UCF is one of only two universities in the state to offer the MSE major.

Graduates in materials science and engineering are highly sought by employers in a wide variety of high-tech industries such as space, defense, electronics, energy and medicine 鈥� all of which have experienced significant economic growth in Central Florida in recent years.

The bachelor鈥檚 degree, approved earlier this year by the Florida Board of Governors, expands the degree offerings of UCF鈥檚 nationally-ranked Department of Materials Science and Engineering, which also offers a master鈥檚 degree and a doctoral degree program.

鈥淭his is a great addition to our repertoire of outstanding engineering programs and is very timely,鈥� says Manoj Chopra, associate dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. 鈥淢SE has applications ranging from biomaterials and nanotechnology on the one hand, to construction materials on the other.鈥�

The MSE bachelor鈥檚 program will emphasize lab and experiential learning to help undergraduates become materials engineers.

鈥淥ur new undergraduate program will shape the landscape of materials engineering research and instruction in the region and will generate skilled jobs in the area industries and beyond,鈥� says Sudipta Seal, chair of the UCF Department of Materials Science and Engineering. 鈥淥ur undergraduate students will be offered numerous hands-on learning opportunities to work on projects with wide-reaching societal impact in our modern labs alongside renowned faculty and graduate students.鈥�

MSE students at UCF tend to be entrepreneurial, Seal says. 鈥淢any of our students start companies with their discoveries. There are no limits to what materials science and engineering graduates can do.鈥�

News stories published by UCF illustrate the variety of ways materials engineers apply their knowledge and discoveries.

• Two MSE graduates teamed up to develop a self-heating blanket to keep newborn infants warm in rural areas.
• An MSE research team developed a super-stretchable electronic material that mimics the ancient art form of kirigami to increase electrical properties of materials. /news/ucf-researchers-make-super-stretchable-e-material-using-kirigami-nanotechnology/
• MSE researchers developed a medical-device coating to reduce infections in diabetes patients. https://www.cecs.ucf.edu/ucf-materials-science-engineer-working-to-reduce-infections-in-diabetes-treatment-device/

The 128-credit hour degree requirements include classes in chemistry, physics, and intensive study of the properties of materials. Classes for the new bachelor鈥檚 degree program are scheduled to begin August 2020 at the start of the fall semester. Students may choose the MSE major after completing general engineering courses and prerequisites.

For additional information, visit the UCF .

Chopra, a professor in the UCF , will assume the role Friday, replacing Professor Charles Reilly, who will become UCF鈥檚 assistant vice provost after serving as the college鈥檚 associate dean for Academic Affairs since 2009, says Dean Michael Georgiopoulos.

Chopra will lead all academic operations of the college, with a student enrollment of more than 11,500, while the college undertakes a search for a permanent associate dean. The office handles student advising, faculty teaching, scholarships, degree conferment, space and facilities. The office has 15 academic advisors and support staff.

聽‘My goal is to create an environment of support for the success of our students and faculty.’

鈥淢y goal is to create an environment of support for the success of our students and faculty,鈥� Chopra says. 鈥淚t is important that this transition be smooth and seamless, and I hope to build on my experience in interacting with the faculty and mentoring of students, to provide leadership for the critical academic operations of the college.鈥�

Chopra has held numerous leadership positions in the college and for the university since joining UCF in 1993, including serving as associate chair for the Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, and as director of the UCF Stormwater Management Academy.

He is the university鈥檚 lead for research space for the UCF Office of Research, working on solutions and strategies for the optimal use of limited research space on all UCF campuses.

In 2014, he was selected as a UCF Provost Faculty Fellow to conceptualize and implement the UCF Faculty Cluster Initiative, a university research effort to leverage UCF鈥檚 existing strengths with interdisciplinary teams focused on solving pressing scientific and societal challenges.

Since 2012, when UCF鈥檚 former President John C. Hitt appointed him as the NCAA faculty athletics representative for UCF, Chopra has served as the liaison between the president鈥檚 office and UCF Athletics, responsible for the academic success, eligibility, welfare and development of student athletes.

He served as the chair of the UCF Faculty Senate and represented the faculty on the UCF Board of Trustees from 2005 to 2009. Subsequently, he was elected by his peers to serve as the faculty representative on the Florida Board of Governors responsible for all 12 state universities. In 2014-15, he was briefly appointed the interim vice provost for Teaching and Learning and the dean of Undergraduate Studies. Chopra is a program evaluator for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

His research areas include the study of sinkholes, behavior of soil and foundations, soil erosion and sediment control, and sustainable pavements. He has conducted more than $6 million of sponsored research and has 75+ publications with his students. He shared the 2001 Excellence in Environmental Engineering award by NASA for his patented work in innovative groundwater cleanup techniques. His professional assessment and research on sinkholes have received extensive media coverage in Central Florida and nationally. He has also received several awards for his educational activities, including four Teaching Incentive Program awards, the UCF Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the UCF Excellence in Faculty Advising.

Chopra holds master鈥檚 and doctoral degrees in civil engineering from the State 海角直播 of New York at Buffalo, and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in civil engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

This should never happen! This is another way of saying that we must design and build things in such a way that they don鈥檛 fail. And under no circumstance should they ever cause a loss of life. The 鈥渇actors of safety鈥� that are put in place to ensure that do we not fail 鈥� either over time or suddenly 鈥� must be re-examined. We must not even come close to the cliff or work in the margins.

So what has happened to these bedrock principles of engineering design? We have seen two cases of dramatic failure of engineered systems in just the past month: a pedestrian bridge collapse at Florida International 海角直播 in Miami and the blowout of a jet engine on a Southwest Airlines aircraft in flight.

Both of them have resulted in loss of life. And unlike the response to natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes or sinkholes, these were preventable failures related to poor design or inadequate maintenance. The causes of these two failures are being investigated and reports will be released to provide us with insights to further improve future designs and processes. We are continuously improving as we understand our built infrastructure, but there is no margin of error to lower our guard.

For instance, it has been reported that the support under the FIU bridge during the construction process was moved to a different position to accommodate a difficult situation with the sidewalk below. This may have caused changes to the structure that reduced its strength. And why was the critical task of post-tensioning the structural systems being conducted with traffic permitted to flow under the bridge? Cars under the collapsed bridge had no warning and were crushed. This should never happen!

This was reminiscent of the failure of a hotel walkway in Kansas City in the 1980s, where a design change without a detailed review of its impact on structural behavior caused a catastrophic failure. We must learn from the mistakes of the past and continue to guard against lethargy or, even worse, negligence.

In the example of the fatigue-related failure of a turbine blade inside the engine of the Boeing 737, the engine exploded and caused shrapnel to fly into the fuselage. A life was lost when a woman was almost sucked out of the shattered window in midair. They were not able to save her life. This should not happen!

We know that there are regular maintenance checks to study the condition of each of these components. The time duration between checks is determined based on the design life of these components and the need to evaluate the level of fatigue as these operate under very demanding conditions. While it is still early in the investigation, any findings that may indicate delays in performing such checks to 鈥渒eep the planes flying鈥� should be deemed unacceptable by the engineering community.

An important aspect of my life as an engineer is the trust that my profession has built with the community. A layperson must not worry about stepping onto an aircraft or driving over a bridge, or for that matter, drinking the water and breathing the air. We are the stewards of the public鈥檚 trust and must always keep in mind the responsibility that comes with it.

It is now alarming that people driving our highways and under our bridges are looking for and reporting any and all visible cracks to the authorities and the media, thinking there may be structural problems. This crowd-sourcing of structural assessment is not the right direction forward. It may cause panic in the community due to false and unprofessional reports, and further degrade trust.

The profession of engineering must work hard to re-establish its historical relationship of trust and reliability and not give into the demands for financial benefits or expediency. The loss of life from a poorly designed component or structure is unacceptable to me and should be to each and every engineer.

This should never happen!

Manoj Chopra is a professor of civil engineering in UCF鈥檚 Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering. He can be reached at Manoj.Chopra@ucf.edu.

I had a decent pair that I was using for working out, but they were getting old and more importantly, they were wired 鈥� which in my mind are obsolete or less stylish now.

So I began my search for new wireless headphones. I reviewed many of the top 10 lists and the various options, namely in-ear, over-the-ear, noise canceling and, of course, which company鈥檚 technology. It reached a point where my wife became worried about my 鈥渙bsession with headphones,鈥� which, of course, is the manifestation of my zeal for quality and performance.

Once I settled on two models 鈥� one a set of in-ear buds and the other an over-the-ear noise-canceling type 鈥� my mind turned to content. I also connected them to my television at home to provide news and entertainment content to my ear.

Now that I had the technology covered, the big question was: What did I want to hear?

Do I want to just listen to music that relaxes me, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5, my old favorites such as the Dire Straits, or do I add the latest from Arijit Singh and the loud beats of Bhangra music from the north of India? Am I going to prepare playlists of my own choices or rely on some popular ones prepared for me by online services?

But what do I want to hear (as opposed to just listen to)?

Do I want to cancel out the rote responses by so many people reacting to the slaughter of children in the Parkland classroom. Are we hearing the protests of these young people that are frightened to go to school to learn?

I often find myself surfing past the various ideologues and fringe voices on the cable channels that pander to their bases on either side but offer little maturity and even less in the form of solutions. Where are the adults in the room sitting down to listen to common-sense solutions and act on behalf of the people? I want to hear these thinkers and not the voices of those who just wish to raise their voice and the level of vitriol to then raise money for their cause or election.

Politics is more of a sport now than sports.

Speaking of sports, I also want to use my new set of headphones to listen to the excitement of athletic competition 鈥� whether it be pro or college.

But what do more often I hear? Stories of misbehavior by athletes due to a combination of wealth and entitlement, and powerful voices in athletics pushing every envelope in the name of competitive advantage. The beautiful sounds of the game are often drowned out by the cacophony of voices describing the sordid details of how the top college athletes were recruited with incentives like shoes, apparel or much worse. More sounds are heard about their exploits off the courts and fields than on.

There are also news聽stories every day of violence and harassment of various communities of people. We listen to the difficult stories of those who have either regained their voices after trauma or those who may be in the shadows and cannot speak for themselves. But do we hear what they are telling us? The exploitation of some by those in power 鈥� and it is always about the difference in power 鈥� is mind-numbing.

We want to hear the stories of empowerment of the social aspects of the lives of people while living in a thriving vibrant economy. Do we hear the sounds of good solutions?

I must be old-fashioned and na茂ve. There was a time when the sounds coming through my headphones would provide me with a variety of pleasant options.

But now it is mostly noise, and my new noise-canceling headphones are thoroughly inadequate in mitigating these sounds.

Manoj Chopra is a professor of civil engineering in UCF鈥檚 Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering. He can be reached at Manoj.Chopra@ucf.edu.

This year has been one with a number of interesting travel excursions for me, some work related and others more personal with family. As 2017 draws to a close, I am headed out again with my family to visit India.

We often travel for work to accomplish certain tasks that are not possible without face-to face-interactions, in spite of the tremendous growth in technological communication. For instance, we may attend a conference in our professional disciplines to present a paper or interact with our peers. We may attend a meeting of a board or committee where a compressed schedule is prepared for us to have discussions and possibly vote on certain changes. These work-related trips often require preparation, such as developing and rehearsing a presentation or reviewing the meeting materials.

I had the opportunity to embark upon three work-related trips this year and all resulted in interesting post-travel thoughts:

A trip that I took this summer with my wife to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary more than made up for any stressful experiences. We went to Paris and Barcelona and enjoyed the unique flavor of the rich experiences offered by these two amazing cities. We found nice, small boutique hotels to stay in the heart of the cities and were able to mix the organized sightseeing activities with our own excursions using public transportation.

We were able to also fulfill one of my 聽obsessions: trains. We took the high-speed TGV train for a day trip from Paris to Lille, where we stumbled upon a local festival in the town square. A euphoric and very memorable experience.

Everyone should try to fit in some travel in their lives that expands their boundaries of cultural and social interactions.

Once we聽overcome the apprehension of upcoming travel, whether due to the unknowns related to visiting somewhere for the first time or having to prepare extensively, we should certainly make the most of the experiences.

After my experiences from travel this year, I am less apprehensive and expect to enjoy all the benefits that may come with each trip. I want to go beyond any limits of my current understanding of the places visited and learn more about them.

I want to experience the euphoria!

Manoj Chopra is a professor of civil engineering in UCF鈥檚 Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering. He can be reached at Manoj.Chopra@ucf.edu.

It has never questioned what I look like, where I was from or what I wanted to achieve. In turn, I made a pact with it 鈥� to work hard and make my contribution to it. To play by the rules and treat everyone with respect.

That is the magic of the United States.

One鈥檚 life is, after all, made up of a series of opportunities along the time continuum. These opportunities lead to choices that then culminate in a sequence of experiences.

I may be influenced a bit by an excellent book that I read recently called Dark Matter (Crouch, 2017), dealing with the human aspect of quantum coexisting states within the universe and the choices one makes. Was there a better life, a different path, different choice?

Who knows? But I grew up in a middle-class family in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), and this life has been a roller coaster of wonderful opportunities and experiences. It has brought me to a myriad of surroundings and a wonderful collection of friends.

I want to lay out a small bouquet for you. I had:

Opportunity to spend my early childhood with my father, an electronic engineer who tinkered at home with radios and early versions of black and white television. This exposed me to the experience of listening to the Voice of America and BBC and, among the accented English commentary of cricket and Wimbledon tennis, hearing about the wonderful lives of people across the globe. Listening to the World Cup of soccer was somehow always in the middle of the night in India and I had to drag myself to school in a groggy haze.

Opportunity to study at a preeminent undergraduate university in India, which provided a holistic and comprehensive curriculum as opposed to just a strong technological engineering background. This was a great blessing as it prepared me well when I moved into a more international setting.

Opportunity to come to the United States to pursue graduate education with great financial assistance and outstanding faculty mentors. It was quite a shock at first 鈥� both culture and temperature. After all, I had moved from tropical India to frigid Buffalo, New York. I did not realize I had so many bones that can be chilled no matter how many layers I wore.

Opportunity to meet my wife in Buffalo during my first year in graduate school. 聽We married five years later after I finished my doctorate. She has been a blessing and is truly my best friend. We now have two sons who are in college and are making excellent choices of their own.

Opportunity to come to UCF and pursue my desire to influence young minds through teaching and mentoring. Of the many choices I have made, notwithstanding the choice of a life partner, this would rank among the top. UCF has offered a dynamic, exciting and rewarding life. I have many wonderful students who have influenced me, changed me, improved me. One advantage of social media is that I am now able to stay in touch with a large number of them and can proudly watch as they grow. UCF has also provided me the opportunity to make some wonderful friends and learn from some excellent mentors.

Opportunity to serve as a faculty leader first on UCF鈥檚 Board of Trustees as the chair of the faculty senate and then on the state Board of Governors as a chair of the council of senates for all 12 state universities in Florida.

Opportunity to study one of the most interesting and frightening research areas that influences us in Central Florida: sinkholes! While I have also researched behavior of soils and the response of structures we build on soils, nothing has been as rewarding and noteworthy as my work on sinkholes. We continue to work on our ability to understand their mechanisms and progression underground with the ultimate goal, of course, of being able to predict their catastrophic collapse. Is there something we can see or measure that may provide us with a warning?

So, that is a brief snapshot of my journey 鈥� as an immigrant and someone who proudly became a U.S. citizen while living in Buffalo.

I have had the opportunity to follow my dreams of teaching and helping shape the world, if even in just a small way.

As I said: That is the magic of the United States.

Manoj Chopra is a professor of civil engineering in UCF鈥檚 Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering. He can be reached at Manoj.Chopra@ucf.edu.

It鈥檚 a natural phenomenon that no one can predict 鈥� but researchers at the 海角直播 want to change that. They are working on developing a way that may help homeowners and planning agencies predict sinkholes and areas prone to them. The research team created a mini-sinkhole simulator to help understand what triggers them.

鈥淲e are looking for patterns that may help us predict when a sinkhole will occur,鈥� said Engineering professor Manoj Chopra. 鈥淲ater plays a very important role in sinkhole formation, and we鈥檙e trying to determine if we can find patterns in water levels underground that can help us identify potential sinkholes early.鈥�

Sinkholes occur when soil collapses into large holes caused by flowing water eroding underground layers of rocks. In Florida, the rocky layer is made of limestone, and water can eat away at the stone leaving holes and weakening the rocks鈥� ability to support the soil above. When the rock wears away, the soil above it can migrate down through the cracks, creating underground cavities. These cavities continue to grow until they can no longer support the weight of the soil above, and anything on the surfaces collapses into the hole.

Mohamed Alrowaimi, one of Chopra鈥檚 Ph.D. students, designed the experiment that simulates sinkholes on a smaller scale. It took Alrowaimi more than a year to scale the experiment correctly so that what they learn from creating sinkholes can apply to the real world.

鈥淚t was a lot of trial and error, but now it works and we鈥檙e getting some interesting results,鈥� Alrowaimi said.

The team used an old oil drum to create the simulation. They cut open the top and filled the drum with layers of sandy soil to replicate the layers that exist in Florida.聽 They inserted PVC piping that contains highly sensitive sensors that monitor water levels, and another set of sensors to monitors soil temperature.

Then they poured measured amounts of water on the soil to simulate rainfall until a sinkhole formed. They ran the experiment over and over and over again, recording data from the sensors. Fellow engineering professor Andrew Yun is providing his expertise in sensors and data interpretation to the project.

Because several agencies already monitor groundwater levels in Florida, Chopra hopes to be able to tap into that data as well. His team also will create a database of current and past sinkholes to compare to the water-level data.

鈥淚t鈥檚 research in progress,鈥� Chopra said. 鈥淏ut we know there is a connection between water and the sinkhole process. Rainfall affects the levels of water underground in the aquifer so we are examining that too. And temperature may also play a role. Perhaps water levels change or the temperature changes some time before a sinkhole occurs. If we can learn to read those changes, we could have a prediction model.鈥�

The study is Alrowaimi鈥檚 doctoral dissertation. Chopra said coming up with a prediction model would be invaluable because it could help in the planning of communities, roadways and other structures by finding areas that are less likely to develop sinkholes. He said the model could also be a good tool for potential homeowners looking for information about whether they should purchase sinkhole insurance.

That鈥檚 important because sinkholes can cause a lot of property damage and can also claim lives. One of the largest sinkholes in Florida occurred in Winter Park and was 125 feet deep and 350 feet wide. It destroyed a home, parts of two streets and several vehicles in 1981. Today the sinkhole is a lake. Another sinkhole in Seffner, about 18 miles east of Tampa, opened up in the middle of the night in February 2013 and took the life a man who was sleeping in his bed. His body was never recovered. That hole was 20 feet wide and 20 feet deep.

鈥淚t can happen anywhere, anytime,鈥� Chopra said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a little scary and we want to help prevent tragedies if we can.鈥�

Chopra has multiple degrees including a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the State 海角直播 of New York at Buffalo. He is the executive director of and a member of the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state鈥檚 public university system. He has served as a consultant to various engineering firms and has received various honors through the years for his work. Chopra has several patents and his research funding comes from multiple agencies including the Florida Department of Transportation. He has published dozens of articles and books, and is a frequent presenter at conferences. He joined UCF in 1993.

Chopra鈥檚 areas of expertise include soil erosion and sediment control, fertilizer impacts on ground and surface water, structural dynamics of bridges, soil properties, soil consolidation and stress analysis, and pervious pavement systems.

The state has cut $144 million from UCF鈥檚 budget during the past five years, including $52 million this year. Tuition increases have made up for only a portion of those cuts.

鈥淣one of us wants to impose additional burdens on our students, but we want to provide them with the best education possible,鈥� said Olga Calvet, vice chair of the Board of Trustees. 鈥淲e cannot continue to pass on these costs to the students.鈥�

Even with the increases, UCF鈥檚 tuition costs would remain among the lowest in the nation. UCF also has been named among the nation鈥檚 universities offering the best-value educations by Kiplinger and The Princeton Review, and 49 percent of UCF students graduating last year left with no debt from their time at UCF compared to 33 percent nationally.

Tuition and fees combined for an undergraduate in-state student taking 30 credit hours of courses would increase from $5,584 to $6,247 if the Florida Board of Governors votes next month to approve the amounts set by the Board of Trustees.

Tuition and fees for an in-state graduate student would increase 4 percent, bringing the total tuition and fees to $8,816 for a student taking 24 credit hours.

Trustees and administrators said nobody wants to raise tuition, but they said the impact on students would be severe if the university could not increase tuition and was forced to cut course sections in response to the state cuts. The 2012-13 tuition increase would raise about $20 million, which would support additional class sections, new faculty hires and need-based financial aid.

UCF already has made significant strides in operating as efficiently as possible. Administrative expenses total 39 percent less per student compared with the State 海角直播 System average, and the university is saving $4.5 million annually by making campus buildings more energy efficient. However, trustees and administrators said they will continue to look for innovative ways to save money.

Smoke-Free Campus

Trustees also approved a policy to establish smoke-free campuses starting Aug. 20, the first day of classes in the fall. More than 600 other colleges and universities around the country already have smoke-free policies in place.

The new policy covers employees, students, visitors, vendors and others while on all UCF-owned or leased property, including in university vehicles. Out of concern for the health and safety of the UCF community, President John C. Hitt laid the groundwork for the campaign last fall.

Groups such as the Faculty Senate, Student Government Association, USPS Staff Council and Greek Council have supported the initiative, which is designed to encourage a wholesome lifestyle and a change in behavior so that everyone鈥檚 right to clean air is respected. It is not designed as a punishment for those who smoke, as there are no fines or other penalties.

To help those who want to stop smoking, UCF is offering cessation services and resources, including individual and group classes, support groups, telephone and online counseling, self-help materials and medications.

For details, visit www.ucf.edu/smokefree.

Honoring Valencia鈥檚 President

Trustees approved awarding an honorary doctorate to Valencia College President Sanford C. Shugart. Shugart has served as Valencia鈥檚 president since 2000, and Valencia was recognized nationally last year with the Aspen Award for Community College Excellence.

鈥淧resident Shugart has been a long and valued partner of UCF,鈥� President Hitt said. 鈥淗is support and engagement with DirectConnect to UCF and the students served through that program are testimony to his commitment to provide access to baccalaureate education and to promote student success.鈥�

Notebook

Trustees voted to grant tenure to more than 30 faculty members from eight colleges and the NanoScience Technology Center.

Navy Capt. William H. 鈥淩oto鈥� Rooter IV gave a presentation about the impact of Team Orlando, a community of organizations including UCF, that work together to improve human performance through simulation and provide high-quality training for military personnel. Central Florida is nationally recognized as a hub for modeling and simulation.

New Student Government Association President Cortez Whatley participated in his first Board of Trustees meeting. Whatley also has been elected chair of the Florida Student Association, and he will serve on the Florida Board of Governors.

Trustee Ida Cook was elected to her fourth one-year term as president of the Faculty Senate, and she will continue to serve on the Board of Trustees during 2012-13.

Manoj Chopra, former chair of the Faculty Senate and a former UCF trustee, has been elected chair of the Advisory Council of Faculty Senates of Florida. In this capacity, he also will serve on the Florida Board of Governors.

President Hitt congratulated the six winners of the Pegasus Professor Award, UCF鈥檚 most prestigious faculty honor. They are Sudipta Seal and Donald Malocha of the College of Engineering and Computer Science; Stella Sung and Talat Rahman from the College of Sciences; Stella Sung from the College of Arts and Humanities; and Martin Richardson from the College of Optics and Photonics.

Trustees applauded students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, who won the top prize of $100,000 in a competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Team members Brandon Lojewski, Johan Rodriguez, Cheng Li and Thomas Yang will compete in the National Clean Energy Business Plan Finals in Washington, D.C., in June.

Trustees recognized four Burnett Honors College spring graduates who have received prestigious national scholarships. The graduates are Jennifer Bencivenga, who was chosen for a Fulbright English teaching assistantship in Germany; Ashley Ewh, who won a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship; Christopher Frye, who earned the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship; and Gabriel Willman, who received the David L. Boren Scholarship for Undergraduate Studies to study in Israel.

President Hitt recognized several UCF teams for their success this spring. The women鈥檚 track team won the Conference USA championship; the men鈥檚 golf team placed fifth in the NCAA鈥檚 Stanford Regional and will compete next week in the national championships; and the softball and women鈥檚 golf teams also earned spots in their respective NCAA tournaments. The baseball team finished second in Conference USA and was ranked as high as No. 7 this season.