Florida Atlantic University (FAU), established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. From its very inception, FAU was envisioned as the leading edge of an emerging breed of American universities that would quite deliberately throw off the ivy-covered trappings of the tradition-bound worlds of academia and invent new and novel ways of making higher education available to those who sought it.
FAU offers students a transformative education rooted in the belief that creativity and dedication fuel academic excellence. Expert faculty create a learning environment that prepares students for success in all areas of life. Accordingly, FAU is home to a dynamic community of innovators coming together to answer today’s most important and pressing questions. To this end, FAU offers over 170 degree programs through internal Colleges of Arts and Letters, Business, Social Work and Criminal Justice, Education, Engineering and Computer Science, Graduate, Medicine, Nursing, and Science. FAU also has an Honors College which is the USA’s only university-affiliated, free-standing honors college.
FAU is an energetic and fast-growing institution, determined to propel itself to the forefront of innovation and scholarship. In recent years, FAU has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. For example, to enhance interdisciplinary and collaborative research, FAU has established four university-wide research institutes focused on the university’s strengths. The Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute is dedicated to improving and addressing diseases of the brain, while the Institute for Human Health and Disease Intervention focuses on enhancing human health and quality of life. FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute revolves around studying local, regional and global environments, and the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering is interested in using sensors to monitor the world.