John V. Lombardi University of Florida

Performance defines the University of Florida at the close of the 1990s. The decade that began with personal tragedies and difficult financial times ends celebrating the strong performance of faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends. In reviewing the transforming changes of this decade, the key element in every success story resides with the creativity, commitment and achievement of the university’s people. All of the advances in student or faculty performance, in administrative efficiency, fund-raising achievement, or research effectiveness come from the investment of time and talent by this institution’s people. The following review of this remarkable decade is the record of their achievement; it is their story.

The 1990s at the University of Florida represent a coming of age of a great university. By 1989-90, the university’s people had already succeeded in establishing Florida as a significant research institution capable of competing on the national level. Admission into the Association of American Universities in 1985 represented a commitment to sustain that national level of performance into the next decade. That decade challenged the University of Florida to engage fully in the national competition for academic quality and productivity and to move the university into the ranks of America’s premier national public research universities.

The decade challenged the university’s people to improve their performance as students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends. And improve they did.

This brief review highlights the comprehensive nature of the transformation required during these years to position the University of Florida for continued success into the next century. Although the work of improving and enhancing a university is never complete, the engagement of all of the university’s people in this campaign produced some remarkable change.

This document is available on-line, A Decade of Performance at the University of Florida (1.1 megabyte pdf file), and in printed form, mailed to you from the University of Florida Foundation in response to an email request to dwhite@uff.ufl.edu.