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Letter
to the Community
The year 2000 will be remembered as a time of historic landmarks at Florida International University. Our latest achievements further confirm our academic excellence, emergence as a top national research institution and the development of our athletic program.
I am thrilled to announce that FIU has been admitted to Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most distinguished of all collegiate honorary societies in the nation. FIU is now one of only five institutions of higher learning in Florida (and one of 265 out of 4,000 in the nation) with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. For more than 200 years, election to Phi Beta Kappa has been recognition of academic excellence, especially in the acquisition of an education in the arts and sciences.
In August, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching awarded FIU the highest, most comprehensive ranking possible in its prestigious classification system, making FIU one of only five Florida schools to hold that status. FIU made the biggest leap of any of Florida's research universities, rising from a "Doctoral II" rating in Carnegie's old classification system to "Doctoral/Research University-Extensive" in the new categories unveiled along with the newly released classifications. "Extensive" replaces Carnegie's previous rating of "Research I." Only five universities nationwide, including FIU, made the move from Doctoral II to Research I. Miami is now the only city in Florida with two Research I universities - our public institution and our crosstown colleagues, the private University of Miami.
The fall 2000 freshman class is the finest we have ever admitted in our history. The class has an average SAT score of 1127 - which is in the 70th percentile nationally - and a high school GPA of 3.5.
Finally, in September we took another step toward our first touchdown on the gridiron when we named former Miami Dolphins quarterback Don Strock as head coach of the FIU football team. Strock, who has served as football operations director for the past year, had a 14-year career with the Dolphins, played with two other NFL teams and coached in the Arena Football League. The team will begin play in 2002 in Community Stadium at FIU's University Park campus.
As always, we appreciate your interest in our progress.
Sincerely,
Modesto A. Maidique
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