For today’s NSU students, it’s hard to picture a smaller NSU — an NSU without as many events, without the Don Taft University Center and without the Health Professions Division. What’s even harder to believe is that these changes are not much older than the average undergraduate student.
Merging and expanding
The Southeastern in NSU’s name isn’t just there because the university is located in the southeastern part of the U.S.
In his book, “The Making of Nova Southeastern University: A Tradition of Innovation, 1964-2014,” Julian Pleasants discusses how Morton Terry, a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, moved to Miami and opened an internal medicine practice. He wanted to open an osteopathic medical school in Florida and established Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine, which opened in 1981 to 40 students. The school prospered and eventually founded enough colleges to become a university.
In 1989, nearing retirement, Terry worried about Southeastern’s future and sought to merge with another university for stability. After failed discussions with the University of Miami, Terry spoke to Abe Fischler, then
Nova University’s president. But they didn’t agree. Fischler’s position was that Nova should be head of the school while Terry didn’t want Southeastern to be subject to an authority.
This changed years later when Terry went to the inauguration of third Nova president Stephen Feldman. According to Ray Ferrero, who was chair of Nova’s board of trustees at that time and later became the fifth presdient, Terry wrote on a piece of paper (general agreement says it was the back of the inauguration program) the guidelines for a possible merger. Terry gave the paper to David Rush, who was a member of the board of trustees of both Nova and Southeastern.
Rush then gave the paper to Ferrero, who presented the plan to the Nova board and also spoke to Feldman about the idea, who accepted it. That was the start of the merger, which was completed in 1994. Nova University and Southeastern University of the Health Sciences merged to become Nova Southeastern University.
Today, Ferrero credits the merger to the foresight of both boards.
“I often say to anyone who asks that that merger defied modern math. One and one didn’t make two,” Ferrero said. “It made 10 because both institutions prospered by it and we can see it every day.”
Expanding facilities
Ferrero’s presidency started on Jan. 1, 1998 with roughly 14,000 students. During his presidency, he grew concerned that Nova was not properly serving nontraditional students, who were enrolled in evening programs around the state.
To fix this, student education centers were established throughout Florida. Eventually, the new Health Professions Division started nursing, physician assistant and other programs. When this happened, the student education centers went from being open mainly during the evenings to open all day, as they are now, though they’re called regional campuses.
“Now we’re using them essentially from 11 in the morning to 11 at night,” Ferrero said. “The significant part about that is the fact that we were servicing our students the way they deserve to be serviced and we have staff there to help them, and they are in the kind of facilities that are really good for a learning environment.”
As the student population and the number of academic programs grew, it became apparent that more student facilities were needed on the main campus as well. Ferrero took action. During his presidency, from 1998 to 2011, about 2 million square feet of buildings were added to the main campus, including the Maltz Psychology Building, the Alvin Sherman Library, the Carl DeSantis Building, and the Don Taft University Center.
Establishing student life
With an increasing number of students came the need to solidify that growth with traditions and extracurricular activities. Enter Brad Williams, who passed over opportunities to work in at Florida State University and the University of South Florida and was hired in 1989 to establish and oversee student-centered initiatives.
“[Nova] said, ‘We’ve never done anything. There’s really no campus life. That would be your responsibility,’” said Williams.
When Williams started, there were 550 undergraduate students, and Williams got to know every one of them. Williams called being the only person in charge of student affairs “crazy” and “fun” and he wore many hats.
“I would get up in the morning. I’d put on my coat and tie and come to work. At 10 in the morning, I’d take off my coat and tie, put a golf shirt on and some shorts because I’d be in front of the Parker Building flipping burgers because we were doing a picnic. I would go over to one of the residence hall rooms, take a shower, put my coat and tie back until 5. And then at 5, I would take my coat and tie off and put a referee shirt on and go out and ref football on the fields — which really weren’t even fields; they were just scrub grass,” Williams said.
By the end of Williams’ first year, the number of student organizations went from six to 30. The next year, Williams starting holding leadership conferences in places like Key West, Islamorada and Captiva Island, gatherings where students were “like family.” The few following years also brought the start of the Greek system and the revitalization of student government.
According to Williams, traditions arose organically at Nova. Today’s Anything That Floats Raft Races, a Homecoming tradition, started when students decide to have canoe races on Gold Circle Lake, which used to extend to the Miami Dolphins training facility. Doing the “Fins Up” pose started when students started forming fins with their hands after the school’s mascot became the Sharks.
“We were starting things all the time,” Williams said. “People would come sand say, ‘Hey, why don’t we … ?’ and we would just start it and see how it would go.”
Today, there are 341 student organizations and Williams is the vice president of the Division of Student Affairs, as well as the dean of the College of Undergraduate Studies, which together have about 120 full-time employees and 40 graduate assistants.
Williams sees Student Affairs as an integral part of moving NSU into the future as the division helps students create a sense of identity by providing ways for students to get involved on campus.
“College is the totality of the experience,” Williams said. “It is the richness of what you learn inside the classroom and the way that [what happens] outside the classroom complements all the things you learn inside the classroom.”
Looking to the future
From farm to naval airfield to a university with three buildings, NSU has emerged, grown and gone to places no one would have thought it would go to 50 years ago. By the end of Ferrero’s presidency in 2011, NSU had about 28,000 students, and it is now the ninth largest not-for-profit, independent university in the country.
NSU is moving into the future with the same innovation and optimism that has shaped its last half century and that is characterized by George Hanbury’s Vision 2020, which he introduced when he became president in July 2011: “By 2020, through excellence and innovations in teaching, research, service, and learning, Nova Southeastern University will be recognized by accrediting agencies, the academic community, and the general public as a premier, private, not-for-profit university of quality and distinction that engages all students and produces alumni who serve with integrity in their lives, fields of study, and resulting careers.”
Vision 2020 is NSU’s driving force, the complement to its mission, and the goal of fulfilling it is ongoing, as students, staff, administration and faculty take part in the effort to become a better and greater “one NSU.” As
Williams notes, the “uni” in “university” means “one” — one university and not a collection of “colleges and schools with nothing in common.”
“When it all comes together,” Williams said, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
