The design for a stunning new school opening today in Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood got its start on a napkin in New York City.
Architects for the new Orange County school were touring public “community schools” in New York that had a track record of helping children in poverty succeed and thrive with support from community partners such as the Children’s Aid Society. The community schools offered health care, enrichment programs and other services for students.
The architects were looking for design ideas for a school to be opened in Parramore and were excited by what they saw, said Nancy Ellis, director of the Center for Community Partnerships and a graduate of the doctoral program in public affairs at the University of Central Florida. “By lunch they were making sketches on what was handy in one of the school’s cafeteria.”
Ellis and colleagues at the College of Health and Public Affairs, Children’s Home Society of Florida and True Health had already partnered with Orange County Public Schools to develop a community school at Evans High School in Pine Hills that began in 2010.
The high school was seeing a steady increase in its graduation rate and the future seemed promising, so Orange County School Superintendent Barbara Jenkins wanted the new school in Parramore to be a community school too, said Ellis.
Ellis coordinated the 2015 trip for the principal architects from Baker Barrios, the Orlando-based architecture firm hired by the school district, and representatives from the school district, UCF and Children’s Home Society of Florida.
The following year she coordinated a similar trip for three new community partners now involved in the Parramore school project — Orange Blossom Family Health, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida, and the Rosen Foundation. Andrew Rollins, the newly hired principal, went as well.
Both trips and ongoing conversations among the partners have helped the school district reach its milestone today of launching the new OCPS Academic Center for Excellence as a community school for some 1,200 students and their families and community.
The school will serve not only Parramore but also the Callahan and Holden Heights neighborhoods, said school board District 5 representative Kate Gordon at an Aug. 9 sneak peek of the school.
“The parents are excited. The students are excited. We’re going to do great things this year,” said Rollins, who earned two degrees in education at UCF.
OCPS ACE is formally known as a Community Partnership School, the name coined by UCF and Children’s Home Society of Florida for the school model developed at Evans High.
All community schools foster strong partnerships to support the well-being of students and their families and communities, but the programs and services vary depending on the needs, said Amy Ellis, assistant director of the Center for Community Schools at UCF.
In the case of Community Partnership Schools, four types of community partners are always involved — a school district, a university or college, a nonprofit and a health care provider. Other types of community partners participate, too, and can play a major role.
For OCPS ACE the partnerships are among Orange County Public Schools, UCF, Valencia College, Children’s Home Society of Florida, Orange Blossom Family Health, Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida, and the Rosen Foundation.
The partnerships mean OCPS ACE can offer tutoring and mentoring programs; professional development for teachers; before- and after-school services; a resource center for parents; onsite medical, dental and behavioral health services; athletic, arts and summer programs; and a high-quality preschool program.
“Community Partnership Schools are among the most comprehensive community schools in the world,” said Amy Ellis, a former community school administrator at Evans who has visited community schools in England and is studying them as a doctoral student in education leadership at UCF.
The Community Partnership Schools model is now recognized as a national community school model by the Coalition for Community Schools in Washington.
The Florida Legislature appropriated more than $4 million dollars during the past four years for the development of Community Partnership Schools across the state.
Currently, eight public schools in Florida have become Community Partnership Schools with state support, including Evans and OCPS ACE in Orlando and schools in Pensacola, Jacksonville, Tampa, Holiday and Cocoa. Five others are implementing the Community Partnership Schools model with support from their local community, and another four are in the emerging phase, said Amy Ellis.
Early-outcomes data is impressive. Evans’s graduation rate has increased from 64 percent in 2011 to 88 percent 2017. C.A. Weis Elementary School in Pensacola began offering behavioral health services when it became a Community Partnership School in 2015. Since then more than 100 children have been referred to behavioral health care and 81 new cases have been opened, according to school director John Sherman. Student referrals dropped 43 percent and suspensions dropped 50 percent in the first year.
Sherman’s position as director is one of four staff positions found at all Community Partnership Schools – a director, an after-school coordinator, a health programs’ coordinator and a parent resource coordinator. The positions are partially supported with legislative funding.
Shannon Currie has been on board as the Community Partnership School director at OCPS ACE since last year. She is an employee of Children’s Home Society of Florida, works closely with the school principal, and receives training and technical support from the Center for Community Schools at UCF.
“It’s an amazing experience to be a partner and to understand what it takes to support a school holistically,” Currie said. “I’m doing what I love to do – to serve people. What I want them to know is that they have access to support. If they know that, then we’re doing our job.”
university of central florida
Partnership Horse-Therapy Center Receives International Stamp of Excellence
The Osceola Equestrian Therapy Center, a partnership with the UCF College of Medicine, Osceola County and the McCormick Research Institute, was recently named a premier accredited center by the leading credentialing organization for equine-therapy facilities.
The recognition by the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship, International, means the center demonstrates the highest industry standards and makes it eligible to other research funding. Early research of the work being done with veterans and horses has already shown success in helping those with PTSD and movement disorders.
The center, the first of its type in the nation to be built from the ground up and the only one in the nation led with help from a medical school, has state-of-the-art facilities that include a covered ring, air-conditioned meeting rooms, and special grooming and tacking areas at Chisholm Park. The facility allows staff to provide therapy to veterans and others year-round.
Dr. Manette Monroe, a lifelong horsewoman and associate professor of pathology at UCF’s medical school, leads the research efforts on therapeutic benefits for veterans, as well as for autistic children, patients with movement disorders and physical challenges.
The center has helped more than 85 veterans since the partnership with UCF began in 2012. They include veterans such as Kelly Smith of St. Cloud, who was injured while serving in the Middle East. At first, she was skeptical about what horses could do for her.
“When I lost my arm (in combat) I had a pretty tough time of it,” Smith said. “It was not so much the loss of my arm, but it was more so having to get out so early in my career, adjusting to life back from tour and adjusting to my family and kids. I had a lot of attitude and anger-management problems.”
After two or three riding sessions, Smith said she and her family noticed a significant change in her mood.
“My anger just seemed to go away, without me even noticing it,” Smith said. “My husband and my kids made the comments about how much nicer I was to be around and how we could actually go in public and they didn’t have to worry about me getting into an argument or anything else.”
The therapy sessions have given her hope for a positive future, she said.
Cindy Burke, director of University of New Hampshire’s therapeutic-riding program, was the lead inspector during the PATH accreditation process. The inspectors grade therapy centers based on their ability to meet industry standards for health and safety, administration, welfare of the horses and more.
“I have been to many centers across the country and many of them are pretty impressive, but I have never seen anything on the same level,” Burke said. “It’s very progressive and it certainly sets the bar very high for me to find a center of this caliber elsewhere.”
For Monroe, the accreditation is affirmation of the work being done at the center.
“It is an external validation for the work that has gone into developing this state-of-the-art center,” Monroe said. “The goal for this facility is to reach out and do just as much good as we can. That’s really the bottom line for this, making a difference in people’s lives.”
UCF Professor Wins National Master Ethics Teacher Award
With the number of businesses running into trouble for everything from inappropriate funding to sexual harassment allegations, UCF Professor Marshall Schminke makes sure students in his classes are schooled in business ethics.
His college colleagues say he is a pro and this summer so did his colleagues nationwide. Schminke was one of four professors recognized for their excellence with a national Master Ethics Teacher Award.
He was recognized for making significant contributions to the teaching of business ethics at the Teaching Ethics at Universities Conference in late May.
Schminke has served as a research fellow with the Ethics Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and was an advisor to organizations ranging from family businesses to Fortune 500 firms, the U.S. Strategic Command and Army. He also has been an expert witness on corporate ethics in U.S. District Court proceedings. Schminke received his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University and has served as a visiting scholar at Oxford University and the London School of Economics.
He has published two books, more than 40 articles, and given more than 70 presentations on business ethics at professional conferences and universities in the United States and abroad. His thoughts on business strategy, management and ethics have appeared in more than 50 newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsday and Chicago Tribune.
This year Schminke was joined by fellow award recipients Joanne Ciulla of Rutgers University, Daryl Koehn of DePaul University and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University.
The Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University hosted the conference and it was sponsored by the Society for Business Ethics and the Wheatley Institution at BYU.
NASA Asteroid Mission Leader to Speak at UCF
Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, will give a public talk at the University of Central Florida on June 1 about the mission that’s working to recover samples of a nearby asteroid.
Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is working with UCF Physics Professor Humberto Campins on the mission.
OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, is NASA’s first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. A successful mission will provide scientists with enough material from the asteroid’s surface to better understand how planets formed and how life began in the solar system. Data will also help scientists understand the nature of asteroids that could potentially hit Earth.
The free talk begins at 11 a.m. in room 161 of the Physical Sciences Building, located at 4111 Libra Drive on the main campus.
The mission launched aboard an Atlas V 411 rocket in September 2016 from the Kennedy Space Center and is expected to reach the asteroid Bennu in 2018.
That’s when Campins and fellow physics professor Yan Fernandez will really see their workload increase. They will work alongside a team of experts to assist Lauretta by analyzing the data and images taken of Bennu while OSIRIS-REx orbits the asteroid. They then will make a recommendation of the most “promising sample sites” for OSIRIS-REx to collect between two and 70 ounces of surface material with its robotic arm. It will then store the samples in a detachable capsule that is expected to return to Earth in 2023.
Lauretta said he was excited about the mission and the work the team would complete together.
“The team has built an amazing spacecraft, and we are well-equipped to investigate Bennu and return with our scientific treasure,” he said.
Campins has spent his entire career chasing asteroids, comets and other celestial bodies. He conducts research at observatories around the world, including Arizona, Hawaii, Chile, France, Spain and the Vatican. In 2010 he headed the team that discovered water ice and organic molecules on the asteroid 24 Themis and later on 65 Cybele. It’s that expertise that led Lauretta to invite Campins to the OSIRIS-REx team.
Campins earned degrees from the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona. As a graduate student he was named a representative to the Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space of the General Assembly of the United Nations. His research has been funded by multiple agencies in the past 10 years, including NASA, the National Science Foundation, the European Space Agency, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Florida Space Grant Consortium.
“I’ve always been fascinated by asteroids and to be able to contribute to this mission is a milestone in the search for answers I’ve been looking for my entire career,” Campins said.
The University of Arizona leads the OSIRIS-REx mission, Goddard Space Flight Center will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the spacecraft. A host of national and international experts from several universities in the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, the U.K. and Japan rounds out the team.
U.S. Forecast: Continued Expansion Hinges on President’s Proposed Economic Policies
The November presidential election pushed stock prices higher and boosted consumer and business confidence, but a good mood is not the same as a good economy, says University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith.
“Unless this mood translates into actual economic spending activity, the boost in confidence enjoyed thus far will prove to be fleeting,” says Snaith, the director for the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the UCF College of Business in his latest U.S. forecast. “Ultimately this will depend on the Trump administration’s ability to follow through on economic policies that will provide the impetus for spending to grow.”
Snaith says the administration must get its proposed tax reforms and infrastructure spending plans, which are critical to boosting economic growth, off the drawing board and into action. Snaith’s forecast predicts this will occur in late 2017 or early 2018.
The U.S. economic forecast, which is published semi-monthly by the Institute for Economic Competitiveness, projects the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates another 25 basis points in June, the first such increase since March. Stronger economic growth and higher inflation from Trump administration policies are expected to quicken the pace of increases over the next three years with the federal funds rate hitting 3 percent by the end of 2019, according to the forecast.
Real GDP growth, which slowed to 1.6 percent in 2016, is forecasted to reach 2.7 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018 before slipping to 3.4 percent in 2019 and then 3 percent in 2020 as the Federal Reserve tightens interest rates. Consumer spending is the largest component of GDP. In 2015, real consumer spending growth was 3.2 percent, and in 2016, spending grew at 2.7 percent.
“The U.S. consumer has been playing the biggest role in supporting the economic expansion, tepid as it has been, over the past three years,” Snaith says. “Continued gains in employment, more rapidly rising wages and improving household balance sheets should continue to provide a solid foundation for consumer spending growth. Tax cuts and spending programs proposed by the Trump administration should also boost consumer spending growth.”
The proposed tax cuts include reducing the current seven tax brackets, which range from 10 percent to 39.6 percent, into three brackets of 10 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent, increasing the standard deduction to $25,000 for single filers and $50,000 for joint filers and reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent.
The housing market will continue to improve slowly through 2020 even with rising interest rates, and housing starts are expected to rise from 1.29 million in 2017 to 1.66 million in 2020.
The unemployment rate is expected to decline to 3.6 percent in late 2020, and job growth should be enough to keep up with labor force growth through the end of 2020. Underemployment, which has been a persistent problem in this recovery, stands at 8.6 percent as of April 2017 but also will continue to decline through 2020.
Inflation is expected to accelerate in 2017 pushing the Fed to move more quickly to raise interest rates. Core Consumer Price Index inflation will average 2.7 percent during 2017-2020.
For the full forecast, click here.
Snaith is a national expert in economics, forecasting, market sizing and economic analysis who authors quarterly reports about the state of the economy. Bloomberg News has named Snaith as one of the country’s most accurate forecasters for his predictions about the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate, the Federal Funds rate.
The Institute for Economic Competitiveness strives to provide complete, accurate and timely national, state and regional forecasts and economic analyses. Through these analyses, the institute provides valuable resources to the public and private sectors for informed decision-making.
UCF Captures National Computer Programming Title, Places 13th in World
A team of three University of Central Florida students earned the title of national champions Wednesday and finished 13th in the world in an elite computer programming contest known as the “Battle of the Brains.”
In the competition at the Association of Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest in Rapid City, SD, the UCF trio beat teams such as the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Cornell and the University of Texas at Austin.
The UCF team is made up of: Alex Coleman of Oxford, PA, a sophomore studying computer science; Timothy Buzzelli of Palm Bay, FL, a sophomore studying computer science; and Josh Linge of Jacksonville, FL, who earned a master’s degree in computer science in December.
ITMO University in St. Petersburg, Russia, won the world contest. Last year’s UCF team placed third in the nation and 28th in the world.
Last fall, more than 12,000 teams from 103 countries vied regionally for a chance to be one of only 133 teams to compete in the world contest. UCF earned its spot by winning the U.S. Southeast Regional competition in November. Other UCF teams also placed 2nd, 3rd and 4th out of 65 teams that competed in the regional contest. That contest also represented UCF’s fifth consecutive regional win.
The secret to UCF’s success is devoted practice, which is usually up to 20 hours a week, including a seven- to eight-hour practice session every Saturday, said computer science Professor Ali Orooji and faculty advisor for the team.
“Using a sports analogy, imagine how hard a football team has to work to win a national championship. This is the same thing. You have to work very hard to put yourself above the others,” he said. “It takes talented, devoted students who are willing to work hard, and coaches who volunteer so much of their time to coach these team members. It also takes the support from the university, which motivates us to keep going.” The team’s next practice is Saturday to prepare for next year’s competitions.
The contest challenges teams with complex, real-world problems under a grueling five-hour deadline. Huddled around a single computer, competitors race in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design tests, and build software systems that solve the problems under the scrutiny of judges. The team that solves the most problems in the fewest attempts in the least cumulative time is declared the winner.
For 35 consecutive years, UCF has placed in the top three in the region, a record unmatched by any team in the nation.
“UCF is a powerhouse at the ICPC,” said contest director Jeff Donahoo, a computer science professor at Baylor University. “Virtually every year UCF has very competitive teams, and their region is extremely competitive. So just to make it to the world finals each year is amazing but to make it with the regularity that they do demonstrates the support of the university. I applaud UCF for getting behind their students and enabling them to be the best problem solvers by fostering competition.”
UCF’s remarkable record of competing at the world finals was noted at the opening ceremony Tuesday, when Orooji and UCF coach Glenn Martin received lifetime coaching awards.
Orooji was lauded for 24 world finals appearances and Martin for 20.
“I was definitely nervous going into the world finals for the first time, but I was happy that we were able to represent UCF well,” said Coleman, at age 18 the youngest competitor UCF has sent to the world finals.
Buzzelli added: “We not only exceeded our coaches’ expectations, we also exceeded those we had for ourselves.”
With world-level competition experience, the sophomores are well positioned to succeed next year, said Arup Guha, a lecturer in the UCF Department of Computer Science and a team coach.
Linge, who graduated in December, will head to Seattle to begin his job at Facebook after delaying his January start date to compete in the competition.
“This was my last year to participate in the ICPC and I’m glad I had Timothy and Alex as my teammates,” he said.
UCF Invents Way to Trigger Artificial Photosynthesis to Clean Air, Produce Energy at Same Time
A chemistry professor in Florida has just found a way to trigger the process of photosynthesis in a synthetic material, turning greenhouse gases into clean air and producing energy all at the same time.
The process has great potential for creating a technology that could significantly reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change, while also creating a clean way to produce energy.
“This work is a breakthrough,” said UCF Assistant Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo. “Tailoring materials that will absorb a specific color of light is very difficult from the scientific point of view, but from the societal point of view we are contributing to the development of a technology that can help reduce greenhouse gases.”
The findings of his research are published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal–organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial photosynthesis process similar to the way plants convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and sunlight into food. But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo’s method produces solar fuel.
To see a video explaining the process, click here.
It’s something scientists around the world have been pursuing for years, but the challenge is finding a way for visible light to trigger the chemical transformation. Ultraviolet rays have enough energy to allow the reaction in common materials such as titanium dioxide, but UVs make up only about 4 percent of the light Earth receives from the sun. The visible range – the violet to red wavelengths – represent the majority of the sun’s rays, but there are few materials that pick up these light colors to create the chemical reaction that transforms CO2 into fuel.
Researchers have tried it with a variety of materials, but the ones that can absorb visible light tend to be rare and expensive materials such as platinum, rhenium and iridium that make the process cost-prohibitive.
Uribe-Romo used titanium, a common nontoxic metal, and added organic molecules that act as light-harvesting antennae to see if that configuration would work. The light harvesting antenna molecules, called N-alkyl-2-aminoterephthalates, can be designed to absorb specific colors of light when incorporated in the MOF. In this case he synchronized it for the color blue.
His team assembled a blue LED photoreactor to test out the hypothesis. Measured amounts of carbon dioxide were slowly fed into the photoreactor — a glowing blue cylinder that looks like a tanning bed — to see if the reaction would occur. The glowing blue light came from strips of LED lights inside the chamber of the cylinder and mimic the sun’s blue wavelength.
It worked and the chemical reaction transformed the CO2 into two reduced forms of carbon, formate and formamides (two kinds of solar fuel) and in the process cleaning the air.
“The goal is to continue to fine-tune the approach so we can create greater amounts of reduced carbon so it is more efficient,” Uribe-Romo said.
He wants to see if the other wavelengths of visible light may also trigger the reaction with adjustments to the synthetic material. If it works, the process could be a significant way to help reduce greenhouse gases.
“The idea would be to set up stations that capture large amounts of CO2, like next to a power plant. The gas would be sucked into the station, go through the process and recycle the greenhouse gases while producing energy that would be put back into the power plant.”
Perhaps someday homeowners could purchase rooftop shingles made of the material, which would clean the air in their neighborhood while producing energy that could be used to power their homes.
“That would take new technology and infrastructure to happen,” Uribe-Romo said. “But it may be possible.”
Other members of the team who worked on the paper include UCF graduate student Matt Logan, who is pursuing a Ph.D in chemistry, and undergraduate student Jeremy Adamson, who is majoring in biomedical sciences. Kenneth Hanson and his research group at Florida State University helped interpret the results of the experiments.
Shark Tank Competition in Germany for Engineers Earns Kudos for UCF
UCF engineering students earned praise and some job offers after they competed at Siemens Global University Challenge in Germany this month.
Engineering giant Siemens sponsors the three-phase competition every year. It pits teams of the best engineering students in the world against each other for a shot at the top prize – a trip to Germany to showcase their project and meet potential future employers. Siemens is based in Germany and successful plans are implemented at the company’s Berlin plant.
UCF was one of the five teams and the only U.S. team selected from 33 to travel to Germany for the final phase of the competition this year tagged “Enabling the Digital Twin.” For non-engineers, that’s a real-time way for teams to communicate during the conceptual, design and prototype process in product development.
The final round is a week-long process that culminates with a shark-tank-style innovation hackathon. Officials from the company were the judges.
The teams didn’t have to build a whole system, referred to as the digital twin. They only needed to present a working prototype of an idea that would enable the digital twin and that could be seamlessly incorporated within Siemens established manufacturing and quality-assessment process.
“There was no actual winner or ranking,” said Marcel Otto, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at UCF and one of the team members. “We were all winners just being there.”
He described the final leg of the year-long competition as professional and exciting.
“I liked the supportive culture between the teams, the unique insight we got on-site in Siemens’ largest turbine-manufacturing facility worldwide. We worked late into the nights, coding, discussing our solution and models,” Otto said.
Connecting the engineering plan to a business plan and being able to sell it was the biggest challenge, for team member Kevin Bauer-Escalante.
“Being mentored in the art of presenting an effective elevator pitch was probably the most valuable takeaway from this unique experience,” Bauer-Escalante said. “We had to learn the lingo that connects the engineering idea with the business impact. Nowadays it is necessary to build this bridge in your head between the two different schools of thought, the technical and the business.”
Bauer-Escalante, who is pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, is also a graduate research assistant at UCF’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery & Energy Research. He said he is still in awe of the experience and the opportunity the competition gave him to talk to some leaders in the industry. The trip also was his first one to Europe.
Team member Itza Beltran will graduate from UCF with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in May. Beltran said the competition was a way to get hands-on experience.
“The competition was open to any major, with an emphasis in engineering and business,” she said. “Collaborating between different fields is a key to success. I highly recommend students to get involved in projects or competitions where they can work with people from other disciplines. It is a rewarding experience.”
Jayanta Kapat, CATER’s director and team coach, said participating in competitions like these benefits students because it gives them real-life feedback and opportunities to connect with industry.
“UCF did very well,” Kapat said. “Our team just came back, with multiple job offers.”
UCF Urges Students: Apply for Financial Aid on Time or Risk Delays
The Internal Revenue Service’s removal of a popular tool that helps students apply for financial aid has made it even more important for students to file their aid applications early and to fill out the forms correctly – otherwise, they’ll be at greater risk of delays in receiving their money.
The IRS Data Retrieval Tool was created to help students and their families more efficiently and accurately report required financial data on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA), which is the form students are required to submit to determine their eligibility for aid.
The IRS removed the tool in March “due to security concerns.”
Millions of people use the online tool to import their income tax information into the financial aid form. Now students and their families must type in the information directly, and that could increase the likelihood of errors – making it more important for students and families to be certain they are inputting the correct information.
For example, students and families must use their 2015 tax information for both the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 FAFSA. They cannot use their 2016 tax information. Using 2016 tax information would be flagged as an error by the federal government and could delay the receipt of financial aid.
Error rates nationwide could increase as a result of the online tool not being available, which means more applications could get flagged by the federal government, creating a backlog of applications that require additional reviews.
UCF administrators are encouraging students and their families to file as soon as possible to avoid potential delays in receiving aid. Delays could result in students not getting their financial aid for up to six weeks into the semester.
“We don’t want that to happen to our students,” said Alicia Keaton, UCF’s director of Student Financial Assistance. “So, we are asking them to get their applications in now, ASAP, so there is time to resolve any issues.”
What should students do?
- Students should act now.
- File your application at www.fafsa.gov.
- Because the IRS Data Retrieval Tool is not available, you must manually enter your and/or your family’s 2015 tax information.
- Remember, you will use your 2015 tax information for both the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 FAFSA.
- If you already filed your application and used incorrect information, go back into your application and correct it now.
- If you do not have your income tax information handy, request a tax transcript now by contacting the IRS at www.irs.gov/transcript, by calling 1-800-908-9946 or to request a hardcopy in the mail go to Get Transcript by Mail .
If students make an error on the form, their application will be flagged by the feds. Student will then have to seek out a 2015 income tax transcript from the IRS and then submit it to UCF for verification and to correct the error.
UCF is reaching out to students in a variety of ways, including creating a new website http://finaid.ucf.edu/completing-the-fafsa-without-the-irs-data-retrieval-tool/, calling students via phone and using social media to communicate with students and parents.
Chairman Beruff Announces Public Hearing at University of Central Florida in Orlando
Chairman Carlos Beruff invites all interested Floridians to participate in a public hearing of the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) on Wednesday, March 29 beginning at 5:00 PM. This will be the first of many public hearings held by the CRC as part of its statewide “Floridians Speak, We Listen” tour.
Members of the media wishing to attend must request a media credential to ensure adequate space is provided at the venue, in addition to bringing their press credentials. To request a media credential, please contact Meredith Beatrice at [email protected], providing the name(s), media outlet and if space is needed for a satellite truck.
The event will also be live-streamed by the Florida Channel on www.TheFloridaChannel.org.
WHAT: Public hearing of the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC)
WHEN: Wednesday, March 29, 5:00 PM (Doors open at 4:30 PM)
*End time is tentative depending upon attendance and public interest in speaking before the Commission.
WHERE: University of Central Florida (UCF)
FAIRWINDS Alumni Center
12676 Gemini Blvd. N., Orlando, Fla. 32816
*Free parking for attendees available in Garage H. Directions and map are attached courtesy of UCF.
Additional public hearing dates and times will be announced as soon as possible. Members of the public can contact the CRC by emailing [email protected] or by calling (850) 717-9550. Visit FLCRC.GOV for additional information.
ABOUT THE FLORIDA CONSTITUTION REVISION COMMISSION
Once every twenty years, Florida’s Constitution provides for the creation of a thirty-seven member revision commission for the purpose of reviewing Florida’s Constitution and proposing changes for voter consideration. The Commission meets for approximately one year, traveling the State of Florida, identifying issues, performing research, and possibly recommending changes to the Constitution. Any amendments proposed by the Commission would be placed on the 2018 General Election ballot. For additional information, visit FLCRC.GOV. Follow the Commission on Twitter @FloridaCRC.
