NSU's Overall Case Statement | Realizing Potential Campaign

2 HOPE in the Future Hope in the future built Nova Southeastern University (NSU). It is with this hope that a group of Broward County citizens, known as The Oatmeal Club, established the university over a series of weekly breakfasts at Cope’s Restaurant. Hope in the future was a mailbox—the first structure erected on the former Forman Field, a World War II auxiliary airfield that would become our 314-acre campus. Hope in the future was admitting an inaugural class of 17 students in 1967, and in that same year, breaking ground on a three-story, 79,000-square-foot physical sciences building. Hope in the future was believing that a research institution would have a positive impact not only on its students but, just as dramatically, on the economic fortunes of the tri-county region, all of South Florida, and beyond. Hope in the future also means anticipating the future. Long before the Internet, we flew faculty members to cities nationwide to instruct doctoral students in four degree programs—the first distance education program in the United States. We built the first electronic classrooms in 1985. For five decades, we have been delivering medical, psychological, and legal services to the community and paving the way for breakthroughs in critical areas that affect us—from medicine to the environment, and from social services to cybersecurity and law.