UCF in the News

Job growth in Florida will outpace the national economy, and unemployment will continue to decline in 2022, according to a new economic forecast for the Sunshine State. Florida's unemployment rate, which stood at 4.5% in November, is expected to continue falling in 2022, and housing starts will pickup, but not quickly enough to satisfy robust demand in the short run, according to the forecast released earlier this month by the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida.

Twenty-two years ago, Charlie Vazquez was a Houston police officer planning the arrest of a man on parole who’d served time for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child. The man aimed the gun at Vazquez and his partner. Then he turned the weapon on himself and died by suicide. Vazquez could not sleep for months. The way the man died kept him up, and so did the thought that he and officers could have been killed. “I started to second-guess myself a lot while on the job,” he said. Vazquez is now Tampa International Airport’s police chief and said he still suffers from post-traumatic stress. In his line of work, he is hardly alone. Firefighters, law enforcement officers and paramedics are 10 times more likely to attempt or contemplate suicide compared to civilians. Flashbacks are a symptom of PTSD. Other symptoms include nightmares, sleeplessness, poor appetite and feeling irritable or hyper-stressed, said Deborah Beidel, executive director of UCF Restores, an Orlando facility that offers post-traumatic stress treatment to first responders and veterans. A PTSD diagnosis is often coupled with a diagnosis of depression. Those symptoms are a normal, short-term response to a highly stressful event, Beidel said. Treatment becomes necessary when symptoms persist for months. The intensity of their experiences can make it harder for first responders to find help. Therapists who aren’t trained to treat first responders can be overwhelmed by their experiences, Beidel said. Often the patient ends up having to console the mental health professional. She has treated at least 25 first responders who told her their former therapists decided they could no longer treat them because they couldn’t handle their traumas. “The message this sends first responders is that you can’t be cured or you can’t be helped,” Beidel said.

The stars aligned for the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl, which will be starkly different than in 2020 when the game between South Carolina and UAB was canceled due to virus issues with the Gamecocks. This year, the game sold out in three days, likely because the game is between two Florida teams and ticket prices were relatively affordable. With the roughly 65,000 seats sold, Scott Glaser, the bowl’s executive director, said arrangements are being made to have standing room tickets at the stadium available by the end of this week.

UCF alumni Anthony Roberson and Jordan Johnson were featured on NBC’s “TODAY” show Thursday as part of the show’s Season of Giving. The two former football players created the non-profit One Kid Orlando in 2017 while students at UCF. The segment highlighted how the two bonded off the field, and with support from the community and the UCF fan base, have held a series of holiday toy drives to help local youth. The group served more than 400 children last year, distributing gifts through the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida. The Today Show filmed the One Kid Orlando toy drive held ahead of the men’s basketball game at Addition Financial Arena on Dec. 11.

Orlando is the best college city in the entire Southeast United States and No. 4 nationwide, according to a new analysis by WalletHub. The city’s social environment — also deemed tops in the Southeast and No. 4 nationally — is the factor that propelled it toward the top of the list, released this week. “The City Beautiful. Home to world-class entertainment, advancements in technology and innovation, and a place where opportunity is boundless,” the University of Central Florida crowed on its website after the rankings were released. The giant among Orlando’s higher education offerings, UCF enrolls over 70,000, the largest student body of any public university in the United States. Gainesville captured the No. 6 spot overall, and Tampa came in at No. 12.

A lawsuit alleges that the proximity of construction at Eighty Seven Park caused the collapse, although it does not specifically point to the damage along the perimeter wall as the reason. “Had the [developers] not ‘purchased’ 87th Terrace from the City, the construction would have occurred approximately 60 to 70 feet away from CTS,” the lawsuit states. A matter of feet can make a big difference when it comes to the impact of vibrations from driving sheet piles like those installed in 2016 as part of Eighty Seven Park’s construction, said Manoj Chopra, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Central Florida. Driving piles 13 feet rather than more than 50 feet from a structural element, Chopra said, is “definitely significant, from just a comparative point of view.” “The wave is highest in its magnitude closest to the source, and with distance it dissipates,” he said.

Sneezing? Feeling congested? Coughing? Are these signs of flu season, a cold or allergies, or are they symptoms of COVID-19's rapidly spreading omicron variant? (Or delta, delta's still out there...) Without testing, it is difficult to determine whether the congestion is more than the flu, but either way, don't panic, say medical experts, just take proper precautions. "If you feel sick, don’t diagnose yourself," said Dr. Deborah German, Vice-President for Health Affairs and Dean, University of Central Florida College of Medicine. "Call your healthcare provider – don’t just show up to the clinic. Your provider can determine if you need to be tested for COVID-19 and what treatments you need."

Dec. 7, 2021 marks 80 years since the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It claimed the lives of 2,403 Americans and launched the United States into World War II. University of Central Florida’s Barbara Gannon, a professor of military history, spoke with WMFE’s Joe Byrnes about the American veterans of that war and what her students can learn from them. She leads the UCF Community Veterans History project, which records their stories.

Just a day after South African scientists first announced the discovery of the Omicron variant, Europe reported its first case: The new coronavirus variant was in Belgium. Before the weekend was out, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy and other countries had all found cases. But in the United States, scientists kept searching. “If we start seeing a variant popping up in multiple countries across the world, usually my intuition is that it’s already here,” said Taj Azarian, a genomic epidemiologist at the University of Central Florida.