Florida Gulf Coast University

April 10 is Gopher Tortoise Day, as designed by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the nonprofit Gopher Tortoise Council. So, we have a conversation about the importance of these large, long-lived reptiles that can be found in all of Florida’s 67 counties. These large, slow moving reptiles are crucial to ecosystems because of the deep burrows they dig and live in. More than 350 other species — known as commensals — take advantage of those burrows for shelter. Their main threats are cars while trying to cross roads, and development that occurs on the land where they live.

Information submitted by each finalist for the FGCU presidency can be found on FGCU’s presidential search website, www.fgcu.edu/presidentialsearch. All other candidate information will remain exempt and confidential, according to Section 1004.098, Florida Statutes.

We listen back to one of the very first episodes of the WGCU podcast “Three Song Stories,” featuring Florida Gulf Coast University professor and founder of the school’s Journalism program, Lyn Miller.

While visitors to Koreshan State Park in Estero have often asked whether there was any connection between Cyrus Teed Koresh — the man who founded The Koreshan Unity which called the land home beginning in the early 1800s, and David Koresh — the man who led the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas from the mid 1980s until the group’s fiery demise during an FBI siege gone wrong on their Mount Carmel compound on April 19th, 1993 — the answer was always no, there is no connection between the two and the similarity between their names is purely coincidental. Well, new evidence has come to light that seems to prove there was most certainly a connection of some kind.

Florida Gulf Coast University began installing the base of its new artificial reef, named Kimberly’s Reef, in the Gulf of Mexico. Groups of concrete culverts will create an 11-acre underwater laboratory for scientific experimentation and research.

FGCU's Athletic Eagle was paired with the university's blue and green acronym in the logo redesign.

FGCU’s Board of Trustees will conduct final interviews of the three presidential search finalists, Tod A. Laursen, Ph.D., Robert G. Gregerson, Ph.D., and Susana V. Rivera-Mills, Ph.D., on Wednesday, Nov. 2, and a president-elect will go before the Board of Governors in November for confirmation.

The School District of Lee County is preparing mental health personnel to assist students and staff in mental distress post-Hurricane Ian.

Results from the first controversial surveys to uncover the political beliefs of nearly 2 million students, faculty and staff at Florida's colleges and universities are in. Those results were not what Florida's Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis expected. Most faculty, instructional staff and administrators who responded described themselves as moderate politically. More of them described themselves as conservative than liberal. Hardly anyone agreed that endorsing a particular political view would help them be promoted or granted tenure. And more of them agreed than disagreed that their campus was equally tolerant of liberal and conservative ideas and beliefs. Lawmakers had said they were worried about anti-conservative bias on college campuses. Just under 10 percent of almost 120,000 faculty, instructional staff and administrators responded. But fewer than 1 percent of more than 1.7 million students filled out the surveys, making those results statistically worthless. The next round of surveys will be going out in about six months unless a judge intervenes. A group of professors is challenging in federal court the law requiring the annual surveys. That case is set for trial in January in Tallahassee.

New logo will reflect the result of a survey that asked students, faculty, staff, alumni and other campus stakeholders to rank three options for a new institutional logo. Rollout will be in the coming months.