Peter Schorsch
Florida’s newest public university will graduate more than 200 students who’ve been at the university since it opened its doors in a commencement ceremony next week.
Florida Polytechnic University, or Florida Poly, shed its old status as the Lakeland campus of the University of South Florida back in 2012 after the Legislature approved a plan for the school to be spun off as its own institution.
Among the students receiving their degrees Saturday are those who enrolled when the new campus opened for classes in the fall of 2014 and stuck with the traditional 4-year track for earning a bachelor’s degree.
The university’s first graduates, a class of 18, were awarded their degrees in early 2017.
Delivering the commencement address for the inaugural class is Jeffrey Wadsworth, who recently retired as CEO of Battelle Memorial Institute, the world’s largest nonprofit research and development organization. The student speaker will be mechanical engineering major Chris Dowdy.
State University System Chancellor Marshall Criser is also slated speak.
The commencement ceremony is scheduled for May 4 at 3:30 PM in the RP Funding Center, 701 W Lime St. Doors will open for ticketholders an hour ahead of the start time.
Florida Poly’s student body has nearly tripled in size since the school welcomed its first 550 students in 2014. That class, now on the brink of graduation, has witnessed many ‘firsts’ for Florida Poly since it became the Sunshine State’s twelfth public university.
In its brief history, the university has partnered with numerous tech corporations to help deliver career ready graduates in the private sector, and in 2016 it entered into a long-term partnership with the Florida Department of Transportation to research and test autonomous vehicles.
Last month, the university announced it had pulled in its first grant from the prestigious National Science Foundation to fund a project studying the coverage of crowd-sensing systems in isolated areas.
Just last week, Florida Poly honored nearly a dozen employees in its first ever faculty and staff awards ceremony, which it’s branding as “Ablaze” – a play on the university’s phoenix mascot.
