Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University, also commonly referred to as FAU or Florida Atlantic, is a public coeducational research university located in Boca Raton, Florida, USA. The university has six additional partner campuses located in the Florida cities of Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, Port St. Lucie, and Fort Pierce at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.

History

Academics
Florida Atlantic University's student body consists of 22,181 undergraduates and 3,476 graduate and professional students. The undergraduate student body, containing 42% ethnic minorities, come from 144 countries, 48 states and the District of Columbia. For the undergraduate class of 2010, the acceptance rate was 58%.

Profile
FAU is currently classified as a Research University with high research activity by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Research
Florida Atlantic has been ranked among American universities by a number of publications throughout its history. In 2007 FAU was classified a 4th tier university by the U.S. News & World Report's rankings of "Best Colleges".

Rankings
Florida Atlantic University is a distributed university located on seven campuses spread across three counties of Florida's eastern coastline.

Campus

Palm Beach County Campuses
See also: Florida Atlantic University Stadium
Florida Atlantic's main campus in Boca Raton was established on the remnants of a World War II American Army airbase in 1964. Spanning 850 acres (3.5 km²) near the Atlantic Ocean, the site is located between the cities of Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The campus was designated a burrowing owl sanctuary in 1971, by the Audubon Society.
The Boca campus also houses a number of other programs including the A.D. Henderson University School, FAU High School, one of two FAU Research Parks, and the Lifelong Learning Society.

Boca Raton
In addition to the Boca campus in southern Palm Beach County, Florida Atlantic operates a campus in northern Palm Beach County in Jupiter. The John D. MacArthur Campus, named after businessman and philanthropist John D. MacArthur, was established in 1999 to serve residents of central and northern Palm Beach and southern Martin Counties. "The campus currently occupies approximately 45 acres (.18 km²) with 18 buildings totaling more than 333,000 square feet: eight classroom/office buildings, a library, a 500-seat auditorium, two residence halls, a dining hall, museum building and central utility plant."

Broward County Campuses
The Dania Beach Campus, also known as SeaTech, was founded in 1997 as "a state-funded Type II research center, the institute is part of Florida Atlantic's Department of Ocean Engineering."

Dania Beach - SeaTech
The Davie Campus of Florida Atlantic University was established in 1990 on 38 acres (.15 km²) of land in western Broward County.

Davie
The Fort Lauderdale Campus, located in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale, "provides a laboratory for students in business, computer arts, architecture, urban and regional planning, criminal justice, social work, and public administration."

Fort Lauderdale

St. Lucie County Campuses
Located in Port St. Lucie, Florida the Treasure Coast Campus of Florida Atlantic University operates under a unique partnership with Indian River Community College (IRCC). Since the 1970s FAU has been operating on the Treasure Coast in conjunction with IRCC "to extend educational opportunities that take students from an associate's degree to undergraduate and graduate degrees."

Port. St. Lucie - Treasure Coast Campus
In addition to the Treasure Coast Campus, FAU operates a campus jointly in Fort Pierce with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (HBOI). While this partnership began with informal research ties more than a decade ago, in recent years the partnership has solidified with the construction of an FAU research and teaching facility on Harbor Branch's 600 acre (2.4 km²) campus. This facility was constructed with $11 million in state appropriations.

Fort Pierce - HBOI

Main article: Florida Atlantic Owls Athletics
Since the inception of the athletics program, a number of sports-related traditions and school spirit organizations have been started at the university. One new tradition is "Bury the Burrow in Red," which calls for Florida Atlantic students to wear as much red as possible and fill the Burrow, the university's multi-purpose arena, during the annual basketball face-off between FAU and nearby neighbor Florida International University (FIU).

Traditions

Student Life
Residential housing at Florida Atlantic University is available on the Boca Raton and John D. MacArthur campuses. "All full-time freshman students are required to live in university housing," however, "exceptions are made for a number of reasons including residing with a parent or legal guardian within a 50-mile commutable distance from the campus, a student being 21 years of age, or if a student is married."

Residential life
For the 2006-2007 academic year, Florida Atlantic had approximately 150 registered student organizations. This includes 40 academic organizations, 19 honor societies, 18 spiritual/religious organizations, 16 diversity appreciation organizations, 5 service organizations, 25 personal interest organizations, 12 club-sports, and 7 student government agencies. These clubs and organizations run the gamut from sailing to Ultimate Frisbee, from varsity and club sports and a jazz group to a pottery guild, from political organizations to chess and video game clubs.

Greek life

Main article: List of Florida Atlantic University people