UCF in the News

It can be a battle out there between people and Florida’s myriad invasive species. Work is underway to come up with creative and new ways to efficiently locate and remove invasive creatures.

Orange County leaders are working with UCF Global and Rosen Hotels & Resorts to provide free English class to associates. The students are Spanish and Haitian-Creole speakers. "By the end of the course, you have to say be quiet because they want to talk, talk, talk," said Gloria Palacio, Instructor for the EPIC Program with UCF. But, the class is not just for the love of learning. For many, it's a necessity.

As rescue workers in Turkey and Syria continue to find survivors from the earthquake, some Central Florida students are coming together to show their support. So far, the estimate is more than 23,000 people were killed in the earthquake. There are students on the UCF campus who know people who have been impacted and some of them were their close friends. While they're leaning on each other for comfort, they're planning to host a fundraiser to spread awareness.

Orlando colleges and universities want to double down on partnerships with employers to meet a growing gap of workers for jobs. In Florida, there are 155,980 candidates versus 391,286 job openings, or 0.4 candidates per job opening, according to Employ Florida. For metro Orlando, that market is slightly better, with 44,856 candidates for 51,493 job openings, or 0.87 per job. Colleges and universities are among the largest providers of trained workforce in the Orlando region.

Sean Snaith expects an economic slowdown in Orlando and beyond, but he’s not sure when it will start. The director for the UCF Institute for Economic Forecasting highlighted a potential recession during a Feb. 1 event at Orlando’s Citrus Club. His talk was the year’s first in Dean’s Speaker Series, which features UCF College of Business faculty delivering a fast-paced, timely TED-Talk-style presentation on an aspect of their research. Snaith has been projecting a “pasta bowl-shaped” U.S. recession, where over the period of a year, the nation gradually will enter and exit an economic downturn.

You could say University of Central Florida has hit the big time. The university's Nicholson School of Communication and Media has been tapped for a prestigious partnership with NBC. Now, UCF has a new partner to help journalism students reach their goal and make it in the business, NBC. It's called the NBCU Academy. It means there will be money for scholarships, equipment, and access to tips from the network pros. "And all students benefit from this because they are exposed to more nationalizing, more opportunity to learn how to cover all communities," Katie Coronado of Nicholson School of Communication said. The partnership with NBCU Academy is very prestigious. It puts UCF in the league with some of the best journalism schools in the nation. In essence, it means UCF has arrived. The partnership will also be used to help students in UCF's Spanish-language Media Initiative, created to pave the way for students headed for jobs in Spanish-language media. "And the goal is to inform future journalists and student journalists on how to cover this community," said Erica Rodriguez Kight, of Nicholson School.

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.”