The Chronicle of Higher Education this week features FIU as an example of a university with a research growth strategy that has succeeded where many others have not. The Chronicle discovered that FIU’s efforts over the past decade to invest in growing federally funded scientific and engineering research has yielded excellent results.
According to the Chronicle, in 1999 FIU was ranked 161 among reporting institutions. In 2009, FIU had risen to number 140 on that list.
“This is Bootstrap U,” Thomas Breslin, president of the Faculty Senate and former vice president for research at FIU, told the Chronicle. Breslin and other key administrators and researchers interviewed by the Chronicle for this story went on to explain that FIU has a culture of achieving important goals despite its youth and limited resources.
Please click here to read the full Chronicle story.
It is certainly sad to observe the de-funding of the public side of education at every level. I am a proud graduate of FIU and Miami-Dade public schools, and will be forever appreciative of the opportunities that my public and very affordable higher education has enabled me to exercise.
The progress of a nation is measured by the relative successes of all of its citizens, not just those who are well-born or unusually gifted.
The past 10 years have been nothing short of a “war” on the disadvantaged and America’s ever-shrinking Middle Class.
Private schools should be just that – private choices made by people who can afford, or find a way to afford their tuition – just as it used to be.
Subsidizing private schools though disingenuous “voucher programs” created out of egregiously redirected tax revenues is a disgrace, and is yet another chip out of what had been a solidly fair system of ensuring upward mobility for every citizen of the USA.
Or, our university can audit its finances and stop the financial mismanagement and corruption. Why are our board of trustee members earning such high salaries? Why is FIU one of the largest employers in Miami-Dade county? Why is MMC building an alumni center when our university is only ~40 years old? The list of questions into how our university spends money is endless.
Perhaps we should stop having such a bloated employee base; cut the athletics department; fire our lobbyist in D.C, and be more frugal with the finances in a time of economic hardship.
The comments above me about privatizing the school are nonsense. FIU is a public university, lets keep it that way. In fact, the comment directly above my own is largely irrelevant to this article and is a political rant. GRL’s comment is odious and smells like brown nosing. Rosenburg has proved himself to be a shrewd operator and for that, I respect him. The state of Florida was spending pennies on education even when the economy was doing well. Don’t be a tool.
-Angry, current student at FIU
Hi, Sean: Thanks for your feedback. Two points of clarification: The members of the FIU Board of Trustees are not compensated for their service on behalf of the university. They volunteer their time. With respect to the alumni center — the building will be completely financed with private funds.