A Political Science Major Sees Edge in New Academy

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When Campaign Is On, Classes Aren't

When the University of Florida admitted Michael Tamayo last year, it did so with unusual conditions – that he not start until January, and that he never set foot in a UF classroom in the fall as long as he is a Gator.

That calendar is the first innovation of the Innovation Academy.

The program may be the first of its kind in the nation, with its January-through-August calendar that offers a specialized curriculum to its pioneering students from across seven UF colleges. The 300 students who started class last month are the only Gators eligible to earn a minor in innovation.

Tamayo is a political science major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He attends class alongside entomology, journalism and health science majors – 29 majors in all. The faculty's expertise is in choreography, interior design, art therapy, theater, industrial engineering and painting.

"It makes a very messy pot of ideas," Tamayo said.

The experimental calendar flies in the face of generations of an August-to-May tradition so entrenched that Provost Joseph Glover could find no precise precedent.

"This could be one of the most dramatic changes to the calendar since the advent of summer school. By changing the way we organize time, we can give more students access to higher education," Glover said.

The program started as an exercise in efficiency. Every year about 49,000 students enroll in UF in August, which is its capacity in space and resources. However, that number shrinks to 47,000 for the second semester in January. The empty seats represent thousands of wanna-be Gators shut out of a UF education while too many seats are idle for four months.

Such an unconventional calendar, though, can cleave a campus socially. Without fall classes, many of those admitted to the Innovation Academy feared they would not be UF students while their classmates bought football tickets, rushed fraternities and bonded in dormitories in those first heady weeks when lifelong friendships form.

Glover sought an enticement to reward risk takers for entering the new program, a mark of distinction. Tapping into UF's identity as a world-class research facility with a campuswide culture of innovation, he decided that innovation itself would be the draw. The academic program includes coursework in entrepreneurship, creativity, leadership and ethics.

Tamayo never treated the January admission as a delay. He used it as a head start. Tamayo took a full load of courses at Florida Gulf Coast University. Along with the 11 Advanced Placement courses he passed in high school in Naples, the credits could make Tamayo a junior at the end of his first semester in Gainesville.

Tamayo met his fellow Academy students last August for an orientation, and from that point any skepticism they arrived with started melting.
"We saw something that wasn't just to make kids come to school in summer. It was actually based on innovation," Tamayo said.

Entering UF with a small group of January starters instead of 6,400 August freshmen also had a social upside, Tamayo explained.

During the fall he and his classmates interacted extensively on their own Facebook page. By the start of classes, Tamayo described the close-knit group as a fraternity. They bunk together on eight floors of the residence hall tower reserved for them. They painted their own Innovation Academy panel on the 34th Street wall. They formed intramural teams.

"The main difference between us and the fall class is we're a lot tighter," Tamayo said.

Tamayo is already working on the political scientist's version of innovation – changes to Student Government.

On Jan. 4, President Bernie Machen welcomed Tamayo and the inaugural class of the Innovation Academy with a speech about challenging the status quo. He congratulated the newcomers on a leap of faith that has put them on a different path than the 49,000 other UF students.

Quoting the late Steve Jobs, Machen told them, "It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy."

The Innovation Academy began classes on Jan. 7. It follows by two years the opening of UF's Innovation Hub, headquarters for more than 20 startup companies based on UF-developed technologies. National and international companies are eyeing the continuing development of Innovation Square as a potential corporate home to tap into local talent. Plans call for a 185-bed dormitory for entrepreneurs, the startups' employees and Academy and other UF students.

The university is creating an intellectual ecosystem where ideas can become products. Buildings don't come up with the ideas, of course. People do. The Academy seeks to cultivate those people.

As Academy director Jeff Citty puts it, "We're the incubator for the incubator."

Only slightly more than a third of last year's applicants who indicated an interest in the Innovation Academy were admitted, making it more selective than overall undergraduate admissions. More than 3,400 students applied for 500 spots in the Academy's second class.

For Tamayo, the calendar has turned out to be as much of a draw as the curriculum. Having fall available gives Innovation Academy students opportunities to pursue internships when most of their potential competitors are headed back to a full load of classes.

In Tamayo's case, the internships he most covets as a political science major don't even exist in July and August.

"Politicians don't work in the summer. They work in the fall," when they seek votes, Tamayo said.

The calendar has social benefits, too. Academy students say it allows them to watch football games without a term paper deadline bearing down on them, to invest the time it takes to successfully rush a fraternity without neglecting their studies. Conversely, taking classes during the social "off-season" of June and July promises an environment with far fewer social distractions, they say, and they expect that to improve their learning.

"If you and your class prove this concept a success, it will encourage other universities to remain open, active and filled with students for more of the calendar year," Machen told Tamayo and his classmates at an Innovation Academy welcoming reception in January. "Today, because of the limited number of spots for students attending in the spring-fall semesters, many qualified students are turned away from public universities. Because of you, we will admit more students with no sacrifice to our quality."

If Tamayo succeeds in his Student Government reform efforts, the Innovation Academy will get three Senate seats, the first program to get a seat at the table alongside representatives of schools, colleges and residence halls. If the Academy succeeds, it could inspire other universities to find a cure for the common calendar.

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College of Liberal Arts and Sciences #nbsp;

University of Florida

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