Innovation Academy admitted its first class of 300 in 2012. The pilot program stemmed from a combination of ideas, said Bernard Mair, associate provost for undergraduate affairs, including the accommodation of students and the pursuit of innovation development goals.
Although UF is completely full in the Fall, Mair said, there was usually more room after December graduation. A discussion with Provost Joseph Glover came at a time of innovation development goals. They got approval from the Legislature to design a unique Spring-to-Summer concept rather than following the traditional Fall-to-Spring academic calendar. Each student would graduate with a minor in innovation after taking classes focused on creativity in entrepreneurship.
The Alligator spoke with numerous students and UF officials to explore the program’s identity and challenges as it reaches the middle of its third year.
Jamaal Hill first noticed a problem during Preview.
As he advertised on behalf of UF’s Black Student Union during Summer 2012, he noticed a common concern as the inaugural members of the Innovation Academy walked by.
How do we get involved, they asked, when we won’t be on campus until Spring?
This is a question that resounds through the halls of Beaty Towers, where many Innovation Academy students live. IA has presented students with a new minor, a new Spring-Summer academic calendar and new opportunities for the past three years. However, following the pilot program is a string of kinks that require attention, including the challenge some students have faced with on-campus involvement.
“A lot of large organizations on campus do a majority of their recruitment in the fall,” said Hill, who is now a 22-year-old English senior graduating in May. “It kind of makes it more difficult to get involved in those organizations later on.”
For BSU and other organizations, recruitment occurs in the Fall, which Hill saw as an obstacle for students in the new degree program.
He took his concern to the executive board of his organization, and they created the Innovation Leadership Program, modeled after an already-existing BSU freshman subgroup but solely for IA students.
Applications opened that April, and the first ILP class was born.
“We wanted to do a lot to get them not only different forms of leadership and get them acclimated to campus,” Hill said, “but we wanted to make sure that we catered to the specific needs of the Innovation Academy student as well as kind of getting the chance to expose themselves to other large organizations but expose other large organizations on campus to Innovation Academy students.”
It became a 12-week program organized by traditional UF students that offered opportunities to bond with IA students and connect with other organizations. After the first class, Hill, who served as a director, said he saw his students go on to become involved across campus.
But involvement in organizations outside ILP comes with its own confusion.
Any student is eligible to join a student organization, according to the Student Activities and Involvement handbook. But on closer examination, two obstacles arise for organization membership: Officers must be registered for classes during the semester they’re representing their organization; and some organizations that require an application and/or review process to join only recruit members during Fall semesters.
When it comes to officer eligibility, the activities and involvement handbook was altered to include IA students for general membership.
However, the handbook reads, “If the student officer is actively representing the organization during a semester or term, the officer must be a registered student during that semester or term,” meaning that students can only serve as an officer during the semesters they are registered for UF classes.
For IA students, that means Spring and Summer. But most organizations have elections in Spring for terms that begin in Fall.
May Niu, a UF industrial and systems engineering junior who was accepted into the first wave of IA students, said this became an issue when she wanted to run for president of the Chinese American Student Association for the 2015-16 school year.
After looking at the handbook and speaking with advisers, she assumed she wasn’t eligible to run.
“It’s a great program, but there’s just a lot of limitations,” Niu, 21, said. “We are the guinea pigs.”
When it comes to organizations that only recruit in the Fall, such as some music groups, ambassador programs and honors societies, Director of Innovation Academy Jeff Citty suggested IA students take online classes during Fall — their equivalent of Summer Break.
“Students will work their schedule to make it happen if they want to be a part of those organizations,” he said.
Victoria Sperounes, an IA student who started this semester, did just that after confusion about whether she could join a Panhellenic sorority as an IA student. The psychology freshman took 15 credits online in Fall because she thought she would be ineligible to rush if she wasn’t a full-time student.
While the Panhellenic Council as a whole does not have any membership restrictions for IA students, each chapter is left to decide if and how they accept IA students, Panhellenic President Maria Carter said.
“The only thing that the Panhellenic Council requires through the compact (rulebook) is that you must be a degree-seeking student at the University of Florida to attain recruitment,” Carter, 20, said.
Now a member of Sigma Kappa, Sperounes, 19, said she was confused at first but looked at it as getting ahead in her schedule. In fact, she felt being an IA student helped her experience in the sorority.
“I feel like I was more involved,” she said. “I was more flexible to go to football games and socials at night because I didn’t have class in the morning.”
And some organizations — such as Cicerones, Preview Staff and Student Government — are willing to work to accommodate the IA schedule.
In Student Senate, IA students now have representation via two senators. Hammaad Saber is one of them.
At a Senate meeting April 7, Saber introduced a bill to allow IA senators to appoint a replacement senator for Fall terms, which he hoped would encourage more IA students to slate. It passed unanimously.
And for some students, the academy itself became their source of involvement and led to new opportunities.
David Nassau, a 20-year-old marketing junior, poses for a photo in Beaty Towers on Sunday in front of shirts from different organizations he is involved in, which include Hopping 4 A Cure, Innovation Academy Ambassadors and the Florida Leadership Academy.
David Nassau is often seen as the face of IA. He lives in Beaty Towers and attends most IA events.
Nassau, a 20-year-old UF marketing junior, is part of the original IA crew looking to move the program forward, he said. Back then, many students were unsure if they were able to even come to campus, he said. Nothing other than the Spring-to-Summer schedule was discussed, and the option to take online classes wasn’t mentioned.
He looked at Fall 2012 as a head start equivalent to traditional freshmen’s option to take Summer B classes. Nassau said no one he spoke to — including some faculty — knew what IA was, and he spent that semester explaining it in his own words.
But, he said, “as it progressed, I felt more comfortable and confident. And personally, it gave me more of a voice that I had something to say, rather than just being another freshman.”
He lived in a house off campus with people he had never met before. He got to know Gainesville and found it to be an entrepreneurship gem.
“I was essentially riding the benefits of being one of the few IA students on campus in the Fall semester, which then helped me really form a foundation to build off of for other things I got involved in,” Nassau said.
IA students’ Fall guidelines are completely different today than what was put in place almost three years ago, Nassau said, and that includes more opportunities for involvement, like Innovation Leadership Program, the group Hill started under Black Student Union.
Nassau said he was excited to join the inaugural ILP class, which he said consisted of the major IA players of the time who are now involved around campus.
“For me, ILP was one of the main things I did that introduced me to those involved people in and around campus,” he said.
Nassau said he’s noticed IA is becoming a larger part of UF’s culture.
But sometimes, though not as frequently, he still has to explain it just as he did three years ago.
Check back tomorrow for part two: academics.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 - 5 on 4/13/2015]
May Niu, a 21-year-old UF industrial and systems engineering junior, poses for a photo in between the Beaty Towers on Sunday. A member of the pilot class of the Innovation Academy, Niu was not able to run for president of the Chinese American Student Association last fall because she would not be enrolled as a full-time student until spring.
