View email in browser.

Week of November 29, 2022

I'm pleased to share that more than 100 USF faculty and staff participated in the Great American Teach-In, an event welcoming community members into classrooms to share about their careers and the experiences that helped them get to where they are today. Collectively, our university's employees visited 30 schools in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and reached more than 2,000 local students. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time to support this important initiative.

I had a lovely time speaking to the fourth-grade class at Forest Hills Elementary, a school I attended while growing up in Tampa. Like many schools across our region, USF’s impact can be felt at Forest Hills every day as the principal, assistant principal and several teachers are USF alumni, and more than a dozen USF students currently serve at the school as interns.

While this was our first year creating a more intentional effort to coordinate USF’s participation in the event, we look forward to expanding it in the future to include even more faculty and staff from USF and school districts across the Tampa Bay region. To ensure this initiative is successful, we would appreciate a few minutes of your time to complete a brief survey about your experience as a volunteer or tell us what would make you more likely to participate next year.

Updates

• Thanks to our talented team in the Office of Veteran Success, USF continues to provide outstanding service to our military-connected students. I firmly believe we can always do more to assist these students and families to thank them for their service and make their time at USF a success. In the coming weeks, I will be convening the USF President’s Task Force on Veterans and Military Families to study and recommend ways that we can continue to improve the experience of our university's military-connected community. Be on the lookout for upcoming announcements about this important new initiative.

• I am pleased to provide an update about our search for a new Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The search firm is actively recruiting candidates and will be conducting first-round interviews with the search advisory committee in the new year. The full position description can be viewed here. I look forward to welcoming a talented and driven leader into this role and building on USF’s commitment to providing an inclusive learning environment to our diverse community.

• As one of the largest economic drivers in the Tampa Bay region, USF has a responsibility to support diverse businesses in our community, and our Mentor Protégé Program is just one of the many positive outcomes we’ve seen since the university launched an initiative to enhance supplier diversity several years ago. The mentor program just wrapped up its second year, and I was thrilled to read a story about the significant ways it helps local businesses grow. All faculty and staff who make purchases can make an impact by considering more diverse suppliers, and I encourage you to join a free lunch-and-learn for USF employees hosted by the Office of Supplier Diversity on Dec. 6. You can register for the event here. Similar events will be held on our St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses in the coming months.

• I was proud to celebrate our remarkable faculty members at the USF Faculty Honors and Awards Reception. These outstanding individuals drive USF forward through their work in community-engaged scholarship, mentoring and advising, undergraduate teaching and research and innovation. We also honored three faculty members, Mya Breitbart, Patrice Buzzanell and William M. Sappenfield, who received the coveted award of Distinguished University Professor. Congratulations to this year’s awardees for everything you have accomplished!

• Congratulations to the USF men’s soccer team for reaching the second round of the NCAA tournament, before losing to undefeated and top-seeded Kentucky, and to our women’s basketball team for starting off the season with a 7-2 record! During last Saturday’s football game against UCF, the theme of the game was fan appreciation, and I thank our faculty and staff members who continue to support our teams and student-athletes.

• During my recent visits across campus, I explored the innovative work happening within two groups at our university: Cyber Florida and Student Success. Cyber Florida is making great strides in advancing our state as a national leader in cybersecurity, and Student Success is helping our students thrive both during their studies and after graduation. I was especially impressed to learn that Student Success has approximately 2,100 employees, and more than half of them are current students!

A shopping trip in the 60s leads to lifelong love for USF 

It was supposed to be only temporary. Now, 50 years later, Joan “Sudsy” Tschiderer has been part of nearly every major initiative, development and milestone on the USF St. Petersburg campus – as a student and staff member. The unofficial ambassador shares how she's been embedded in the campus as it grew from military barracks to the vibrant community of today.

Boundless Bulls is a collection of stories about what truly makes USF great – the people. It is a focus on our community footprint, our impact and the trajectory of where we can go together.

60 Minutes featured USF researcher Antoinette Jackson in an episode exploring forgotten Black cemeteries and how researchers are tracking lost graves in Florida.

The St. Pete Catalyst published a story about the USF College of Nursing's newly formed partnerships with two universities in Sicily, Italy.

NBC News quoted USF faculty members Elizabeth Dunn and Lindsey Peterson in a story about Hurricane Ian and the gaps present in emergency preparedness efforts.

USF is nationally recognized as a top institution for international student enrollment and education abroad. In the Open Doors® 2022 Report on International Educational Exchange, USF is the No. 1 destination in Florida for international students and is ranked among the top 20 universities in the U.S. for students studying abroad. More than 10 percent of USF’s student body is comprised of international students, who represent over 140 countries around the globe.

Inside USF: The Newsletter is published every other week.

This email address is used for distribution only and is not monitored for responses.

For reasonable disability accommodations requests pertaining to this announcement, please contact one of our offices.