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The University of South Florida is moving into a bold and exciting future guided by its goals and vision, and an ambitious new strategic plan, In Pursuit of Excellence. This five-year plan (2022-2027) positions USF as a powerful engine of prosperity for the future and includes clear objectives and measures of success to foster a culture of accountability to further propel USF on its trajectory toward achieving a Top-25 U.S.News & World Report public ranking. Embedded within the strategic plan are USF’s Core Commitments, which are powerful enablers of any activity the university elects to pursue, and seven Strategic Areas of Focus, which represent converging themes in teaching, research, and innovation across all three campuses. 

The Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the State University System Board of Governors’ 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System’s commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding each institution’s direction and priorities as well as performance expectations and outcomes on institutional and System-wide goals. Review USF’s most recent Accountability Plan draft here. 

The Tampa campus boasts more than 1,500 acres and 240 buildings and has been recognized as a top performer in campus sustainability. Providing students the best of both metropolitan and rural, the Tampa campus borders the USF forest preserve and riverfront recreation area and remains easily accessible from the heart of downtown. The University’s largest research intensive campus, the Tampa campus is home to the USF Research Park, which brings together world-class researchers, inventors, and entrepreneurs eager to collaborate with a highly trained, high-tech workforce. 

Sitting on the western shore of Tampa Bay, the USF St. Petersburg campus provides many of the advantages of a large public university campus while maintaining the ability to offer small class sizes in a close-knit learning environment. Home to the College of Marine Science and the statewide Florida Institute of Oceanography, the St. Petersburg campus provides ample opportunity for innovation and collaboration with businesses and cultural institutions, affording students the ability to explore their passions, be creative, and experience life both inside and outside the classroom. The campus is recognized for its significant commitment to community involvement and civic engagement by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The St. Petersburg campus is included in the St. Petersburg Innovation District, which is dedicated to formal and informal relationships that have the potential to generate, sharpen, and accelerate the advancement of ideas. 

USF’s Sarasota-Manatee campus is centrally located at the convergence of growing Sarasota and Manatee counties, across from the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. Students benefit from small class sizes, a 13:1 student-to-faculty ratio, and programs focused on business, cybersecurity, nursing, health sciences, hospitality and tourism management, and more. The campus benefits from strong ties with the local communities, hosting the Florida Center for Partnerships in Arts-Integrated Teaching (PAInT), an accelerated nursing program, the David Kotok and Cumberland Advisors Bloomberg lab, and a robust biology program with teaching laboratories at the Mote Marine Laboratory. 

The Florida Board of Governors oversees the operation and management of the State University System of Florida, including 12 public universities and an enrollment of more than 330,000 students. 

The USF Board of Trustees is the public body corporate of the University. It sets cost-effective policy for the institution and serves as the legal owner and governing board. The Board of Trustees is responsible for high quality education programs within the laws of the State of Florida and regulations of the Florida Board of Governors. The Board of Trustees is composed of thirteen members, six of whom are appointed by the Florida Governor and five of whom are appointed by the Florida Board of Governors and confirmed by the Florida Senate for a term of five years. The elected Faculty Senate President and Student Government President also serve as trustees. 

Rhea F. Law serves as the eighth president of the University of South Florida. A proud fifth-generation Floridian who is passionate about the success of the state, Law is the first USF alum to fill the role. She earned an undergraduate degree in management from USF, putting herself through school while working as the university research project administrator for the Office of Sponsored Research. She is one of the founding members of the USF Board of Trustees, where she spent five years as vice chair and four years as the first (and only) female chair, contributing significantly to USF’s growth and evolution as a Research 1 public university. Before her tenure as President, Law was the CEO and Chair of the Board of Fowler White Boggs, a Florida law firm. She led the merger of Fowler with a national firm, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, in 2014 where she continued to serve as Chair, Florida Offices, until 2021. The consolidation of the firms created a powerhouse firm with law offices throughout the country and hundreds of lawyers who specialize in a broad spectrum of business areas such as Energy, Finance, Healthcare, and Life Sciences. President Law received her J.D. from Stetson University College of Law. Her areas of practice included higher education, economic development, government, environment, and land use. Over the course of her 35-year-plus career, Law has worked with clients on land use and strategic planning to meet the needs of a growing Florida. 

The College of The Arts is the creative center at USF, providing an immersive scholarly, artistic, and technical environment for tomorrow’s leaders in architecture, community design, art, art history, music, theatre, and dance. It is also home to the Institute for Research in Art, comprising the Contemporary Art 

Museum, Graphicstudio, the Public Art Program, and Art in Health. The College offers programs to approximately 1,200 students at the Tampa and St. Petersburg campuses. 

With programs offered at all three campuses, the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is the largest college at USF and is home to the School of Humanities, the School of Social Sciences, and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. CAS enrolls close to 18,000 students and is home to numerous Centers and Institutes that bring faculty, students, and community members together around specific research topics. 

The College of Behavioral & Community Sciences serves nearly 3,100 students on the Tampa campus and offers seven undergraduate, 14 master's, and seven doctoral programs housed in six academic departments/schools. The College is home to the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, one of the largest behavioral health research and training institutes in the country as well as 18 specialized Research Centers and Institutes. 

The Muma College of Business boasts one of the nation's best accounting schools, a top-ranked entrepreneurship center, a nationally ranked MBA program, and world-class research faculty. The consolidated Muma College of Business, located across all three campuses, is one college with six schools, enrolling about 7,000 students in undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. 

Home to roughly 2,100 students, the College of Education values high-quality education and excellence in research, teaching, and learning. The USF College of Education operates on multiple campuses and offers state-of-the-art teacher training and collaborative and collegial graduate studies designed to empower educational leaders. 

The College of Engineering comprises seven departments: Chemical, Biological & Materials Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Medical Engineering. The College provides a high-quality educational experience for over 6,000 students and practicing professionals and offers programs at the Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses. The College of Engineering is home to 11 major research centers and institutes. 

The Patel College of Global Sustainability (PCGS) is the newest degree-granting college at USF and is unique in its mission and its approach. Close to 200 graduate students engage in programs designed to prepare students to address complex regional, national, and global challenges related to sustainability and the ability to innovate in diverse cultural, geographic, and demographic contexts. 

Boasting an 11-acre waterfront location on the USF St. Petersburg campus, the College of Marine Science is a global leader in applying science to society’s needs through research, service, and training of future scientists. The College is recognized among the nation's top oceanographic institutions and offers programs annually to nearly 100 master’s and PhD students. 

With a presence on all three campuses, the mission of the Judy Genshaft Honors College is to provide transformative educational opportunities that will prepare highly motivated, intellectually curious, service-oriented, and academically accomplished students to become active and engaged thought leaders of the twenty-first century. While not a degree-granting college, Honors students receive the benefits of early registration, travel scholarships, and small interdisciplinary classes, among other opportunities. The current enrollment of the college is approximately 2,400. 

The USF Health Morsani College of Medicine is a major academic medical center known nationally for its innovative curriculum with an emphasis on improving health through interprofessional education, high-impact research, and clinical activities. Approximately 1,700 students are enrolled in programs at USF’s Tampa campus and South Tampa instructional site. Tampa General Hospital (TGH) is the primary teaching hospital for the Morsani College of Medicine, and in July 2020, USF and TGH began an enhanced affiliation, launching a new framework for providing advanced care to the region’s patients and their families. 

The USF Health College of Nursing engages the core values of excellence, innovation, inclusion, and respect to educate future nurses, advance nursing science, and implement evidence-based clinical practice to improve health and wellness. The College offers programs at USF’s Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses and enrolls around 2,000 students. 

The USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy is a pacesetter in pharmacy curriculum and experience. Through interprofessional and simulation resources, students are prepared to deliver technologically advanced pharmaceutical care. Offering programs to more than 400 graduate students at the Tampa campus, the Taneja College of Pharmacy is Florida’s first public, comprehensive college of pharmacy in a metropolitan area.

The USF Health College of Public Health offers master’s and doctoral degrees as well as Florida's first bachelor's degree in public health. The College serves more than 4,000 students, and its curriculum features cooperative learning, research, problem-solving and field experience to advance and improve public health. 

The USF Libraries are collectively at the heart of the University’s research and teaching mission. At the core level, their collective role is to provide access to high-quality research collections, to deliver innovative and impactful support for transdisciplinary research, and to provide access to exceptional research tools and facilities. In addition to library facilities on each campus, USF Health Libraries, located in Tampa, serve the needs of USF Health. 

USF Health is an integral part of the University of South Florida and includes the Morsani College of Medicine, College of Nursing, Taneja College of Pharmacy, College of Public Health, and School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. Together, through talent and innovation, USF Health is integrating patient care, education, and research to a shared value: making life better. 

The primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine is Tampa General Hospital, which was recently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the number one hospital in Tampa Bay. Tampa General is also listed among the top four hospitals in Florida and ranked as one of the nation’s top 50 hospitals in five medical specialties. In July 2020, USF and Tampa General Hospital began an enhanced affiliation, a significant milestone that further solidified one of the largest academic medical centers in Florida and built upon their longstanding relationship and commitment to improving health care in Tampa Bay. The agreement has enabled the two organizations to partner more quickly and broadly on a variety of strategic goals, and it has aligned administrative and clinical practice areas into a new organization, USF Tampa General Physicians. 

USF World leads the university's involvement in the international arena and is committed to comprehensive and sustainable globalization that prioritizes innovation through research and scholarship, mutually beneficial international partnerships, inbound and outbound student and faculty global mobility, and events and programs that bridge geographical, cultural, and political boundaries. USF has established itself as a leader among higher education institutions in access to global learning opportunities for all students, the global diversity of its study body, and international research partnerships that produce positive societal outcomes.