UCF in the News

The U.S. has been facing a nurse shortage for years, but the problem only got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. Florida alone is projected to have a shortage of 59,100 registered nurses and licensed practical nurses by 2035, according to a report by the Florida Hospital Association. Mary Lou Sole, the dean of UCF’s College of Nursing, joined anchor Justin Warmoth on “The Weekly” to explain the new strategies being considered to combat this critical shortfall, including partnering with local health care facilities. “We know that Central Florida’s growing,” Sole said. “We’re trying to partner with our health care facilities on how we can educate more nurses and more faculty to teach those nurses and then keep everybody engaged and retained once they’re hired at the facilities. It’s so important to address Central Florida and Florida as a whole.”

Twenty-one bachelor’s and dozens of master’s programs at accredited universities in Florida are ranked among the 2023 Best Online Programs released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report. There is also a ranking for Best Online Bachelor's in Psychology Programs. Pennsylvania State University—World Campus emerged in the top in this ranking, as well, tied with Oregon State University and the University of Central Florida at No. 1. The rankings are designed for people who want to complete their bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but need the flexibility to complete the coursework online. U.S. News is the only media organization that ranks online degrees at the program rather than school level.

Central Florida is taking patient care to the next level with a learning tool meant to provide a 100 percent immersive experience. No longer do students have to leave campus for on the job training, now the job comes to them. With this Blended Learning Interactive Immersive Simulation Suite, BLISS for short. "We think it's really critical to train our students to prepare the skills that they're going to be entering into the workforce," said Bari Hoffman, the associate dean of clinical affairs for the College of Health Professions and Sciences said. BLISS can create any environment and take students there with all the hyper realism of what life is like. "We can provide the most functional settings, we can do that here and prepare them so that they have improvements in their quality of life and elevating the body of care," Hoffman added.

The National Endowment for the Humanities recently selected a University of Central Florida assistant professor for a highly competitive research award. The university said Stephen Hopkins received a $60,000 fellowship for his book, “The Infernal Laboratory: Vernacular Theology and Hell in the Medieval North Sea.” Hopkins said the book explores the concept of the afterlife in texts during the Middle Ages. Hopkins focuses on English subjects but also teaches linguistics, early medieval literature and mythology, UCF said. According to the NEH website, Hopkins is one of 70 NEH fellowship recipients, with a total of $3.9 million granted overall.

When you or your family calls police for help, chances are the officers who arrive are going to be men. Law enforcement agencies in Central Florida told News 6 they have been working for years to recruit more women, but many said it has been a challenge. U.S. Census numbers show women make up 51% of the country's population, but they make up only 12-14% of law enforcement, according to the latest data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “We have different positions that we have available,” Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Cindy Zayas said. Zayas works as a field recruiter for the agency, and she spent Florida Classic Weekend at a job fair at Amway Center. Zayas said officers and deputies have an inherent skill that helps them more than men. “Research has shown that we are better with the persons harmed, especially with molestation and child abuse. We are very compassionate,” she said. “We have a really big role in law enforcement that’s very beneficial to the community, as well as our fellow officers.” “Law enforcement has been calling me since I was little, and that’s when I decided to do it,” said Madison DaSilva, a criminal justice major at the University of Central Florida. She stopped by Zayas’ booth at the job fair and expressed interest in joining OCSO. “I’m like any woman that wants to know more women in law enforcement, but it’s more important to me about who’s right for the job,” she said. “You know, you do need women so that you can connect with other women in the community, but the most important thing to me is the safety of the community -- whether that be men or women.”

The roar of engines was no longer echoing throughout the Daytona International Speedway, another thrilling Daytona 500 had ended just a few hours earlier, and I was moments from delivering a live TV report from the quiet of pit road at that hallowed venue. Save for a smattering of TV crews preparing live shots back to their respective stations, there were few of us left in the area. Buddy Pittman’s 50-year career in television ended this week with his retirement from WUCF, the University of Central Florida’s public TV station. It was a remarkable run, most of it spent here in central Florida, where Buddy became an icon at WESH. Some of us are born without talent. Buddy was born without an ego. He was a director, a producer, a terrific sportscaster. Once a news photographer. The film from the still-infamous, grisly Ziegler Winter Garden furniture store murder scene in 1975? The camera was on Buddy’s shoulder that night. To the very day of his retirement, he schlepped a camera around the state for WUCF, one-man-banding his way through brilliant interviews, then shooting his own cover video before editing the stories himself. Buddy turns 71 in May. Still no ego.

NASA is partnering with Boeing, but this time it's not about rockets. It's about airplanes and the future of flight. When we think of NASA, usually rockets, the space station or deep space exploration come to mind. But one of those A's stands for Aeronautics, and the big announcement on Wednesday was about the next generation of airliners. Like with space programs, NASA has launched a private-public program with Boeing for the next generation airliner, greener and more fuel efficient. "It's going to be able to help meet President Biden's goal to achieve net-zero aviation emissions by 2050. So congratulations to the team at NASA, congratulations to Boeing," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. NASA will invest $425 million in the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator research program, looking to cut emissions by 30%. "The design architecture is transformative. It's something that has been under study for years, many years by Boeing," Joshua Colwell of the University of Central Florida said. So while Boeing's work out on the Space Coast is focused more on the stars, the schools and aerospace talent pool will play a role in this next-gen aircraft. "Florida and the Space Coast have a huge aerospace infrastructure, UCF is a proud producer of a huge number of highly-trained aerospace engineers," Colwell said.