Florida Atlantic University is serving a record-high student body of 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six-county service region in Southeast Florida. Ten distinguished colleges offer more than 175 degree programs in fields that span the arts and humanities, the sciences, medicine, nursing, accounting, business, education, public administration, social work, architecture, engineering, computer science, and more. Academically accomplished students take advantage of honors programs offered on the Boca Raton and Jupiter campuses.
Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business, with more than 8,600 students, features the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship, which prepares students in business, science, engineering and other disciplines to become entrepreneurs through business ownership. The Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, opened in Fall 2011, has established relationships with several prominent area hospitals that are serving as sites for clerkships, hospital-based electives and residencies.
With 44 percent of its student body classified as minority or international students, Florida Atlantic University ranks as the most racially, ethnically and culturally diverse institution in Florida’s State University System.
Florida Atlantic University students come from all 50 states, every county in Florida and more than 180 countries. Enrichment opportunities include internships, hands-on research, study abroad experiences, and 310 clubs and campus organizations.
Florida Atlantic University is taking its place among the world’s great research centers and has been given the designation of a “High Research Activity” university by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. FAU faculty members won funding grants totaling more than $48 million in 2011-12.
A 29,419-seat football stadium opened on the Boca Raton campus in October 2011. The Florida Department of Tourism estimates game day local economic impact of $1.7 million. The Owls athletic program, which will join Conference USA in 2014, features nearly 500 student-athletes competing in 19 Division I sports.
Florida Atlantic University’s Lifelong Learning Society is one of the largest and most successful programs of its kind in America, with 20,000 members enrolled on the Boca Raton and Jupiter campuses. The Lifelong Learning Society offers people of all ages the opportunity to take non-credit courses in a wide variety of fields, ranging from contemporary politics to the arts.
Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus is home to the A.D. Henderson University School, the Karen Slattery Educational Research Center for Child Development, FAU High School, and the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University. The John D. MacArthur Campus at Jupiter has the distinction of hosting two international research giants, the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and Scripps Florida, a division of The Scripps Research Institute.
Florida Atlantic University employs more than 3,500, including a world-class faculty of 1,100 professors, instructors and adjuncts, and has an annual regional economic impact of $6.3 billion.
The Research Park at Florida Atlantic University is home to 23 companies, 952 employees with an average salary of $68,158, and has an annual economic impact to South Florida of $274 million. The recently relocated and expanded Technology Business Incubator (TBI) features a Student Innovation and Invention Lab designed for use by FAU student-based teams working on industry projects.
Florida Atlantic University is home to the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a federally funded research facility that is developing technology to generate energy by harnessing the power of Florida’s ocean currents.
Florida Atlantic University alumni include U.S. and foreign dignitaries, Emmy Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, an astronaut and executives who have served in organizations such as Google, Franklin Templeton, Boeing, eBay, Motorola and the White House. Approximately 80% of FAU’s nearly 122,000 alumni live in the Florida counties of Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and St. Lucie.
Florida Atlantic University ranks second in the Florida State University System for percentage of graduates employed in the state of Florida at both the baccalaureate (70%) and master’s (74%) levels.
Florida Atlantic University is developing academic programming and research initiatives that align with its three signature strategic themes – Marine and Coastal Issues, Biotechnology, and Contemporary Societal Challenges.
FAU boasts the largest academic library between Miami and Orlando, housing approximately 2.5 million items, including 20,000 journal subscriptions. The collection is increasingly all-electronic.
For the second year in a row, Florida Atlantic University has been named to G.I. Jobs magazine’s list of Military Friendly Schools® for 2013, based on research and a recent survey conducted of more than 12,000 schools. This honor ranks FAU in the top 15 percent of all colleges, universities and trade schools nationwide.
FAU has an all-digital movie theatre on campus which includes four 49-seat theaters that are used during the day by FAU’s film study program in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies. The theaters are open to the public at night.
FAU has one of the most active record labels at any University, Hoot/Wisdom Recordings, which has released 19 albums to date, all of which were produced by students.
Opening in Fall 2013, a new 614-bed residence hall will feature unlimited building-wide Wi-Fi access, two-story floor study lounges, classroom space, conference room and fitness center, as well as FAU's first Faculty-in-Residence program. The facility will increase FAU Boca Raton's resident student population to nearly 5,000.
Florida Atlantic University was ranked one of the top 100, four-year colleges in the nation conferring bachelor’s degrees on to minority students, according to a survey in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education in 2012. Updated December 2012
