Horizons Fall 2013

18 HORIZONS University School of Nova University opened in 1971 as an independent, college preparatory school to educate students in grades prekindergarten through 12. In 2009, University School underwent a massive renovation that included a new pre- kindergarten through grade 5 Lower School building and the new Epstein Center for the Arts. The Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center, named after longtime South Florida real-estate developer Alvin Sherman, serves the residents of Broward County as well as the university’s students and faculty and staff members. The five-story, 325,000-square-foot library is one of the largest library buildings in Florida and offers full collections of research materials, specialized databases, popular fiction, nonfiction books, magazines, journals, CDs, and DVDs. UNIVERSITY SCHOOL: THEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL: NOW LIBRARY: THEN LIBRARY: NOW Today, the university offers degree, non- degree, and certificate programs at more than 52 national and international locations. It also has regional campuses in Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa, Florida; Nassau, Bahamas; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, where students can receive in-person instruction without leaving their home city. Field-based programs are in place in 12 other states. Using advanced distance tech- nology and NSU’s sophisticated teaching methods, students also can earn selected degrees worldwide at international sites such as Belize, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS Collaboration and contributing to the community were early benchmarks of the university and remain integral. NSU is cred- ited with creating the first private-public partnership of its kind in the United States during 1999 when the NSU Board of Trust- ees and the Broward County Board of Com- missioners unanimously approved a 40-year agreement between Broward County and the university for the construction of a joint-use, 325,000-square-foot, full-service library on the main campus. At the library’s 2001 groundbreaking, Ray Ferrero, Jr., J.D., the school’s current chancellor and its fifth president, called the new building, “the intellectual center of the continued on page 22 SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY: THEN HEALTH PROFESSIONS DIVISION: NOW The medical sciences were introduced to Nova University by a merger with Southeastern University of the Health Sciences in 1994. Today, NSU’s Health Professions Division trains primary care health practitioners in a multidisciplinary setting with an emphasis on medically underserved areas.