History of the University of Florida

In 1823, the Territorial Legislature and the United States Congress began to plan a system of higher education for Florida.[5] As early as 1836, Congress authorized the establishment of a "University of Florida," and the first constitution of Florida Territory in 1838 specifically guaranteed that seminaries of higher learning be created.[6][7] It was not until the 1850s, however, that the Florida Legislature took steps towards implementing these plans.

In 1851, the legislature voted to allow the establishment of two seminaries on either side of the Suwannee River: West Florida Seminary and the East Florida Seminary.[6] On January 6, 1853, Florida governor Thomas Brown signed the legislation that provided public support for the seminaries. Gilbert Kingsbury was the first person to seek state support under the legislation, and his East Florida Seminary in Ocala, Florida became Florida's first state-supported institution of higher learning when it opened in the fall of 1853.[2] The West Florida Seminary opened in Tallahassee in 1857.

The East Florida Seminary closed in 1861 as Florida seceded from the US at the onset of the Civil War. Between a lack of students and funding, higher education in the state came to a virtual standstill during and immediately after the conflict.[8]

James Henry Roper, an educator from North Carolina and a Florida State Senator from Alachua County, established the Gainesville Academy in 1858 only to close it three years later. The Academy's facilities were still vacant after the Civil War, so Roper offered the property to the state as a new home for the East Florida Seminary. The state accepted his offer, and the seminary was reestablished in Gainesville in 1866. Epworth Hall, the main building of seminary's Gainesville campus, still stands near downtown outside the modern university's campus.[9]

In 1884, Jordan Probst established what became the other major predecessor to the University of Florida, Florida Agricultural College in Lake City. Florida Agricultural College became the first land-grant college in the state, and as it named implied, its curriculum focused on the scientific training of agricultural and mechanical specialists.

Florida's post-Civil War 1868 constitution required the establishment of a state-sponsored university. The state's first attempts to establish a multi-college university came in 1883 in Tallahassee, where the legislature merged the West Florida Seminary with the Tallahassee College of Medicine and Surgery to create the "Florida University."[10] The old West Florida Seminary became the new university's Literary College and contained several "schools" or departments, though its "separate Charter and special organization" was maintained.[11] The university charter also mentioned three more colleges that were to be established at a later time: a Law College, a Theological Institute, and a Polytechnic and Normal Institute.[11]

In 1885, the Florida Legislature voted to rename the school in Tallahassee as the "University of Florida" but did not supply additional funding, and the institution struggled to finance its expanding academic programs.[12] The school never actually adopted the name, and the medical college relocated to Jacksonville later in 1885.[10][12] Florida Agricultural College in Lake City announced its desire to merge with Florida University for the 1887 school term, but the legislature did not act on the idea. The Tallahassee-based school adopted the name "Florida State University" from 1891 until 1901, when it became Florida State College.[12]

In 1903, the Florida Legislature transferred the "University of Florida" designation to Florida Agricultural College in Lake City in recognition of the school's desire to expand its curriculum beyond its original focus on agriculture and engineering.[12] It operated under that name for two school years before Florida's system of higher education was completely reconfigured and restructured by the Buckman Act and all state-sponsored schools were consolidated.[13]

Andrew Sledd, the first president of the University of Florida (1905–1909). During his presidency, the university was officially known as the "University of the State of Florida"

In 1905 the state passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the State University System of Florida and empowered the Florida Board of Control to govern the system. The act, named for legislator Henry Holland Buckman, mandated the consolidation of the state's six institutions into three: one for African Americans, one for white women, and one for white men. Four of the institutions – the University of Florida at Lake City (formerly Florida Agricultural College) in Lake City, the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School in St. Petersburg, and the South Florida Military College in Bartow – were merged into the new University of the State of Florida.

The University of the State of Florida served as the institution for white men; the State Normal School for Colored Students (the future Florida A&M University) served African Americans, and the Florida Female College (the future Florida State University) served white women.[4] A fourth school provided specialized training and education for the deaf and blind (the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind).

Though several cities vied to be chosen as the site of the new university, Lake City and Gainesville quickly emerged as the two leading candidates. Newspapers and leading citizens of the nearby towns extolled the virtues of their community in the media, and in July 1905, both sent delegations to the meetings of the state Board of Control where the placement of the school would be decided. Lake City offered the use of the campus of Florida Agricultural College plus additional acres of adjacent land, while Gainesville's proposal included over 500 acres of land west of the town, the extension of Alachua Road (now West University Avenue) to the site, and water service to the university "without charge in perpetuity".[14] On July 6, 1905, the Board of Control voted 6 to 4 to establish the new University of the State of Florida in Gainesville, much to the disappointment and anger of the citizens of Lake City.[14]

Since the facilities of the East Florida Seminary were not large enough to accommodate the new university while construction commenced on its new campus, the Board of Control decided to house the institution at the FAC campus at Lake City for the 1905–1906 academic year. Andrew Sledd, president of the University of Florida at Lake City, was chosen as the first president of the new university, and architect William A. Edwards was commissioned with designing the first permanent buildings for the new Gainesville campus in the Collegiate Gothic style.

The school's first year was a time of transition. Classes were held on the existing Lake City campus while supplies and personnel where gradually moved to Gainesville against the wishes of Lake City leaders, who filed a series of unsuccessful legal challenges attempting to halt the move. In the summer of 1906, the university attempted to procure the use of wagons to move the final shipment of supplies and equipment to the train station, but no Lake City livery stable would take the job, and wagon teams had to be brought from Gainesville. A crowd of angry Lake City residents watched as the last four wagons left the campus on July 23, the professor in the lead wagon holding a rifle across his knees to discourage interference.[14]

President Andrew Sledd oversaw the designing of the new school's courses of study, the opening of its campus in Gainesville (Buckman Hall and Thomas Hall being the first buildings completed), and the establishment of its athletic program, and classes began in Gainesville on September 26, 1906, with 102 students enrolled. However, Sledd drew increasing criticism from members of the Florida legislature and Board of Education for setting high admissions standards which they felt limited the university's growth potential. On the other hand, members of the university's Board of Control defended Sledd and insisted that the new school should not compromise its academic standards to artificially raise enrollment. To end the controversy, Sledd resigned as the school's president near the end of the spring 1909 term.

Campus statue of Albert A. Murphree, the second president of the University of Florida (1909–1927). Murphree organized many of the university's constituent colleges and schools.

The fledgling school's name was simplified to the University of Florida in 1909, the same year that Albert A. Murphree was appointed to be its second president. Murphree had previously served as the president of Florida State College and had led its transformation into the Florida State College for Women. During his 18 years as UF's president, Murphree oversaw the establishment of many of its constituent colleges and schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Law, the College of Agriculture, the College of Engineering, the College of Education, the School of Pharmacy, the School of Architecture, and the College of Commerce and Journalism along with the university's graduate program.[15] Student enrollment increased from just under 200 when Murphree arrived in 1909 to over 2,000 when he unexpectedly died in 1927.

Another important event that occurred during Murphree's tenure was the naming of the Florida Gators. The university had established an athletic program immediately upon opening in Gainesville in 1906, but its teams did not initially have a mascot. This changed in 1911, when a local vendor designed and sold school pennants and other regalia featuring an alligator. The school colors of orange and blue, also chosen about the same time, are believed to be a combination of the blue and white school colors of the University of Florida at Lake City and the orange and black school colors of the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, the university's two primary predecessors.[16]

In 1924, the Florida Legislature permitted women of a "mature age" (at least 21 years old) who had completed sixty semester hours from a "reputable educational institution" would be allowed to enroll during regular semesters at the university in programs that were unavailable at Florida State College for Women. Before this, only the summer semester was coeducational, to accommodate teachers.[17] Lassie Goodbread-Black from Lake City became the first woman to enroll at the University of Florida, at the College of Agriculture in 1925.[18] However, the percentage of women students in Gainesville remained quite low until after World War II.

John J. Tigert became the university's third president in 1928. Before arriving in Gainesville, Tigert had been the president of Kentucky Wesleyan College; a philosophy professor, athletic director, basketball coach and football coach at the University of Kentucky; and the U.S. Commissioner of Education for seven years. Tigert brought many new ideas for reforming academics, athletics and administration to the university. Disgusted by the under-the-table payments being made by universities to athletes in this era, Tigert advocated the grant-in-aid athletic scholarship program in the early 1930s, which was the genesis of the modern athletic scholarship plan currently used by the NCAA.[19] Under Tigert's administration, UF founded the University Athletic Association (UAA) to raise funds and administer the university's sports programs. UAA's first project was the construction of a new football stadium, Florida Field. and two years later, Florida became a charter member of the new Southeastern Conference. On the academic side, the school awarded its first doctoral degrees, was granted a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, established the new University College, and placed new emphasis on liberal arts general education requirements during Tigert's presidency..

When the United States entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, most students withdrew to enlist in the U.S military. Having survived the financial stresses and strains of the Great Depression, the university could have failed financially when most of its student body departed. To survive the financial stresses of the war years, the university offered its campus, classrooms and dormitories to the U.S. Government for the training of aircrews for the U.S. Army Air Force.