Be a Voice for UF
Gator Capital Growing
Wuerffel to Host IGD
New Membership Benefit

UF has launched Gators for Higher Education to bring alumni together with Florida legislators to discuss issues that impact UF and the entire State University System. As of March, roughly 1,400 people had signed up at http://gatorsforhighered.ufl.edu/. Below, UF leaders discuss the effort and alumni involvement.

"We face a significant challenge with our reduced funding, resulting in the loss of faculty and a decline in the overall quality of the education experience. As our alumni better understand this risk, they become our most effective resource in communicating these concerns with our elected leadership throughout the state."
-Dianna Morgan ('69-'70), chair, UF Board of Trustees

"We need advocates to help us tell the story of the University of Florida and how it benefits our state. The more we can communicate with our elected officials about UF's education, research and public service, the better informed they will be during this budget cutting time."
-Bernie Machen, UF president

"It really is much more effective when people put in their own words their feelings about the University of Florida."
-Jane Adams, vice president, University Relations

"One of the fundamental roles of any alumni association is to advocate the agenda for its institution. It's a great opportunity for alumni to get involved in the life of their institution by giving of their time and talent."
-Lee Patouillet, executive director, UF Alumni Association

"I believe all Gators inherently appreciate the importance and value of making a positive impact when presented with the opportunity. Let's be heard."
-Mark Nouss (BSAC '81, JD '85), president, UF Alumni Association

Red, white and blue may be the primary colors in the nation's capital, but orange and blue are closing in — fast.

Stephanie and Scott Kanowitz

Lifelong Floridians who grew up in Hollywood, my husband, Scott Kanowitz (BSCEN '00, MS '02, MBA '06), and I moved to Arlington, Va., just outside Washington, D.C., in June 2002. When football season started that year, we went to watch Gators games at Joe Theismann's Restaurant in Alexandria, Va., and introduce ourselves to the D.C. Gator Club®. Although we felt out of place during that first meeting, we now enjoy meeting our fellow Gators at Bailey's Pub and Grille, which is a sea of orange and blue on any given Saturday. It's become an official game-watching spot for the D.C. Gators, which covers Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Besides the Gator bounty at Bailey's, I started noticing more "Go Gators!" greetings from friendly faces as I grocery shopped and worked out in UF apparel. What gives? I thought. Turns out I was not imagining things. The number of Gator grads in the D.C. metropolitan area has increased 45 percent in five years, says Dan McFaul (BA '94), club president.

Five years ago, about 6,000 Gators were known to live within a 50-mile radius of D.C. Today there are 8,700.

"Our active membership has grown proportionately to the increased population of Gators in the area," says McFaul, chief of staff to Rep. Jeff Miller (BSBR '84). "We've tried to provide a little bit of everything for our alumni — game-watching, networking, volunteer opportunities, organized team sports, family picnics and even helping recent grads with career opportunities and locating housing. We also offer scholarships for D.C.-area students who attend UF."

McFaul says a combination of factors led to the rise in Gator migration to D.C. "We've seen a lot of growth in the high-tech industries in the area in the last 10 years, and many of these companies are recruiting the best and the brightest from UF," he says. "The same thing is happening with government agencies and contractors. As UF's academic reputation continues to soar, more employers will seek out graduates with the standard of excellence that the University of Florida is producing."

My husband sustains that theory. Scott took a job as an engineer at defense contractor Lockheed Martin when he graduated with degrees from the College of Engineering and Warrington College of Business Administration. He spent five years at the company and now works for a subsidiary of ITT.

Sara Leiner and Mitch Schuler

But not all D.C. Gators are in the tech industry. Mitch Schuler (BSADV '00) arrived in Arlington in summer of 2006 to take a job with washingtonpost.com's Web analytics team. A year later, he found the move bettered not only his professional life but his personal one, too, when he met Sara Leiner (BSADV '00). She grew up in Northern Virginia and opted to return when she was offered a judicial clerkship in Fairfax County with Judge Randy Bellows (BSJ '74).

Leiner and Schuler were in some of the same classes at UF but never connected. "On our first date, we realized that I was standing with his group of four students before they gave a presentation for one of our advertising classes," says Leiner, an active D.C. Gators member. "I remembered talking to them and discussing the presentation, but neither of us can remember each other specifically. That was a small (10- to 20-person) class that we had together all semester."

It's great to be a Florida Gator, but you don't have to be an alumnus to know it. D.C. attracts high-profile honorary Gators fans.

"We've had members of Congress and White House staff stop by to watch games with us. Even UF Law School Dean Robert Jerry watched a game with us when he was in town," McFaul says.

Who knows? Maybe President Barack Obama will do the Gator Chomp at Bailey's next season.

Stephanie Collins Kanowitz is a freelance writer and editor.

Learn aboutWuerffel's work

"While we share a common bond of being part of the University of Florida family, we share an even greater commitment to the betterment of society," Wuerffel writes in a letter to The Gator Nation.

The 11th annual event is May 16. Past projects include roadside clean-ups, book drives for local libraries, Habitat for Humanity building projects, stocking food banks with canned goods and pet adoption drives.

"International Gator Day continues to be the most visible and meaningful community service project associated with The Gator Nation and the Gator Club® network," Wuerffel says.

See Wuerffel's letter to The Gator Nation.

The UF Alumni Association now offers its members remote access to the following online databases from the UF Library System:

Academic Search Alumni Edition provides a research database to post-college professionals, including full text for more than 3,180 journals and indexes and abstracts for more than 8,000 journals. The database offers information in nearly every area of academic study including biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion and theology.

Business Source Alumni Edition provides more than 1,540 full-text business magazines and journals. The database covers nearly every area of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance, econometrics, economics and more. It also offers country economic reports, industry reports, market research reports and company profiles.

To access these member-only databases, e-mail Angie Toelle. Once membership is confirmed, the UF Library will e-mail log-in credentials.