University of Tampa - History

History

The University of Tampa was established by Frederic Spaulding in 1931 as Tampa Junior College, and was founded to serve as an institution of higher education for Florida’s west coast. In 1933 UT moved to its current location, the then defunct Tampa Bay Hotel. With the move, and the additional room it provided, Mr. Spaulding decided to expand the scope of the junior college to a full university and the University of Tampa was born. In 1941 the city of Tampa signed a 99 year lease on the hotel with the school for a dollar a year. The lease excluded the south east wing of the hotel to allow for the housing of the Henry B. Plant Museum. The University prospered for the next few decades, becoming a well-respected institution of learning in the Tampa Bay area. In 1951 the University received full SACS accreditation.

However, in the early 1990s financial troubles hit the school. The University incurred consecutive years of budget deficits as a result of declining student enrollment. The University's President resigned, faculty left for better opportunities, and the University faced an uncertain future.

In 1995, the Board of Trustees elected a new president to lead the school out of its troubles and prevent bankruptcy. Ronald Vaughn, who was then Dean of the College of Business, was selected to bring the school out of the red. His initial efforts were aimed at bringing the campus up-to-date with new dorms and a major renovation to the business school. Once these projects were underway, Dr. Vaughn launched the "Take UT to the Top" campaign. This major financial initiative aimed to return the University to financial stability, and then to raise the University’s profile to that of an elite school. The project focused on fundraising in the alumni community and among the business people of the Tampa Bay area, who so heavily rely on UT graduates.

The "Take UT to the Top" campaign's goal was to raise 70 million dollars in 10 years, and to restore the University's endowment. By the time the campaign ended, UT had raised 83 million dollars. A major reason for this success was the generous contributions of the John H Sykes family of Tampa, Florida. A gift of $10-million by the family in 1997 was followed by one for $28-million in 2000, thought to be the largest such gift to a Florida university at the time. These generous gifts were all the more impressive since no one in the Sykes family had ever attended the University of Tampa.

The additional funds raised by the financial campaign have been used to purchase new land and to implement a faster-paced building program. They also have been used to hire additional faculty, permitting the university to expand its student body’s size and still maintain a 15:1 student-to-professor ratio. For his efforts in rescuing the university and increasing enrollment, Vaughn has been rewarded with a salary that is in the top 10 of mid-sized, private institutions.

President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit the campus on January 28, 2010.