architecture looked pleasing to the eyes?) but at-least the buildings in the MDC campuses are interconnected, in Kendall campus with roofs to protect from sun and rain, and you don't have to walk a football field or two of empty golf courses like lawns between buildings to get to class. Overall the interconnection between buildings, even buildings right next to each other in FIU, is not so great. I mean just how hard is it to build a slab of roof between buildings so you don't have to get soaked when it rains every few hours during the rainy season?

Not to mention, that since most buildings in FIU are made by different architects the whole architectural style of the campus is kind of all over the place. Also, I just can't stop getting irked at the fact that so many courses and programs have been cut from FIU while they still magically have money to build/upgrade the stadium.

[CF221]

I agree. They have no money for courses or for hiring better teachers, but yet they continue to build everywhere.

Something else I find just exhaustingly inexcusable is the lack of/incorrect placement of walkways throughout the campus. They literally force you to walk the opposite way to your endpoint only to turn back and connect to a walkway that takes you there, all in fields of grass as plain and extensive as could be made. Students have turned to just walking through long expanses of grass because following the walkways would not help them in getting to class early, and therefore you find several muddy pathways through the grass in MMC.

I think that you you might be surprised that its latest contruction (science classrooms building at the end of SW 109 ave) actually does have a roofed connection with neighboring Chemistry and Physics. Perhaps they are just sloooooow learners.

However, this same building seems to reflect your statement that the building designs in FIU are all over the place. It just seems like this one is the "last in the line" of a looooooooooong line of modernist buildings.

Finally, I disagree with you that those "empty golf courses like lawns between buildings" are actually a bad experience. To the contrary, they provide a natural escape to the manmade monstruosities which surround them. You can see lots of students sitting under trees or just enjoying the place. I personally think something it needs is more shade trees to cover great expanses of grass, and so people don't have to suffer even more from the blazing sun. As for the covered walkways, I think it wouldn't be bad to just make one cutting through the green fields, if it helps people not to get wet in rainy season.

[xerxesjc28]

About the "huge lawns between buildings" its not that I don't like green spaces, its just that it seems to add a monstrous amount of space between buildings. This gets really annoying when ever it is very hot and humid or rainy and you have to walk through 5-10 minutes of grass to get to another building. Grass and tress are great, and it makes FIU much more pleasing to the eye than say most MDC college campuses, but they need to get someone to better organize the construction placement of buildings.

For example, Miami-Dade Kendall campus has a huge central plaza surrounded by buildings, it serves as an activity area and a space where students meet up and hang around. Granted its mostly concrete and not as pleasing as say grass and trees, but it serves it purpose.

[BornInTheGrove]

Originally Posted by xerxesjc28

About the "huge lawns between buildings" its not that I don't like green spaces, its just that it seems to add a monstrous amount of space between buildings. This gets really annoying when ever it is very hot and humid or rainy and you have to walk through 5-10 minutes of grass to get to another building.

Man do you over-exaggerated ... you make it seem like there aren't any sidewalks or paved walkways of any kind whatsoever. It takes me, literally, 5 minutes to get from where i park in one of the garages to any of my classes... honestly. Oh my god, i have to walk outside without a covered terrace... wow seriously? Most of the time, you're walking through a building, where there's a/c , really helps out for those summer hot days (i spend in total probably a minute walking in sweltering heat to get to a class)... and if it's raining, bring an umbrella... or don't.. you're seriously going to tell me that MDC has covered walkways all the way to your car in the surface parking lots? At least my car's dry when i get to it