I've been traveling for work the last few weeks and just now had time to update the #ACC football viewership spreadsheet. Also, I found an error in Notre Dame's non-ACC numbers, so I corrected it.
— Did The ACC Die Today? (@DidTheACCDie) November 21, 2024
Enjoy. https://t.co/1YXc1GGgTd pic.twitter.com/AMNgLHwgUw
As Florida State University still basks in the glow of a successful legislative session, its Board of Trustees recently approved a $219 million state budget request — one with a STEM focus — for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
While the request includes five main initiatives with $96 million in new money, one of them is an ask for $56 million for the modernization of Tallahassee’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory that is headquartered at FSU.
The board met last week to discuss the budget request for next year, which comes about a month and a half after the university received nearly $83 million in new funds from the state’s $116.5 billion budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
FSU trustees also recently approved the university’s largest operating budget in history, which is $3 billion for 2024-2025.
Besides the state budget money being requested for the National MagLab — which is billed as the largest and highest-powered magnet lab in the world — FSU’s wish list for next year’s session shows millions of dollars being requested for a new Translational Aging Research Hub as well as FSU Health and research operations.
The budget also includes recurring funding requests for the joint FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and for growth of FSU’s national prominence, where $65 million is being requested compared to $50 million that was requested for this current fiscal year.
“This will be a lot of work, and we appreciate any chance that any of you as trustees will get to talk to our representatives to support our vision,” FSU President Richard McCullough told the board Monday. “Our time is now.”
When it comes to the MagLab, the facility is Florida’s only national laboratory. It is also home to 17 world-record magnet systems and it hosts nearly 2,000 users every year who conduct ground-breaking research.
Headquartered at FSU since 1994, the MagLab is primarily funded by the state and the National Science Foundation, which gave the laboratory a five-year fund of $195.5 million in 2022.
This year, the state budget included $25 million of Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funds that went toward the MagLab.
“I think we've done a really good job over the last two or three years of educating a lot of the senior leadership in the legislature, but there's still a lot of legislators that really don't understand the impact of Florida having a national lab, the prestige it brings and the researchers it brings to Florida and to Florida State,” Collins said. “We're definitely going to have to do some more educating, but I feel really good about this request.”
A little over $5 million dollars of recurring funds is being requested for the 2025-26 fiscal year while $51 million would come from non-recurring funds for modernization tasks — including facility upgrades to maintain world-record magnet systems and the construction of a new Magnet Fabrication building to expand capacity for new magnet creation.
FSU’s $35.5 million request for a Translational Aging Research Hub is in efforts of positioning Florida to be the national leader in healthy aging research, care delivery and digital health solutions.
Investments include creating a center for excellence focused on healthy aging and digital health, creating a statewide informatics and data science infrastructure to support interdisciplinary public health research, and creating training programs and information networks for caregivers and health services providers around healthy aging, according to a report of the legislative budget request.
While $7 million of the request would be recurring funds, $28.5 million would come from non-recurring funds.
Here’s a list of the remaining top items from FSU’s wish list in the legislative budget request for the 2025-26 fiscal year:
Florida’s $116.5 billion budget includes millions for FAMU, FSU, TCC. Here’s what they got
One of the projects that hit the jackpot in this year’s budget was FSU’s Dittmer Chemistry Lab Building, which received $55.4 million for the university to renovate and redesign its research space.
The chemistry lab building was built in 1967, and the legislative appropriation it received will fully fund the project, according to the university.
FSU will receive $20 million in recurring operational enhancement funds, which will be invested in hiring research faculty and student success efforts.
The university will also get $55 million in non-recurring operational enhancement funds for capital renewal, investments in information technology infrastructure and start-up costs for FSU Health — an initiative that aims to build a health care ecosystem in North Florida.
Besides allocations for the Dittmer Chemistry Lab building, the other projects that will receive new funds from the state budget are:
Here are other allocations that will go toward FSU from the budget:
FSU Board of Trustees Chair discusses 'most transformative thing' since Bobby Bowden
Florida State University’s Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Collins brought a group of local business leaders up to speed Monday about FSU’s changing landscape and its 2020-2030 Campus Master Plan initiatives on the horizon.
While a good chunk of Collins’ talking points referred to the ongoing FSU versus ACC litigation, he also touched on some of the university’s major projects — such as FSU Health and the future of student housing — as he spoke to a group of about 60 Capital Tiger Bay Club members at the Tucker Civic Center during a luncheon.
When it comes to FSU Health, an initiative that aims to build a health care ecosystem in North Florida, Collins says he thinks it's the “most transformative thing done at FSU since hiring Bobby Bowden.”
“It’s our biggest undertaking, and it’s probably the thing that will separate us the most when we talk about AAU (Association of American Universities),” said Collins, an FSU College of Business alumnus.
“FSU Health is all about academic clinical research, raising the level of the physician scientists in Tallahassee and growing that apparatus, but it takes time,” he added.
Ahead of Collins’s guest speaking opportunity at the Monday event, the university’s Board of Trustees met Thursday and approved a $3 billion operating budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, which marks the largest annual spending amount in FSU history.
The university has increased its budget by 50% in the last five years.
Over $500 million from the budget will go toward capital projects — including the Doak Stadium seating enhancements, the College of Business’s Legacy Hall and the FSU partnership with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare to build a new academic health center.
But looking further ahead, Collins told the club members about FSU’s future expansion plans that include establishing four new residence halls between the next five to six years to meet on-campus housing demands, building an art district and growing its Innovation Park area.
Here are some other FSU highlights Collins addressed during the Capital Tiger Bay Club event:
Florida State golfers Luke Clanton and Lottie Woad atop the World Amateur Golf Rankings
Twice as nice never sounded better.
The latest World Amateur Golf Ranking was released Wednesday and a Florida State golfer was ranked No. 1.
Make that two Seminole golfers.
Luke Clanton is No. 1 in the men's ranking and Lottie Woad in the women's.
This marks a first at FSU, and possibly at any collegiate program.
All-Time 10-Win Seasons (thru 2023)
Number of 10+ Win Seasons Each College Football Team Has All-Time š pic.twitter.com/hIS35vxll0
— College Football Report (@CFBRep) August 21, 2024
Big number in Week 0 for the @cfbireland.
— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) August 27, 2024
ESPN drew 4.99 million viewers for the @GeorgiaTechFB -@FSUFootball game on Saturday afternoon, up 31% from 3.8 million for Notre Dame-Navy last year from Ireland, and well above Fox's 4.42 million for Northwestern-Nebraska in 2022 pic.twitter.com/ObCD6E6EfV
Florida State achieved the second largest TV audience in Week O since 2012. We know the TV draw wasn't for GA Tech based on historical TV ratings data.
— Big Ten information. College football fan (@Genetics56) August 27, 2024
People who say Florida State doesn't bring a lot of TV value are lying.
And remember, this was a cable game, not OTA. https://t.co/e9NQGMrBEB
College Football Teams with the Most Weeks at AP No. 1‼️ pic.twitter.com/W90vhQOTev
— On3 (@On3sports) July 5, 2024
FSU, TMH sign agreement to build new academic health center in Tallahassee
Florida State University and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare recently signed a memorandum of understanding to seal their partnership for a future academic health center in Tallahassee, slated to open in fall 2026.
Through the agreement, a new “FSU Health TMH Trustees” will oversee decisions related to the academic health center and a medical campus underway in Panama City Beach on behalf of the university and hospital.
The joint center’s governance structure will consist of five voting trustees appointed by FSU, including President Richard McCullough, who will serve as chair of the board; four additional voting trustees appointed by TMH, with TMH President and CEO Mark O’Bryant as a nonvoting member, and a vice provost for FSU Health as another nonvoting member.
The memorandum of understanding, or MOU, “is an important step in solidifying our relationship with TMH and establishing the basic operating and governance structure for our partnership as part of the FSU Health initiative,” McCullough said in a prepared statement.
FSU secured $125 million from the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis two years ago to build the health center, which will be a five-story building of up to 130,000 square feet.
The state-of-the-art facility — to be located on the northeast sector of TMH’s campus off Centerville Road — is expected to help FSU and TMH work toward their main goal of transforming the future of health care across the region during a time where North Florida continues to face a crucial shortage of professionals in the field.
FSU and TMH’s long-term partnership also consists of other initiatives such as the establishment of residency programs for psychiatry, internal medicine and general surgery.
“TMH has been working toward this goal of partnering with FSU to create an academic health center for almost 15 years,” O’Bryant said in a release. “This is a monumental step forward in our relationship, and I’m incredibly excited and proud of the work our teams have done.”
In addition, FSU and TMH will explore combining all the Tallahassee-based residency programs under a single Graduate Medical Education office with guidance from the board and will also develop Centers of Excellence in various clinical areas.
For the flow of funds, FSU will be responsible for the funding of education while TMH will spearhead the funding of clinical programs and services, according to the signed agreement.
https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/realignment-redemption-raiders-of-the-lost-acc.723540/page-2068
Ever see the yearbooks from that period?
1900-1901: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSUYB_1900_1901
1901-1902: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSUYB_1901_1902
1903: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSUYB_1903
You should all look at the thousands of FSU athletics photos on nolefan.org. As well as the stats and box scores for every game or match ever played for all our sports and the individual stats and photos for over 11,000 former Seminole athletes from 1947 thru today.
nolefan.org.
It is a goal of mine to have nolefan.org linked to Seminoles.com. Everyone at FSU Athletics uses this site as the veritible bible for researching and writing about FSU teams and athletes.
it was created and is maintained by without any compensation by the most important volunteer in FSU Athletics history, Hall of Famer and Moore-Stone Award winner, Bob Peronne. He spends 2-3 hour each day updating it.
Doak Campbell Stadium and Dunlap Football Center Progress from Seminole Boosters Inc. on Vimeo.
Dunlap Champions Club Renovation Information from Seminole Boost
Want to learn more about the @FSUFootball stadium renovation? Watch the video below ⬇️
— Seminole Boosters (@SeminoleBooster) March 28, 2024
For more information, visit https://t.co/VC05uv6luA #GoNoles | #OneTribe pic.twitter.com/BdR0THrOvg
How will FSU stadium experience change in 2024 amid renovations? Expect 24,000 fewer seats
Rumble & tumble at #Doak @FSUFootball @SeminoleBooster #progress pic.twitter.com/bd8EL0ppyO
— Hugh Tomlinson (@Hugh__Tomlinson) February 15, 2024
The @floridatriumph board of directors has endorsed a record-setting grant award of $98.4 million to @FloridaState for its planned InSPIRE project, subject to agreement on terms. Learn more: https://t.co/nmxTrPXOoo
— 850 Business Mag (@850BizMag) May 23, 2024
šø: @mikefender
About the time that the Bay County Economic Development Alliance, working with The St. Joe Company, succeeded in bringing GKN Aerospace to Panama City Beach, Dr. John Holdnak, then president of Gulf Coast State College and Glen McDonald, its current president, floated an idea.
Holdnak and McDonald believed that an advanced manufacturing research and development center might serve as a complement to businesses like GKN. In addition, they believed it could be a difference-making jobs generator and a meaningful factor in the region’s economic development and, thus, a strong candidate for a grant from Triumph Gulf Coast. They viewed Florida State University, given its status as a Tier 1 research university, as the ideal candidate to apply for such funding.
Back then in 2017, the timing wasn’t right for FSU, recalled Bay County EDA president Becca Hardin. But circumstances would change, and Dr. Richard McCullough — a chemist, entrepreneur and a man with a passion for R&D — would succeed John Thrasher as FSU’s president.
Six years later, the Bay County EDA was working to win over electric air taxi manufacturer Joby Aviation, which was seeking a site for a 2,000-job plant, when the Holdnak/McDonald idea resurfaced. This time, it gained traction, Hardin said, and resources for preparing a funding proposal were dedicated to it.
McCullough was among 15 representatives of FSU who traveled from Tallahassee to DeFuniak Springs last November for a meeting of the Triumph Gulf Coast board. Agenda items included an application from FSU for $100 million for a “collaborative center for manufacturing and aerospace technology.” The project has come to be known as InSPIRE, the Institute for Strategic Partnerships, Innovation, Research and Education.
Hardin has worked with Triumph and its board chair David Bear on varied proposals but told him regarding InSPIRE, “You’ve seen some impressive projects but nothing like this. This one is truly transformational.”
The board responded by voting to support InSPIRE’s pre-application with $98.4 million in funding, the largest award in its 10-year history. FSU has pledged $65 million to the initiative, whose total cost is estimated at $300 million. FSU’s proposal listed state, federal and private contracts and grants; state and federal budget allocations; private donations; and student tuition and fees as additional anticipated funding sources.
On Feb. 5, the Triumph board met at FSU Panama City (FSU PC) and unanimously approved the term sheet, sometimes referred to as clawback criteria, for InSPIRE. At this writing, a location for the project has not been finalized, but sites at the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport are the leading possibilities, Hardin said.
As a Triumph board member, Leslie Weiss, a civil engineer who heads up a firm located in Crawfordville, assessed FSU’s application based on factors including its forecast economic impact.
“For every Triumph dollar spent, we expect to get $10 back out of it, which is a great amount,” said Weiss, who is a member of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Advisory Board.
Dr. Farrukh Alvi, the associate provost for innovation, research and entrepreneurship in STEM at FSU, was the team lead in developing the proposal. Dr. Stacey Patterson, FSU’s vice president for research, was the principal investigator. Their work involved ensuring that a long list of collaborators and partners were informed and on board.
“This is a community initiative,” Alvi said. “FSU led but not FSU only.”
Projected partners include FSU colleges and research centers; K-12 public school districts; state colleges and technical colleges; military bases; businesses ranging from Danfoss Turbocor to Space X; and economic development agencies.
Patterson said InSPIRE will employ a pull strategy, seeking to attract partners for whom the institute’s unified, multi-disciplinary team of experts can solve problems. Barriers that may separate engineering and physics departments, for example, in academic environments will not exist here.
“The work carried out at InSPIRE will change as industry needs evolve,” Patterson said. “We are going to have to be nimble. We’re going to have to act like a business.”
In conversation, Alvi tries to avoid the word ecosystem, finding that it is overworked, but he occasionally relents.
“Exactly what we are trying to build is an ecosystem and a culture, so that it becomes second nature for people to associate the area with not just beaches but also applied R&D,” Alvi said.
He sees parallels between Huntsville, Alabama, when its evolution toward becoming “Rocket City” was young, and what will be the early stages of InSPIRE.
“We are confident that the investment made by FSU and Triumph and other funding entities in InSPIRE will be dwarfed by the investment in the region that it will attract,” Alvi said.
As they undertook the proposal-writing process, Alvi, Patterson and others had the “luxury and challenge” of starting with a clean sheet of paper.
“We began by thinking about the needs of the region,” Alvi said. “We recognized that it is too reliant on tourism. We looked at businesses that are already present in the region and assets including military bases.
“At FSU, we’ve been working closely with Eglin Air Force Base for more than a decade,” Alvi said. “We do research for them and provide training. We’ve done programs at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bay County. We spoke with military bases as we refined our proposal and obtained letters of support from them. Those conversations informed our plan and our decisions about what areas to emphasize first.”
Alvi, who has been with FSU and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering for a combined 30 years, recalls when FSU PC, in 2009, was recommended for closure by an FSU budget crisis committee. The campus survived, in part, by agreeing to enrollment growth requirements.
In addition, FSU PC worked to become more relevant by strengthening ties with area employers. At the time, Alvi was an associate dean at the College of Engineering in charge of graduate programs there. He was instrumental in bringing about a master’s program in systems engineering at FSU PC, a development that helped meet needs at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
“We took available expertise and bridged gaps,” Alvi said. “That’s what we want to do with InSPIRE — fill in missing pieces by building on a foundation.”
Alvi stressed that, appropriately, InSPIRE will be additive, not duplicative and will allow FSU to play to its strengths.
“We’re building upon things that we have done and do well,” he said. “FSU is in a grant position to execute project aims because of its expertise in education in STEM fields. Nationally, we are well known in aerospace additive manufacturing for energy and national defense applications. This is going to be the initial thrust, but we hope down the road that there will be other areas that will come in.”
Alvi mentioned health care as one possibility, noting that additive manufacturing will play a big role in the production of wearable, health-monitoring devices.
He anticipates that InSPIRE will attract companies that will have employment opportunities for military personnel who are transitioning out of active duty; people with four-year degrees and associate degrees; and graduates of certificate programs.
“We want to build a talent pipeline from an early age,” Alvi said. “We want students in middle and high school to start envisioning the kinds of careers they can have. Workforce development is integral to our proposal — talent nurturing and retention.”
“InSPIRE is a game-changing project for the entire Northwest Florida region,” Hardin said. “It is going to put our area on the international map like never before. It is focused a lot in the aviation sector, but its additive manufacturing component has application to the automation of manufacturing in all sectors.”
Meanwhile, FSU is not prepared to rest solely on its Triumph triumph. With other schools, it is writing a National Science Foundation funding proposal called NSF Engines.
“We are talking about economic engines,” Alvi said. “The focus is on additive manufacturing for defense and energy. There is tremendous synergy between InSPIRE and the NSF proposal. It’s not a given that it will succeed, but if it does, it is possible to receive up to $160 million over the life of the project.
“That’s an example of the kind of thing that InSPIRE will allow us to leverage. We’ll be able to think bigger and be competitive because funders and industry will see that we are seriously invested already.”
Patterson is excited about what can be InSPIRE’s regional impacts.
“The opportunity for us to recruit industry partners will provide new opportunities for students to not only go to school in North Florida, but to stay in North Florida and build their families. When regions can do that, it raises the bar for everyone and everything improves.”
Where ACC Students Come From (2023)Not-so-shocking ACC student body factoids.
— Grant Hughes (@GrantHughesNC) May 19, 2024
UNC and NC State rank Top 3 with highest percentage of in-state kids (80+ %).
Duke and ND rank dead-last. Duke's campus is just 11.6% in-state (!) and has nearly twice as many NY, NJ, CT kids than North Carolinians. pic.twitter.com/JmnlhVfYAp
FSU 84.8%
UNC 83.4%
NC State 82.6%
Cal 77.7%
Louisville 72.7%
VT 63.9%
UVA 61.8%
GT 56.4%
Pitt 54.1%
Clemson 52.4%
The vast majority of the students at FSU, UNC, NC State and Cal are from in-state.
For GT, Pitt, and Clemson, it's slightly more than half.
Notre Dame 93.7%
Duke 88.4%
Wake 86.1%
BC 78.8%
Miami 76.5%
Syracuse 71.9%
Stanford 65.5%
SMU 61.8%
For the most part, public schools tend to have higher percentage of in-state students, while private schools tend to attract more out-of-state students.
That’s what we like to call “The Florida State Effect.”š
— Florida State Softball š„ (@FSU_Softball) May 22, 2024
Our Regional Final game against Auburn was the highest viewed regional game since 2019š¢#ALL4ONE pic.twitter.com/gg9p1D0ASN
A strong showing for 2024 @NCAASoftball Regionals this past weekend
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) May 21, 2024
š„ 258K avg. viewers, up 6% from 2023
š„ @FSU_Softball-@AuburnSoftball drew the best #NCAASoftball Regional audience since 2019 pic.twitter.com/Cylx8FpsK7
NATIONAL CHAMPIONS ONCE AGAINšššš#OneTribe pic.twitter.com/gKvyPAeLN0
— FSU Soccer (@FSUSoccer) December 5, 2023
š šššššššš ššššššššš š@FSUSoccer is the 2023 Women’s Soccer National Champions after defeating Stanford, 5-1, to earn their fourth National Championship in program history! The Seminoles complete the 2023 season with an undefeated record.#WCollegeCup pic.twitter.com/nrGJInOYsM
— NCAA Soccer (@NCAASoccer) December 5, 2023
šš¤šš šš¤ ššš š¾ššš¢š„šš¤š£šØššš„#OneTribe pic.twitter.com/UIBsuBmKh5
— FSU Soccer (@FSUSoccer) December 11, 2023
