Florida International University

Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Westchester, Florida, United States. Founded in 1965 by the Florida Legislature, the school opened to students in 1972. FIU is the third-largest university in Florida and the eighth-largest public university in the United States by enrollment. It is a constituent part of the State University System of Florida and one of four state-designated Preeminent State Research Universities.

FIU is classified as a Carnegie "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" institution. It has 11 colleges and more than 40 centers, facilities, labs, and institutes that offer more than 200 programs of study. It has an annual budget of over $1.7 billion and an annual economic impact of over $5 billion. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

FIU's intercollegiate sports teams, the FIU Panthers, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Conference USA (C-USA). The varsity sports teams have won five athletic championships and Panther athletes have won various individual NCAA national championships.

In 1943, state senator Ernest R. Graham (father of future Florida governor and U.S. senator Bob Graham) initially proposed to the state legislature the establishment of a public university in Miami-Dade County. His bill did not pass, but he persisted in presenting his proposal to colleagues, advising them of the county's need for a state university. He felt the establishment of a public university was necessary to serve the city's growing population.

In 1964, Senate Bill 711 was introduced by Florida senator Robert M. Haverfield. It instructed the state Board of Education and the Board of Regents to begin planning for the development of the state university. The bill was signed into law by then-governor W. Haydon Burns in June 1965. FIU's founding president, Chuck Perry, was appointed by the board of regents in July 1969, at which time the institution was named Florida International University. At 32 years old, the new president was the youngest in the history of the State University System and, at the time, the youngest university president in the country. Perry recruited three co-founders, Butler Waugh, Donald McDowell, and Nick Sileo. Former Miami Herald publisher and Knight Ridder chairman Alvah Chapman, Jr., used his civic standing and media power to assist the effort. In the 1980s, Chapman became chair of the FIU Foundation Board of Trustees.

The founders located the campus on the site of the original Tamiami Airport (not related to the later Kendall-Tamiami Airport) on the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Route 41) between Southwest 107th and 117th Avenues, just east of where the West Dade Expressway (now the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike) was being planned. The abandoned airport's air traffic control tower became FIU's first building, with Perry's office on the first floor. It originally had no telephones, no drinking water, and no furniture. Perry decided that the tower should never be destroyed, and it remains on campus, where it is now known variously as the "Veterans Office," "Ivory Tower," the "Tower Building," or the "Public Safety Tower," and is the former location of the FIU Police Department.

The groundbreaking for the Tamiami campus was held in January 1971. U Thant received FIU's first honorary degree.

In September 1972, 5,667 students entered FIU, the largest opening day enrollment at the time. Eighty percent of the student body had just graduated from Dade County Junior College (now Miami-Dade College). A typical student entering FIU was 25 years old and attending school full-time while holding down a full-time job. Forty-three percent were married. Negotiations with the University of Miami and Dade County Junior College led FIU to open as an upper-division only school; Perry's vision foresaw a "no gimmicks" institution with no student housing. Lower-division classes were added nine years later.