Jacksonville University is undertaking the largest fundraising campaign in its 90-year history, a $175 million effort to help students tackle widening career fields such as health care and cybersecurity and global issues such as climate change and deadly pathogens.
The campaign, called FUTURE. MADE., will fund new colleges, curricula, degrees, faculty and buildings “to create a lasting impact on future generations of students who will themselves shape a stronger future for the region and the world,” according to JU.
It also will be a part of the ongoing resurgence of the community it anchors — Arlington — and attract talented students and faculty who could broaden Jacksonville as a whole.
The plan “represents our core identity and mission as a university: building a better future. It’s who we are and what we do,” said President Tim Cost, a JU graduate. “For decades, Jacksonville University has worked hard to be a force for positive change and meaningful progress in Northeast Florida. We are now positioned to extend that impact on a much larger scale, for the good of all.”
Shane Sims of Amelia Island, a JU parent and member of the campaign committee, said, “JU’s vision of its future is bold and inspiring.”
Sims, whose son Cooper Sims is working on bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the university, said the expansion can attract “more top-notch faculty, create new industry-leading academic programs and prepare our students … to solve the most pressing issues in their fields.”
“The city of Jacksonville only benefits from having a premier, high-quality private university, as well as the graduates it produces,” he said.
The larger scale envisioned by Cost and other JU leaders already includes a law school, now in its second year, and the newly opened STEAM institute, a center for learning in fields ranging from animation and fintech to cybersecurity and robotics. A medical school also is set to open in 2026 in partnership with Lake Erie College of Osteopathic…
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