As our fall term hits full stride, I am energized by UCF’s momentum in elevating our research, scholarship, student success and overall excellence.
A key mission of UCF as a top-tier research university is to bring new insights and approaches to society’s greatest needs and challenges. I applaud our outstanding faculty in reaching a new school record of $192.1 million for research funding in 2018-19. UCF researchers are expanding knowledge and innovation in areas such as space exploration, artificial intelligence to detect cancer, and coastal threats from sea-level rise.
Along with our faculty, UCF’s students achieve remarkable national and international recognitions.
Last fall, UCF reached a major milestone in surpassing a 90 percent first-year student retention rate, which is a key metric for attaining state performance funding. This fall, we have topped 91 percent.
This fall also heralds the most academically accomplished freshman class in UCF history and the opening of UCF Downtown, which brings bold opportunities to show how a 21st century university advances experiential learning, novel approaches to teaching, and community engagement.
The success of our students is UCF’s ultimate mission, and I’m especially proud of our remarkable results that are defining UCF as a pacesetter in higher education for student retention and degree completion
Strategic Alignment to Foster Greater Student Success
The Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs is making organizational adjustments to better align student success with academics and university support units.
The strategic alignment results from months of planning by our academic leaders with input from faculty, staff and students. It also follows various reports and assessments over the years that encouraged UCF to take bold steps to enhance, reform and reimagine ways to better support students and their journey to achieving a degree.
The changes address priorities that include:
- Strengthening advising, especially through the role of faculty and advising enabled by data analytics;
- Defining a shared philosophy for student success; and
- Aligning shared ownership, accountability and impact to deliver on our student success goals.
View updates about these changes as we seek to enhance student success and degree completion.
Another Major Achievement
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities recently named UCF a finalist for its prestigious 2019 Degree Completion Award. This distinction recognizes how UCF’s African American and Hispanic students are defying national trends and significantly outperforming national averages, particularly in addressing disparities with white majority counterparts.
Last year, the retention rates for UCF’s African American and Hispanic students exceeded the overall rate for our university. In addition, a review of retention and graduation data over the past decade shows:
- Our six-year graduation rate gap between Hispanic FTIC (First Time in College) students and their white counterparts is less than 1 percentage-point, compared to the 11.8 percentage point difference nationally.
- Our six-year graduation rate gap between African American FTIC students and their white counterparts is 3.7 percentage points, compared with the 23.5 percentage point difference nationally.
- For UCF Hispanic FTIC students, the six-year graduation rate rose by 12 percentage-points over the past decade, while it increased nationally by 5 percentage points.
- For UCF African American FTIC students, the six-year graduation rate rose by 15 percentage points, while it fell nationally by 1 percentage point during the past decade.
- In addition, UCF ranks second among all public and private institutions in bachelor’s degrees awarded to African American and Hispanic students.
These are exceptional accomplishments. They culminate years of hard work and focused efforts by faculty and staff. I particularly want to thank our academic advisors and success coaches for their commitment to students and student success.
To keep tabs on student success and other metrics at UCF, visit the Institutional Knowledge Management website.
Let’s keep the momentum going.
