:: History Site Index
:: Historical Overview
:: Timeline of Events
:: Hall of Presidents

:: USF Site & Name
:: John Allen Legacy
:: 40 Years of Memories
:: Named Buildings & Sites
:: Medical School History
:: Medicine's 1st 25 years
:: Marshall Center History
:: Early Women's Athletics
:: Student Trends
:: Snow at USF!

:: 1st Student
:: 1st Professor
:: 1st Basketball Team
:: 1st Football Team
:: 1st Marching Band
:: 1st Years of The Oracle
:: 1st Trustees

:: USF Sarasota/Manatee
:: USF St Petersburg
:: USF Lakeland

:: Traditions Overview
:: Alma Mater
:: Academic Mace
:: USF Seal & Symbols

:: Rocky the Bull
:: Herd of Thunder

:: Homecoming
:: Student Gov. Ceremony
:: Bull Market
:: Movies On The Lawn
:: "Go Bulls" Hand Symbol
:: Retired Athletic Jerseys

Timeline of Historic USF Events

1950s

1954

• Florida's Board of Control initiates comprehensive planning study on the state's fast-growing needs for higher education.

1956

• World War II's Henderson Air Field, northeast of downtown Tampa, is chosen as site of the new university.
• The State Board of Education passes a resolution establishing a university in Hillsborough County.

1957

• John S. Allen named first president of USF.
• Legislature appropriates $8 million for USF construction.
• Florida Governor LeRoy Collins sinks a spade into sandy USF campus at university groundbreaking ceremony.
• USSR launches Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite.
• Florida Cabinet approves the name "University of South Florida."
• USF receives its first gift: $1,000 from the Sanson Foundation.
• Stanton D. Sanson donates more than 700 acres to USF as part of the 1,700-acre campus.

1958

• USF Foundation is chartered.

1960s

1960

• USF has a total of five buildings.
• 134 charter faculty members report for a week's orientation.
• First convocation and dedication ceremonies are held. First classes begin.

1961

• Research grants total $21,000 in USF's first year of operation.
• University Community Orchestra presents first event in Teaching AuditoriumTheatre building.
• First USF library opens with 25,000 volumes.
• First student demonstration is held to protest ban on shorts.
• Local steak house welcomes students back to campus with "Collegiate Steak Special" dinner for $1.75
• First dorm (Alpha Hall) is completed.

1962

• Cuban missile crisis unfolds. Floridians watch military build-up and fear outbreak of nuclear war.
• "Golden Brahman" is chosen as USF's mascot name.

1963

• USF acquires Chinsegut property near Brooksville as a site for conferences and retreats.
• President John Allen refutes findings of a Johns Committee's investigation, saying there are no subversives on campus.
• Poet Carl Sandburg performs a reading of his works.
• USF announces that it had stocked giant fallout shelters in the Chemistry building, University Center, Library and Teaching-Auditorium-Theatre.
• WUSF-FM begins broadcasting as the second noncommercial public radio station licensed in Florida.
• President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Classes are suspended and memorial service is held on November 25.
• First graduation; 325 degrees conferred.

1964

• First planetarium program presented.
• John W. (Knocky) Parker is recognized as USF's "Professor of Ragtime."
• Rash of mostly unsuccessful panty raids hits USF campus.
• Veterans Administration announces plans for hospital on 30th Street - a sign that USF will eventually have a medical school.
• First USF Homecoming is held.
• Board of Regents approves planning for master's degree programs in all four colleges: Education, Liberal Arts, Basic Studies and Business Administration.

1965

• Research grants total approximately $250,000.
• USF gets full accreditation from Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
• USF offers its first Head Start and Upward Bound programs to aid disadvantaged and minority preschoolers and high-school students.
• USF occupies site of St. Petersburg campus on Bayboro Harbor.
• USF plays its first intercollegiate sports event, defeating Florida Southern's soccer team.

1966

• WUSF-TV 16, begins broadcasting.
• Massive tree-planting program begins on Tampa campus; students hope it will provide "instant shade."
• First edition of student newspaper, the Oracle, is published.

1967

• USF becomes first university in the nation to offer a degree program in gerontology.
• Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity becomes first Greek organization on campus. Enrollment passes 10,000.

1968

• Graphicstudio founded in Department of Fine Arts.
• Student body votes to establish USF basketball program.
• USF admitted to NCAA.
• First credit courses offered at Sarasota campus.
• Science and Social Sciences buildings and Theatre Center dedicated.

1969

• American involvement in Vietnam War at its height.
• College of Business Administration accredited.
• Black students march into President Allen's office to demand a Black Studies department.
• Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.
• USF Alumni Association is incorporated.

1970s

1970

• Total buildings on the Tampa and St. Petersburg campuses now number 73.
• Students go on strike in response to Kent State killing and the Vietnam War.
• USF's team wins four times in NBC-TV's "GE College Bowl" bringing back $10,000 in scholarship money.
• 53 arrested at USF in Vietnam War protest.

1971

• Cecil Mackey appointed second USF president.
• USF is promised a gigantic replica of a Picasso sculpture for the Tampa campus which never materializes.
• USF gets medical school.

1972

• USF's library collection reaches 300,000 volumes.
• Mackey divides the College of Basic Studies into the Colleges of Arts & Letters, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Natural Sciences and Fine Arts.

1973

• National Endowment for the Humanities provides funding for USF researchers to record "Tampa's Cultural and Historical Heritage." Nine faculty members are involved.
• First UNESCO conference held in the U.S. is hosted by USF.

1974

• Research funding surpasses $18.5 million for fiscal year 1973-74; 253 research proposals are funded.
• First reported incident of on-campus streaking occurs.
• U.S. President Richard M. Nixon resigns.
• USF begins offering classes in Fort Myers. New College in Sarasota joins the Florida university system and USF Sarasota.

1975

• First joint doctoral program at USF created between USF and UF astronomy departments.
• Enrollment passes 20,000.
• USF's new Tampa campus library opens with a capacity of 1 million volumes.

1976

• USF becomes a charter member of Sun Belt Conference.
• Phase II of Medical School dedicated, marking completion of the $26-million facility.
• WUSF's Radio Reading Service begins providing visually handicapped listeners with newspaper and magazine readings.

1977

• Center for Writers established.
• Classes canceled for one day due to snow!

1978

• John Lott Brown is inaugurated as third USF president.
• Department of Surgery at the College of Medicine helps implement new Burn Unit at Tampa General Hospital; Department of Pediatrics establishes area's first Child Abuse Team.

1979

• Engineering building dedicated in the memory of first Engineering Dean Edgar W. Kopp.
• USF fails to purchase Fontana Hall after years of negotiations.

1980s

1980

• Graduate School created.
• Small Business Development Center established within College of Business Administration.
• USF Sun Dome inflated; total number of buildings on all USF campuses reaches 148.

1981

• Bayboro Hall and Poynter Library on St. Petersburg campus dedicated.
• USF Herbarium now has nearly 60,000 specimens, making it the largest collection of its kind in the state.

1982

• USF receives second and third endowed chairs under state's Eminent Scholars Act: one for cancer research and one for marine science.
• USF's baseball team wins its first Sun Belt championship.
• New public radio and TV stations serving southwest Florida begin broadcasting from Fort Myers campus.

1983

• Florida Policy Exchange Center on Aging established.
• State Legislature and Department of Education choses USF as site of a Center for Excellence in Mathematics, Science, Computers and Technology.

1984

• USF's medical school establishes Public Sector Program to bring medical care to Tampa's indigent.
• USF becomes the world's first university to offer a Ph.D. in applied anthropology.
• USF receives first patent royalty payments on a process developed by a university researcher. The payments are a result of biologist Richard Mansell's development of a process that makes grapefruit juice sweeter.
• College of Public Health established.
• Educational Research Center for Child Development established.

1985

• University Diagnostic Institute occupies first building in USF's research and development park.
• USF basketball player Charlie Bradley completes his career as the all-time leading scorer in the Sun Belt Conference.
• Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at USF's spring graduation ceremony.
• Dr. Michael Sweeney of USF Medical Center performs the Tampa Bay area's first heart transplant.
• Seven buildings on Tampa campus serve as evacuation shelters as the Bay area anticipates visit by Hurricane Elena.
• New blood disorder identified by Dr. Hussain I. Saba; "itês" the first new disease ever identified by a member of the College of Medicine.

1986

• Institute on Black Life established.
• H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute opens.
• Ground is broken for the Polk Community College/USF Center in Lakeland.
• Master's degree program in architecture established as a joint program with FAMU and FSU; later it becomes USF's program alone.
• USF faculty generate $31.4 million in research.

1987

• USF begins offering the State University System's first degree program in women's studies.
• New 100,000-square-foot Engineering building dedicated; the $10-million structure is the beginning of a planned $60-million complex due to be completed by the year 2000.

1988

• Francis T. Borkowski becomes USF's fourth president.
• Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson visits Tampa on a campaign swing.
• Joy and Hugh Culverhouse present USF with a gift valued at $4.6 million, then, the largest single gift in the University's history.

1989

• Diploma awarded to Tracy Tyson, 100,000th graduate.
• USF Art Museum opens.
• Sponsored Research funding passes $55 million.
• Bone Marrow Transplant Program opens at Moffitt Cancer Center.

1990s

1990

• Annual economic impact of USF on Tampa Bay area is more than $330 million.
• David Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching is established.
• Buildings on all campuses total 283.
• USF Bulls win the Sunbelt Conference Championship. They go on to compete in the NCAA tournament.

1991

• First phase of construction for University Tech Center completed in the university's R&D park.
• Campaign USF reaches its goal by raising $111 million. It's the largest fundraising campaign in the history of the State University System.
• Colleges of Arts and Letters, Natural Sciences and Social and Behavioral Sciences are merged into a new College of Arts and Sciences.

1992

• Congress approves $2 million appropriation for an Institute of Marine Engineering within the department of Marine Science.
• College of Public Health building dedicated.
• USF Sarasota acquires Crosley estate land.

1993

• Establishment of Caribbean and Latin American Studies Center.
• Money Magazine names New College "Best Buy in Higher Education."

1994

• Betty Castor becomes USF's first woman president.
• The landmark University Restaurant, a traditional gathering place for students, faculty and staff, is bulldozed to make way for a 24-hour Walgreens.
• Second edition of The Best Doctors in America is published; 37 USF faculty physicians and clinical faculty are included.
• USF reaches all-time high of $86.3 million in externally sponsored research awards for fiscal year 1993-1994.
• USF is nation's 18th largest university in terms of enrollment; it is the 8th largest urban university.

1995

• Research funding for 1994-95 reaches $104.2 million.
• One of the nation's top prizes for research on Alzheimer's disease is awarded to USF researcher John Hardy.
• All Children's Hospital gives USF its largest-ever gift: $6.45 million for teaching and research in pediatrics.
• The Board of Regents approves football at USF.
• USF adds an up-link satellite capable of broadcasting distance learning classes around the globe.

1996

• Groundbreaking ceremony held for new Center for Urban Transportation building.
• USF co-hosts the Vice Presidential Debate at the Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg.
• Ground broken on the new Sam and Martha Gibbons Alumni Center.
• Martin Luther King Plaza rededicated.
• Advanced degree holders from USF rank No. 1 in the nation on the certified public accountant exam.

1997

• A trust fund that controls assets of the late Hugh Culverhouse announces a gift worth $14 million to USF, including state match, the largest single gift in USF history. The gift is earmarked for breast cancer treatment and research and for swallowing disorders.
• For the second time in the College of Medicine’s history, all medical students pass the national first-step exams. Nationally, 93 percent of medical students passed the exam.
• USF begins its first-ever season of NCAA football. The Bulls, playing in Division I-AA, open with an 80-3 win at Tampa Stadium over Kentucky Wesleyan before 49,000 fans.
• The Tampa campus library is named the state’s distance learning reference center.
• USF announces its largest fund drive ever, a capital campaign called “Great Achievements, Great Expectations, with a goal of $220 million.

1998

• USF is named by the Florida Board of Regents as a “Research I” university, along with the University of Florida and Florida State.
• USF reaches $135 million in annual sponsored research and ranks among the top 50 public universities in the country.
• Pizzo Elementary School opens on the southeast corner of the USF Tampa campus. Pizzo is a site for teacher preparation and education research.
• Former Miss USF Nicole Johnson wins the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. Johnson, a spokeswoman for diabetes and a diabetic, earns $20,000 in scholarship money.
• Alpha Hall, the oldest residence hall on the USF Tampa campus, reopens after $11 million renovation.
• The USF endowment reaches $185 million. The number of fully and partially funded endowed chairs is 45.

1999

• The 1999 edition of “Best Doctors in America” lists 187 physicians who are either USF faculty or have voluntary clinical professorships with the university.
• USF is the host university for the 1999 NCAA Final Four in St. Petersburg.
• USF has students from 142 countries, to go along with students from every state in the union.
• USF Tampa changes the appearance of the front entrance, from open spaces to tree-lined, and replaces a long, low wall next to Fowler Avenue with a large seal of the university.
• Betty Castor leaves her position as President to head the national Board for Professional Teaching Standards in Washington, D.C.
• USF Marching Band makes its debut.

2000s

2000

• Judy Genshaft, provost at the State University of New York at Albany, becomes USF’s sixth permanent president.
• USF is named to the top rank of research universities by the Carnegie Foundation.
• USF St. Petersburg begins admitting full complement of freshmen and sophomores under a plan approved by the Board of Regents and the Legislature.
• Each of the students in the new, 728-bed, $25 million Holly Apartments residence halls complex receives Internet access and cable television.
• New, $2 million freestanding, digital WUSF-TV building is dedicated.
• Shriner’s Hospital for Children at USF Tampa breaks ground on a $13 million expansion project.
• Marine Science becomes a college.

2001

• New, $25 million Psychology and Communications Disorders building opens across from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute.
• Moffitt is named one of “America’s Best Hospitals” for third year in a row.
• Legislature votes to make New College at USF Sarasota/Manatee a freestanding, 11th state university.
• Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan announces USF’s first-ever Board of Trustees, which will assume more of the policy-making decisions for the Board of Regents, abolished by the Legislature in 2001.
• USF enrollment reaches a high of more than 37,000.
• USF ranks No. 1 in number of transfer students enrolled for the second year in a row, according to U.S. News & World Report.
• Gamma Hall is remodeled and reopens as Betty Castor Hall.
• USF announces completion of the capital campaign announced in 1997. The $255.9 million raised in gifts and pledges is Tampa Bay’s largest campaign in history.

2002

• The USF School of Architecture and Community Design was named the “top architecture school in Florida” by the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design, the state’s licensing board.
• USF dedicated a new, 32,000-square-foot, $9.1 million College of Engineering Building in February. The fourth building in the Engineering complex boasts state-of-the-art classrooms, laboratories and faculty offices.
• The USF Board of Trustees on March 21 approved a $15-million loan to supplement private donations and provide the funds necessary to build a state-of-the-art athletic facility to open in 2003.
• The USF Board of Trustees approved a new honors college at USF to help the university attract more high-achieving students.
• The Oracle was named the state’s best student daily by Florida Leader magazine for the second year in a row.
• Two College of Education majors became the first-ever students to receive a four-year degree from USF St. Petersburg.

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