UCF in the News

Before UCF theater professor Mark Brotherton passed away in March 2021 due to complications caused by cancer, he was slated to direct Theatre UCF’s production of “Welcome to the Moon and Other One Acts.” Brotherton served as an associate professor in theater performance, spending 25 years educating students and contributing to Central Florida stages as a director, writer and choreographer. The play will be presented in his honor at UCF Nov. 12-21.

Hundreds of recent UCF graduates returned to campus as the university held an in-person commencement for those who were denied the occasion last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceremony was exclusively for UCF’s 2020 graduates from the spring, summer and fall semesters.

Despite many people traveling again, the hospitality industry is still working to recover its workforce. A new UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management study gives a glimpse of why some workers are now looking for opportunities outside the industry.

A time-honored tradition at the University of Central Florida had thousands of students rushing into the Reflection Pond for Spirit Splash. Students gathered for a pep rally on Friday in the rainy, stormy weather to splash into one of UCF's most notable landmarks to celebrate the university's homecoming week.

Sharon Park graduated from UCF with her bachelor’s degree in engineering in 2019 and her master’s in material science in 2020, and she’s returning to her alma mater this weekend. Park and 1,700 other alumni are participating in a makeup graduation on Friday after in-person ceremonies got canceled due to COVID last year. WMFE spoke with Park about what the ceremony means to her and to her family, who emigrated from South Korea to Orlando.

A combination of art and nature may be used to protect astronauts as they return to the moon later this decade. Doctoral graduate students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) are undertaking the project as part of NASA’s 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. The space agency chose seven university teams to participate and awarded nearly $1 million to develop solutions to the problem of protecting spacesuits from lunar dust.

Body camera footage from Monday night shows UCF police saving a young man's life by giving him two doses of Narcan. His friends called 911 after they couldn't find a hospital. DISPATCHER: “Tell me exactly what happened sir?” CALLER: “My friend just stopped breathing. I don't know exactly what happened to him. I'm driving right now to UCF. He took an Oxycodone.” UCF police shared the video to help raise awareness about what to do in the event of an overdose. On the body cam video you can hear the officer say: "This thing right here saved his life."

A documentary by a University of Central Florida filmmaker focusing on the contributions of Black-owned breweries in America’s craft beer industry is coming to the Orlando Film Festival. One Pint at a Time follows Black craft brewery owners, who make up less than 1% of the white-dominated billion-dollar industry and customer base, according to the film.

Tourism experts are surprised by how fast Orlando’s theme parks are rebounding from the pandemic’s economic crisis as Universal parks posted another strong financial quarter Thursday. University of Central Florida assistant professor Carissa Baker, who follows theme parks, said she had expected the parks’ attendance and revenues to rebound by 2022 or 2023.