Our History
Significant names, dates, and milestones in the evolution of the UF Graduate School.
Graduate education at the University of Florida has long roots that have expanded and matured phenomenally since UF’s earliest days. Some highlights...
- 1906 · UF awarded its first Master of Arts degree (in English).
- 1908 · UF awarded its first Master of Science degree (in entomology).
- 1930 · UF’s first Doctor of Philosophy degree programs received approval.
- 1930 · UF professor of Greek and Latin Dr. James Nesbitt Anderson became UF’s first Graduate Dean (1930-1938).
- 1948 · UF awarded its first Doctor of Education degree.
- 1952 · Dr. Linton Elias Grinter became UF’s first Graduate Dean to serve also as Director of Research (1952-1969). His leadership recast UF into a modern, research-driven graduate education hub.
- 1964 · UF vested the Graduate School with overall coordination and stewardship of decentralized graduate education at work through departments, schools, and colleges across campus.
- 1971 · The Graduate School moved into Grinter Hall, its current home base, after construction of that building finished that year.
- 1985 · Graduate education and research at UF gained added prestige with the institution’s invitation to join the elite American Association of Universities — a Florida first.
- 2022 · The Graduate Council approved UF’s first AI-focused graduate degree — the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Systems (MSAIS) — as part of UF’s pioneering embrace of AI in higher education and research.
- 2023 · Partnering with the UF Division of Student Life, the Graduate School launched GradCARE, an initiative that provides graduate students with a convenient one-stop contact to find solutions to problems through the one-on-one professional services of a non-clinical case manager on staff and on site.
