Phi Delta Theta, Lambda Chi and Theta Chi remained the largest fraternities on campus, respectively. Alpha Tau Omega and Sigma Chi both grew in size from Spring 2011, to become the fourth and fifth largest fraternities.

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As for Sororities, it is interesting to point out that Alpha Delta Pi grew to the largest sorority, boasting 196 members, growing by 34 members from Spring 2011. Behind Alpha Delta Pi is Kappa Alpha Theta and Pi Beta Phi, who both have 177 members.

Documents show that the overall average GPA for Greek men is 2.901, higher than the 2.790 average GPA of all undergraduate men at UCF. This also goes for Greek females who have an overall GPA of 3.150, higher than the 3.014 average female undergraduates here at UCF.

Click below to see the reports:
SEE UCF FRATERNITY SIZES, GRADES | SEE UCF SORORITY SIZES, GRADES

“The Open House is a great opportunity to meet FIU’s graduate faculty, program directors, staff and administration,” according to FIU’s graduate school website.

The Graduate Open House is scheduled to start promptly at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday October 29, 2011, however, those wanting to attend must RSVP by Thursday, October 27 to attend. The event will take place in the Graham Center Ballrooms, Modesto A. Maidique campus. Parking is available in designated spaced on lots 3 and 4.

FIU is located in South Florida, an area of the state where many UCF students grew up. FIU points out the vibrant Miami life available to its students on its website.

UCF GRADUATION LIVE STREAM (WHEN AVAILABLE):

When graduation ceremonies are taking place Friday and Saturday, the video will appear above.

Once UCF provides video archives of the most ceremonies, we’ll post them here.

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The jurors was taken through a tour of the UCF Athletics Associations Inc. athletic facilities, the place where Ereck Plancher practiced before he died.

It started with a disagreement about walking down a certain hall due to a water fountain in the middle of it. It was decided they would walk a different way.

The jurors started there tour going to the weight room then to the locker room and lastly the field house.

This marks the third, and final scheduled week, of the Ereck Plancher wrongful death trial. So far, the plantiff has brought up witnesses to testify in supposed of the allegations that UCF Coach George O’Leary cursed at Plancher and ordered waters and trainers out of the field house during an especially grueling workout.

O’Leary testified last week that he did not order trainers and waters out.

KnightNews.com has been providing live, streaming video coverage of the trial each morning. Due to the field trip, Monday’s live live trial coverage didn’t start until 10:45 a.m.

Check back for updates on how the field trip went, a complete summary of what happens in court and an easy to understand break down of the complex legal issues playing out in court from KnightNews.com legal analyst and Orlando attorney Lisa Figueroa.

If you’ve missed some of the live stream and witnesses that have appeared so far in teh case, the Orlando Sentinel has recapped highlights of the testimony from each witness here.

Once the third approval is awarded, the College of Medicine will be able to provide degrees for its students.

According to a press release sent to KnightNews.com, Dr. Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs and founding dean of the UCF College of Medicine stated on June 15th, “ I am delighted with the LCME’ s decision and am especially proud of the College of Medicine team — our faculty, students, staff and community partners – who are responsible for our extraordinary success. While we are still very young, we are on track to becoming the nation’ s premier 21st century college of medicine.”

In 2009, UCF’ s College of Medicine provided each member of its first class with $40,000 annually, for four years. Consisting of 40 students, $20,000 has gone to tuition, while the other $20,000 goes to living expenses.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) is responsible for granting medical degree programs for schools throughout the United States and Canada. After visiting UCF in February, the committee evaluated the programs progress and determined that they met the standards to be granted the provisional accreditation.

“ Full accreditation is necessary for our graduates to be licensed and to be admitted into residency programs,” said Wendy Sarubbi, Coordinator of Information/Publications Services for UCF College of Medicine. “ So accreditation means everything.”

The College of Medicine currently has 100 students and will be enrolling its third class of 80 students in August.

“ Provisional accreditation means the LCME has examined and approved our progress in providing our charter class with its first two years of training and education,” said Sarubbi. “ In the fall of 2012, the LCME will return and look at what we have done for all four years and make its determination.”

When the charter class is in its fourth year of the schools program in 2013, the LCME will determine if the college will receive full accreditation.

At 12:30 p.m. today, Monday, June 6, those hoping to get into law school will take one of the most grueling admissions tests there are.

Law schools use the LSAT and your undergraduate GPA as major factors in determining whether you’ll be admitted to law school. You can use this LSAT calculator to see what law school your GPA and LSAT score may get you into to.

KnightNews.com has learned the University of Central Florida is one of the schools hosting the LSAT test today. Students should be on alert to remain quiet on campus today, to avoid disrupting the test.

Students are allowed to cancel their scores after the LSAT, if they decide they don’t want to have it scored and cancel the score by the deadline.

The UCF Board of Trustees is expected to approve a proposal on May 26 which would establish a College of Dental Medicine. It would be located at the UCF Health Sciences Campus at Lake Nona, according to a UCF news release. UCF says it would create at least 110 local jobs as well as an initial economic impact of $73 million.

“The College of Dental Medicine will mean opportunities for our local students to obtain a dental education that they must now leave our area to achieve,” UCF President John C. Hitt said in the statement. “The college will create opportunities to help more people in need of dental care who cannot afford it. And it will provide Central Florida with new jobs and an economic boost in challenging times.”

UCF says it has no intentions of using public money to pay for the project. A secret private donor is ponying up a $10 million donation to get it going. UCF says it will then secure a loan of approximately $40 million to cover necessary startup costs of the facility, which will be built next to the College of Medicine in Lake Nona’s “Medical City.”

According to UCF, there are only two accredited dental schools with enrolled students in Florida – one in Gainesville and one in Fort Lauderdale.

UCF estimates the initial economic impact to be $73 million, coming from construction and equipment costs. Once it’s up and running, the dental school is projected to generate approximately $69 million in annual economic impact, and that doesn’t include the research dollars the dental school could bring.

The med school’s dean was excited.

“This is a unique opportunity for us,” said Dr. Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs at UCF and dean of the College of Medicine. “There is a link between oral health and overall health. In fact, recent studies indicate that oral disease is often present in diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We expect to be conducting research in these areas, which will benefit our students and the community’s overall health.”

One of the biggest things to stand out was that Delta Tau Delta outgrew Alpha Tau Omega — albeit by only one brother. Previously among UCF’s smaller fraternities, Delt’s 91 members puts it ahead of Sigma Chi’s 89 members and ATO’s 90 members. Delt sits behind three other UCF fraternities, including Theta Chi’s 112 members and Lambda Chi’s 115 members. Phi Delta Theta grew into UCF’s biggest fraternity with a 121 man chapter, fueled by having the largest spring fraternity pledge class.

Click Below to see the reports:

SEE UCF FRATERNITY SIZES, GRADES | SEE UCF SORORITY SIZES, GRADES

*Both UCF sorority and fraternity GPA’s were higher than the all male GPA average of 2.78 and the UCF all female GPA average of 2.99.

Another useful tool being hosted by the “Study Union” is the daily study sessions, courtesy of the Student Academic Resource Center (SARC). Each day, review sessions are offered in three-hour blocks of time throughout the Union. For example, on Tuesday December 7, Introduction to Computer programming will be offered in Egmont Key Room 224 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., while Organic Chemistry II will occupy Key West Room 218’s 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. time slot. Altogether, there will be a total of 74 review sessions offered before the end of exams on the night of December 13th. In between the study and review sessions, there will also be free massage and Recreation and Wellness Center exercise sessions.

Yet another bonus to the Union’s late hours will be a “Midnight Breakfast” offered from Monday, Dec. 6th, through Thursday, Dec. 9th.

According to a recent article published in The New York Times titled “Forget What You Know about Good Study Habits,” it isn’t so much how often you study, but how that makes the difference. The Times suggests changing rooms each study session, or mixing the material instead of focusing the entire period on one lesson; both tips can be put to use utilizing the Study Union.

For more information, visit SARC’s website, which offers a schedule of events and will remain up –to-date about events, by clicking here.

And for a list of review sessions and events, view or download this pdf file.

“If you don’t sleep, eat and breathe HIV disease, and you don’t own it, then you will never do anything from keeping yourself being at risk,” stated Professor Douglass regarding her approach on educating UCF students about the life altering affects of the disease.

Douglass began offering the course HIV: A Human Concern in 1985 at UCF. A class that she likes to call “the world’s best kept secret” due to many students not knowing the class exists and the fact that it is exclusively taught by her at UCF.

Her idea of educating her students about the epidemic is not solely based on reading a few textbooks, but through assimilation. Douglass’ course requires students to live as if they were infected by the disease through tasks such as consuming M&M’s as if it were their HIV medication. Students are asked to treat the candy as if it were a pill by having the same structured time frames a person on actual HIV medication would have. A student will swallow the candy with food, without food, half an hour before breakfast leading up to 4 times a day and sometimes even more in certain cases. Then, students are asked to keep track of their experience in a journal.

However, Douglass does not want to send the message that HIV is something to be ignored based on the fact that there is medication to treat the disease.

“People think that because of medications, that are very expensive and highly toxic, that HIV is a manageable disease now- it’s not.”

According to Central Florida’s very own HIV/AIDS organization the Hope and Help Center, the average cost of medication to treat HIV can be up to $1,400 a month. Through the AIDS Insurance Continuation Program, a statewide program for people who cannot maintain private health insurance as a result of their HIV status, Hope and Help can pay up to $750 a month for the continuation of a client’s medical, dental, mental health and optical coverage.

However due to state budget cuts not everyone has access to medication.

According to the AIDS Health Care foundation 1, 361 people- more than one third of the 3,337 people on Aids Drug Assistant Program’s list nationwide- are in Florida.

Another way Douglass raises awareness through education is by giving students the choice of volunteering 18 hours at an AIDS organization such as the Hope and Help Center, e-mailing a pen pal living with HIV, participating in a chat room once a week or writing a blog based on researching an HIV topic.

To a UCF student not enrolled in the HIV course 18 hours of volunteering may sound too time consuming. However, to Douglass’ student Sasha Baxter, 20, volunteering is time well spent.

“I like it because I used to volunteer at Winter Park Memorial Hospital. Every little bit helps,” stated Sasha while filling paper bags with canned food for the food drive hosted by the Hope and Help Center at Thanksgiving for clients in need.

Meghan Scott, the coordinator and development assistant at Hope and Help and also a UCF alumnus of 2008, is in charge of setting up volunteers from Douglass’ class with hours. According to Scott, “everyone has something they can do to do help whether it is donate money or volunteer”.

Douglass’ second approach to downsizing the spread of HIV is through activism.

“It’s time for the next generation to start taking over which is what I’m hoping to do is to make a generation of activists that will get out there,” stated Douglass while expressing she is not asking people to heckle the president because he has not done enough for the HIV cause.

Douglass describes her students as pebbles causing a ripple in her HIV pond creating a wave and asking them to pay it forward through educating their friends, family and anyone else around them about the disease.

Another form of activism Douglass describes is not just simply talking about HIV, but being involved and getting people involved with the cause to fight the spread of HIV; especially on campus.

“The apathy on this campus can be overwhelming,” described Douglass regarding her struggle with getting students motivated.

Douglass has a line of work under her belt when it comes to getting involved with cause to fight HIV. In Orange and Volusia County she would go teach and train teachers of Life Management and Biology classes.

She said that a lot of these teachers were still scared to talk about HIV.

“You have to have a certain mindset. You can’t be embarrassed. A lot of these teachers were uncomfortable about sexuality and the sexual organs.”

“The problem with the U.S. is that it comes from a Puritan background. That Puritanism has never left; we have not changed our mentality when it comes to sex. We’ll use it to sell everything under the sun, but to talk about it? Oh my god- it’s like pulling teeth,” said Douglass regarding her perspective on the lack of sexual education.

Having read her own ratings on Rate My Professor, Douglass expressed concern for students missing out on an opportunity to enroll in her class based on the negative comments regarding her course work.

“If they take the chance and they come into the course what they will find is that they will leave with a life altering class that they can’t get anywhere else.”

“I would have never known what I know now about HIV if it wasn’t for this course. I probably wouldn’t have been prompted to research as much as I did and realize how important it is to know about this pandemic that could affect anybody,” stated Hannah Rutkowski regarding her experience enrolled in Douglass’ class.

“Everybody has a cross to bare, for some people it’s HIV, for other people its diabetes, for some kids its cancer. I mean, even for the healthiest of people there’s still something in their life that they have to deal with and you learn to deal with it,” explained Douglass in reference to HIV being part of her everyday life.

With a B.S. in Cardiopulmonary Sciences and a M.S. in Health Sciences Education and Evaluation, Douglass’ interest in the HIV epidemic began in the early 1980’s when she worked with a child whom was in remission from leukemia with pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP). Her interest peaked after having read about a PCP outbreak in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in which doctors were confused on how the child had contracted PCP considering the child was not part of the normal group with PCP.

Douglass began working with an organization doing hotline counseling for people infected with HIV/AIDS despite not fully understanding exactly what she or anyone was counseling in.

“There wasn’t much coming out. It was so scary, people were paranoid at the time,” said Douglass describing what it was when little was known about the disease.

At the time, Douglass was also teaching at the University of Kansas.

“I realized that as this epidemic was growing that my students in respiratory therapy would be working with these patients, whether they were adults or children it didn’t matter, and so I decided to start teaching something about it.”

Douglass explained that it was when Ryan White stepped into the picture, as far as what living with HIV was, she switched her focus from the scientific perspective to the human perspective.

Being that Douglass is the only professor to offer the HIV course nationwide, she expressed concern for the future of the course when she reaches retirement.

“I’m afraid that when I go it goes, truly. Nobody else seems to be very interested in it.”

As for now, Douglass has hope that her students will leave the class with the education needed to become activists for the prevention of HIV out in the world.

“My ripples are out there. They’re doing their thing, you know, and hopefully one day they’ll be a wave and after that a tidal wave and then maybe HIV will be eradicated, who knows.”