What’s new for Fall?

As the Fall semester begins Tuesday, more than 50,000 University of Florida students are starting classes at a university energized by new faculty, new facilities and new academic offerings.

With the creation of 500 new faculty positions, most of which have been filled, class sizes are getting smaller, with the student-faculty ratio down from 21:1 to 18:1. The “What is the Good Life” requirement also got an update with the development of UF Quest, which offers classes that span disciplines and fuel curiosity while meeting UF’s core humanities requirement.

“UF Quest’s goal is to give students the chance to probe major questions, such as the relationship between justice and power, with an eye toward addressing our planet’s most pressing challenges today,” UF President W. Kent Fuchs wrote in his welcome letter in The Independent Florida Alligator.

President Fuchs gives his State of the University address to the Faculty Senate Thursday at 3 p.m., which will be available via livestream.

The building of UF’s future is underway around campus: Construction on the Institute of Black Culture (IBC) and Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures (La Casita) wraps up this semester, while the rehabilitation of the College of Education’s Norman Hall and construction of the new, 84,000-square-foot Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence continue. The Hitchcock Field & Fork Pantry, which serves members of the UF community experiencing food insecurity, wraps up its expansion this semester. During construction, the pantry is at 651 Newell Drive, on the back (east) side of Rawlings Hall. Across campus, the new baseball stadium will open for the 2021 season.

Events welcoming new and returning students to campus abound. Students can celebrate the beginning of the new school year with First Day Photos on Tuesday from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 pm. on the Plaza of the Americas, hosted by the UF Social team. For a full list of events, visit the First Week Florida calendar.