10 Things to Know About UCF This Week

Twenty-seven UCF programs rank in the top 100 in the nation and three in the top 10, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 Best Graduate Schools guide.

UCF’s video game graduate program and Rosen College of Hospitality Management rank among the top 5 in the world, according to The Princeton Review and PC Gamer magazine and CEOWorld, respectively. The university’s undergraduate game design program ranks No. 13.

For the first time since 1996, UCF’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will both compete in the NCAA Tournament during the same season. UCF and Michigan are the only two NCAA Division I programs in the country this year whose football teams competed in a New Year’s Six bowl game and both basketball teams competed in the NCAA Tournament.

This year’s graduating class of UCF medical students matched with residencies nationwide at a rate of 99 percent — higher than the national average of 93.9 percent. In total, 118 of 119 students secured graduate medical education positions at some of the nation’s top hospitals, including Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, Michigan, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale. Florida hospitals include Nemours, AdventHealth, Orlando Health, UF, UM and USF.

NASPA, the nation’s leading student affairs organization for higher education, recognized UCF’s LEAD Scholars Academy as the 2019 Outstanding Leadership Program of the year. Established in 1995, the academy engages more than 1,000 students every year in leadership experiences, civic projects, student organizations, research and volunteer opportunities in the community.

U.S. News & World Report ranked UCF No. 14 for Best Online Bachelor’s Programs in the nation, in its annual publication released in January. This is two spots higher than the university’s placement last year. The publication also ranked UCF No. 10 for Best Online Programs for Veterans, No. 26 for Best Online Graduate Criminal Justice Programs, and No. 50 for Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs — all improvements from 2018.

UCF is among the top 50 public research universities in the nation, according to the Top American Research Annual Report released in February by the Center for Measuring University Performance. The center only included the 148 public and private institutions that had received at least $40 million in federal research funding. The report ranked institutions based on the amount of annual giving, number of National Academy Members, doctorates granted, postdoctoral appointees, student SAT scores and faculty awards, such as Fulbright Scholars and NSF Career Awards. UCF faculty received eight such awards during the ranking period.

The U.S. Department of Education officially designated UCF a Hispanic Serving Institution, allowing the university to vie for federal grants to enhance the educational experience of Hispanic and low-income students. The university qualified for the designation as more than a quarter of its full-time undergraduate students (27.5 percent) are Hispanic.

The Lockheed Martin Cyber Innovation Lab opened in February to foster the next generation of cyber defense. The 970-square-foot lab will serve as a learning hub, classroom and the practice center for Hack@UCF, the university’s cyber defense club, which has placed first in 42 competitions since 2014. Lockheed Martin donated $1.5 million to UCF to help create the facility and fund software and technology to support the lab.

PedsAcademy (pronounced “peeds,” as in pediatrics) was featured in the New York Times in February. Led by UCF faculty and students, the first-of-its-kind program provides tailored instruction that meets the specific needs of children with life-threatening illnesses who are hospitalized long-term at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando. Lessons range from science and engineering to literacy and the humanities, and help ensure that the children have better opportunity to continue their studies and pursue meaningful careers, once they are healed.