This blog site will track and provide constant updates for The University of Central Florida: Campus History, a collaborative effort between the University of Central Florida Alumni Association and Arcadia Publishing. Set for an '09 release, this book will be the first (and, to date, only) complete book-length history of the school's first four decades.

UCF Reflecting Pond

UCF Reflecting Pond

The Project

The University of Central Florida has stood at the edges of Orlando for forty years, a major institution of research, culture, education, and professional development, stitched into the very fabric of one of the nation's most dynamic and influential metropolitan areas.

It is a school that, founded in 1963 (the same year Walt Disney made his fateful fly over Central Florida and chose the location for his now-famous Walt Disney World), has grown along with the surrounding community, year by year, in size, prominence, and power.

Over 50,000 students currently attend the University of Central Florida, and hundreds of thousands have earned their degrees here since the first semester of classes in 1968. Each has left a mark on the campus, and for the last forty years, it seems as if each new year has seen the school pass some new milestone: a living and working hospitality management school, an on-campus football stadium, a medical school. For a young university, this is a place whose history is being written and revised each year, whose accomplishments are far from over...but this is also an institution with a rich history and a rich tradition.

And, for the first time ever, we are attempting to collect that full history.

But this won't simply be a dry, newspaper-style account of the university's growth, nor will this simply be a bullet-pointed list of accomplishments, as you might see on a web site or brochure.

This will be your history, a collection that showcases the University of Central Florida through extensive photographs, archival material, and individual accounts. What were the most important moments to define the school, from 1963 to the present? What are the most lasting images? What have been the most important landmarks, the most important traditions, the most important events? Who are the people who have helped to build this school into what it is today?

UCF is a school that has been writing its history for the past forty years, and now we will truly have a document to capture that history. Check back to this blog site frequently for updates, calls for interviews and stories, and calls for photographs. This is a project that can only succeed with the help of the students and alumni who call UCF their alma mater.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

ROTC

In honor of Veteran's Day, I pulled this interesting story from the November 1973 "FTU Emphasis" newsletter. It's an interesting glimpse into the early years of the ROTC program at the university, something that--like the nation's military, overall--we tend to take for granted.

Enjoy the story, and if you have any old ROTC photos, memorabilia, or even stories of old traditions, please drop me an email. ROTC is as important to the University of Central Florida as any other academic program, or club or organization, and deserves a place in the school's history.


"Air Force ROTC Second Year 'Still Going, Still Growing'"

Air Force ROTC is well into its second year at Florida Technological University and all indications are that Detachment 159 will have an even more impressive year than it had last year.

The first indicator is in the area of enrollment: the cadet corps has increased in size from 47 last June to 87 this September. Among these 87 cadets are 11 women (compared to 8 last year) and 16 AFROTC scholarship winners (there were 5 last year).

A second indication of this growth is seen in the expansion of the curriculum. With the addition of a senior class, both AFR 400 and a flight instruction program consists of a 4 qtr. hour ground school taught by Captain Clark Hoffman and 36 1/2 hours of flight instruction taught at a local flight school, and paid for by the Air Force.

...

With more cadets, an increased curriculum, a larger staff (and, we might add, a new cadet lounge utilized for recreation and study by the cadets and their guests), the Air Force ROTC program at FTU seems well on its way to another successful year.
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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Brochures, Calendars, Flyers

We're not just looking for old photographs, either! Some of the most interesting items I've seen so far have been brochure, calendars, flyers, and t-shirts. While the University Archives would love to actually receive donated items, of course, I'm fine witha photograph or a scan of any historical documents you come across.

Special thanks to Michaelle Milczanowski, an Alpha Delta Pi from here at UCF, who sent me a wealth of great scanned images. I just wanted to share one of them, from the late 1980s, to get our Homecoming weekend started off right:


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University Archives

Throughout our research process so far, we've been lucky enough to have cooperation and help from the University Archives, a sort of living, constantly updated museum of old UCF photos, documents, artifacts, and memorabilia. Because Archives has been so kind to us as we've begun the process of piecing together a university history, they've also asked us if any alumni might possibly have historical memorabilia they might like to donate (anything from sports items, to fraternity/sorority items, to flyers and brochures from old university functions). Below is a brief statement from the Archives, which I'll also post as a sidebar on this web site:

Special Collections and University Archives is on the 5th floor of the library. The department is charged with preserving the institutional memory of the university by maintaining a complete archive of its history and accomplishments. If you have photographs, posters, programs or memorabilia from any FTU/UCF event, records of fraternities or sororities or similar materials, Special Collections and University Archives would be pleased to consider them for adding to our collections so that others may enjoy and benefit from them.

This web site may be preserved by Special Collections and University Archives so your comments may be used in further publications. By leaving your messages here you grant to the UCF Special Collections and University Archives Department the rights to publish those comments in the future.
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