UCF in the News

A beige RV sits parked behind the outfield fence at the UCF softball stadium on a chilly, drizzly day at the midway point in the season. If you want to find the Williams family, go to the RV and find the Ball-Malone family. They are all there for every home game. Rain or shine. Sure enough, just before the first pitch in the opener against then-No. 2 Texas, two little boys -- Zee Brysen Williams and Cayson Malone -- race down the RV steps and start running around the expansive grass field in front of them. Their moms are also about to take the field: Jasmine Williams at shortstop, head coach Cindy Ball-Malone in the dugout. Jasmine Williams feels the same way. There is no place she would rather be than at UCF, a program that made her feel supported and allowed her to love softball again. She credits Ball-Malone for that. With four kids herself, Ball-Malone watches as Williams juggles her responsibilities as an athlete, wife, mother, student and social media influencer. Ball-Malone often wonders, "How does she do it all?" Williams makes it look so effortless. Reality says otherwise. Williams pushed through dark days, sleepless nights and social media vitriol over her interracial relationship and motherhood just to make it here: Happy and fulfilled, finishing out an improbable career 2,500 miles away from where her first softball career began. "God sent me on this path for a reason," Williams said about her journey. "Because I needed to end up here."

Just over half (55 percent) of college students receive advising on courses and course sequences and less than that (52 percent) have been advised on degree progress, according to a 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse. Advising plays a key role in helping students persist and graduate—and a lack of quality advising can increase time to degree, wasted credits and frustrated learners. In 2023, the University of Central Florida modified its advising and coaching model into a singular role, centralizing staff under one umbrella and modifying job descriptions for staff. Starting this fall, all students will be assigned an academic success coach who will provide assistance with course registration and degree mapping and also assist with personal challenges students face in their academics. he new initiative is designed to improve retention and graduation rates across the college as well as raise morale and energy among the advising team.

A solitary voice counts off, the only sound is sneakers squeaking on the gymnasium floor at The Venue on UCF‘s campus. More than 50 students, ranging from high school seniors to graduate students, pair up to work on dance moves they’ve just been taught by two instructors. The only other noise is music from a nearby speaker paired with a smartphone. Michael Callahan wanders between the groups, intently watching the footwork and occasionally scribbling notes onto a clipboard. He stops to check a name on a nametag one of the participants wears and notes it before moving on. It’s just after 9:30 on a Saturday and the start of what could be a long day. When it’s all said and done, the future of UCF’s Knightro mascot program is somewhere among this group of students, many of whom won’t make the cut.

Wielding a handheld optical scanner, Jorge González meticulously maneuvered across an archaeological grid of white string and metal pins, creating a 3D digital map of a newly excavated steel-mat corridor that led into the long-demolished Bumper blockhouse. Now, a team of University of Central Florida Department of Anthropology students is wrapping up its second spring season surveying, excavating and documenting artifacts at the Bumper blockhouse site — with an eye on the launch's upcoming 75th anniversary. The Cape's second-ever launch, Bumper 7, occurred at the same site five days after Bumper 8.

As Taylor Swift dropped her highly anticipated The Tortured Poets Department on Friday, the University of Central Florida made an announcement of their own. Knights will be able to learn about the Grammy Award-winning artist's music, videos, interviews and media coverage for the second time in the school's history. UCF offered the Rhetoric in Popular Culture course this spring, and it'll be offered again in the fall of 2024.

The University of Central Florida (UCF) and Nemours Children’s Hospital jointly announced a significant partnership on Wednesday to train future pediatric doctors. The partnership will address a projected shortage of physicians across Florida by 2035. Since UCF’s College of Medicine was established in 2007, medical students have gained invaluable hands-on experience at Nemours Children’s Health, progressing from students to residents and pediatricians on the hospital floor.

University of Central Florida criminal justice and legal studies students will be able to receive new annual scholarships as part of a $75,000 endowment announced Thursday by Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith. The endowment, donated by the Orlando Police Foundation on UCF’s “Day of Giving,” will fund $1,500 scholarships annually to two undergraduate students of both majors. Smith, who graduated from UCF in 1993 before embarking on a 28-year career at the Orlando Police Department, said the money is aimed at helping students complete their programs and, hopefully, to boost recruitment efforts at the department and other local agencies. “We have a lot of UCF alumni that work for us throughout the whole department. From our communications to our police officers to our analysts, we are well-represented by UCF graduates,” Smith said. “It’s one of the biggest places we recruit from … this is just another link in that chain in trying to get more people to come to OPD and work for us.” B. Grant Hayes, dean of UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, thanked Smith and the foundation for the endowment and their “commitment to supporting the success of our students.” “This endowed scholarship,” he said, “will help students expand their talents, their identity and to pursue careers that really impact the community and pave the way for more UCF students to unleash their potential to serve their communities.”

Florida TaxWatch celebrated some of the state’s hardest working administrators at its Spring meeting in Winter Park. Members heard stories from education leaders including Rollins College Communications Director Sam Stark, Florida Prepaid College Foundation Director Cindy O’Connell, Florida Lottery Secretary John Davis and The Brewer Leadership Group President and CEO Admiral David Brewer. They cheered some school-level administrators. The organization has awarded 73 two-year scholarships, totaling $281,000, since that program launched in 2017. Past recipients touted the importance of the program in their own lines. “This scholarship changed my life, and the moment I received it, it also changed the trajectory of my future,” said Raymaiah Scott, a Kissimmee student who received the scholarship in 2019. Scott just graduated from the University of Central Florida in December with a degree in business administration. “That is only possible because of the support and community I received in my high school and through Florida TaxWatch,” Scott said. “This opportunity has helped me not to stress over the burdens like the where, the when, the how and the who.”

The fear among Americans about losing their job and being unable to pay their bills is at the highest level in years. Results of the latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, released April 8 by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Center for Microeconomic Data, showed that concern among Americans about losing their job is at the highest level it has been since September 2020. Economists participating in the first-quarter 2024 Bankrate Economic Indicator Survey predict that the unemployment rate will rise to around 4.2% by March 2025. While the job market has exceeded expectations for five straight quarters, they also predict that employers will scale back on hiring. Between now and March 2025, economists expect the rate of job growth to average about 117,000 per month—half the growth seen in the previous 12 months. Among the 17 economists participating in the survey was Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the College of Business at the University of Central Florida. In an interview with The Epoch Times, Snaith suggested that a softening of the labor market is likely to occur as we move through the next three quarters of 2024. “I don’t think this is going to be a dramatic change in the labor market in terms of a large increase in unemployment or widespread layoffs. But I do think hiring will slow to a crawl and I think we will see the unemployment rate tripped up over the course of the year,” he said. Despite the sentiments expressed by the respondents in the survey of consumer expectations, Mr. Snaith said the national labor market is very strong.