INTRODUCTION

USF St. Petersburg -Then

In the fall of 1965, the University of South Florida opened a campus along St. Petersburg's Bayboro Harbor without celebration or ceremony. More than 250 first-year students needed a place to live and study, and the overbooked Tampa campus had no room for them. They attended classes and set up home in buildings of a World War II Merchant Marine base. From that makeshift operation, a campus grew, one step at a time. In 1968, upper-division and graduate programs began on campus, with enrollment topping 600. In that year, the state legislature passed a bill establishing St. Petersburg as an official branch of the University of South Florida, the first regional campus in the State University System. The library opened in 1968 with 2,200 volumes, and in 1970 the first degrees were conferred upon 51 students.

The St. Petersburg City Council and business leaders lobbied for expansion of the campus. Their visionary efforts garnered today's 46.5 acres for classrooms, laboratories, administration offices, library, and support facilities.

Bayboro Hall, now Lowell E. Davis Hall, and the former Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, now Bayboro Hall, were dedicated in May 1981. Coquina Hall opened in 1984, and the U.S. Geological Survey brought its Center for Coastal Geology here in 1989. A year later, the Campus Activities Center was dedicated. The Knight Oceanographic Research Center, home of USF's College of Marine Science, was completed in 1994. The current Nelson Poynter Memorial Library opened in 1996, followed by the YWCA-USF Family Village in 1998, USF Children's Research Institute in 1999, and the Florida Center for Teachers in 2000.

USF St. Petersburg helped preserve the city's history by moving two homes to campus in the mid-1990s: the Perry Snell House, c.1904, and the John C. Williams House, built in 1890 by one of St. Petersburg's founders. The two buildings house faculty and administration offices.

Several initiatives helped develop the campus's identity, including the Academic Frontiers lecture series, the Urban Initiative, the Program for Ethics in Education and Community, and the Science Journalism Center.

In 1998, after 30 years of serving juniors, seniors, and graduate students, USF St. Petersburg admitted a limited number of first-year students in a special Learning Community program. In 2000, the campus admitted first- and second-year students in all programs, a step that provided increased choices for Pinellas citizens, as well as enrollment growth.

USF St. Petersburg -Now

Today, USF St. Petersburg is a rapidly growing, urban campus of the University of South Florida, a Carnegie-designated Doctoral/Research University. Over 4,600 students enroll in 24 undergraduate and 10 graduate degree programs through the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education. USF St. Petersburg is the only public university in Pinellas County, in an area of 1 million people. The 38-year-old campus is USF's largest regional campus and was the state university system's prototype for such campuses.

USF St. Petersburg is committed to excellence in research and teaching, and it values faculty-student research collaboration, interdisciplinary perspectives, university-community partnerships, and a student-centered environment supportive of diversity. Located on Bayboro Harbor in downtown St. Petersburg, this waterfront campus is home to the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education; a 204,839-volume library; a full-service computer center and computer store; a fitness center; and other student recreational activities.

USF St. Petersburg shares its beautiful landscape with other University of South Florida branches and colleges as well as with state and federal agencies. Hosted are: USF's College of Nursing, the Children's Research Institute of USF's College of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics, and the nationally renowned USF College of Marine Science. The Florida Humanities Council, the USGS Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Florida Marine Research Institute, and the Florida Institute of Oceanography are also located on campus.

The Strategic Planning Process

In September of 2002, a USF St. Petersburg Task Force on Campus Planning was charged with reviewing, refining, and guiding campus-wide approval of the USF St. Petersburg Strategic Plan. The Task Force membership included broad representation of all campus constituencies, including members from the following: Finance and Administration; Advancement; Student Affairs; Human Resources; USPS Council (staff council for University Support Personnel Services); the Poynter Library; faculty from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education; and student representatives. For nearly five months, the Task Force deliberated, drafted, shared, and revised the core of USF St. Petersburg's Strategic Plan: a Mission Statement, along with the Values, Vision, and Goals that would guide USF St. Petersburg and its strategic planning over the next five years. It is anticipated that the next formal review of the USF St. Petersburg Mission will take place during the 2008/09 academic year.

The core of USF St. Petersburg's Strategic plan-including its Mission Statement, and statements of its Values, Vision, and Goals-was adopted and approved by the USF St. Petersburg Campus Board on February 24, 2003. Subsequently, the strategic planning committee has worked diligently to build on these core statements by developing the plan's five strategic directions, supporting strategic actions, and appropriate accountability measures. The committee made every effort to develop a plan that accurately addressed USF St. Petersburg's distinctiveness while remaining in concert with the present USF-wide plan.

As USF St. Petersburg assumes responsibility for orientation of a faculty cohort that includes 50 new members, as well as an entirely new administration team, a new and innovative approach is being taken to educate and disseminate the institution's mission. The "I Am USF St. Petersburg" campaign reminds the campus and the broader community of the ways in which individuals affect and in turn are affected by USF St. Petersburg's mission. The acronym "I AM" stands for "Individuals Are the Mission" and speaks to the value that USF St. Petersburg places on each individual contributing to and serviced by the mission. Features of "I Am USF St. Petersburg" appear weekly in E-News, an electronic publication available to all who access USF St. Petersburg's web site.