USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus Christened

USF Sarasota Manatee Campus

The new campus center is a one-hundred-thousand square-foot state of the art building.

It's quite different from the facilities USF had to use when it began offering classes in the area more than three decades ago.

Originally, USF held classes in local high schools. Later, a partnership with New College provided a more traditional college campus experience.

USF Sarasota-Manatee's CEO Laurey Stryker says eventually, they found more space was needed.

STRYKER: We had outgrown that campus. We were having to limit classes to mostly nighttime. This is a 24-seven world. That's not adequate for our region.

About thirty-five hundred students attend classes at USF Sarasota-Manatee. The new campus has room for about five thousand students.