We have much to celebrate this summer.

UF/IFAS is pleased to welcome new UF President Stuart Bell to campus this month. During his interviews, he made repeated and glowing references to IFAS and to agriculture.

Bell’s three land-grant degrees and his experience as provost at a land-grant university indicate that he understands the tripartite mission and will appreciate how important UF/IFAS is to that mission. We will be inviting him to tour the state to meet you and better understand our work.

We have much to share with him, including our continued outstanding national rankings. Most recently, the Alper-Döger Scientific Index ranked UF/IFAS as North America’s top university for agriculture and forestry. The best-in-class acclaim based on Google scholar metrics prompted Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini to highlight our excellence in a recent message to the university community.

When Governor DeSantis signed the state budget on June 29, he approved millions of dollars in new funding for UF/IFAS including:

• $6.4 million for workload;
• $5 million for facility upgrades at 4-H Camp Cherry Lake;
• $4 million for the UF Animal Sciences Meat Lab renovations;
• $2.25 million for the Crop Transformation Center;
• $1 million for the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture at Gulf Coast Research and Education Center.

We are thankful to the many people who made this such a successful budget year for us, including representatives and senators who carried key pieces of funding legislation for us, stakeholders who advocated for us, and the UF and IFAS government relations teams.

The months leading up to the governor’s signature have been a demonstration of the effectiveness of the land-grant partnership of academia, government, and industry in Florida. It is not so in all states.

As we strive to deliver excellence in our tripartite mission, the work we produce supports Florida’s citizens and our students providing extraordinary return on investment.

The future is bright. Chair Hosseini talks about boosting UF’s rank to third nationally among public universities and even dares to dream that we could be number one. He also says despite the organization’s phenomenal rise in recent years that its best days are still ahead.

I agree. You all do extraordinary work, and there’s seemingly no limit to what you can achieve with a visionary new president, devoted board chair, an unmatched reputational ranking, and substantially increased state funding support behind you.

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