Florida Gulf Coast University history

Also created in 1993 was a fundraising foundation for the University that Edwards helped form and for which Howard would serve as first board chair.

In 1994, the up-and-running operation would finally get a banner under which to operate when — after a process that McTarnaghan wrote “entails a legislative endorsement, with hundreds of names and thousands of people involved” — the new institution was officially named Florida Gulf Coast University.

The Board of Regents approved inaugural degree programs in March 1996, and the building of a campus for students, faculty and staff finally came together when FGCU opened on schedule Aug.

25, 1997, with 2,584 students — including FGCU’s first enrolled student, Mariana Coto — and $38 million in assets collected by the FGCU Foundation.

The following year, the first official FGCU commencement took place in May with 81 students graduating, and in the summer of 1998, the first phase of student housing opened.

In July 1999, William C. Merwin became FGCU's second president.

25, 2007 — the 10-year anniversary of the University’s opening day for students.

The FGCU Board of Trustees voted in January 2010 to assume ownership of 500 acres (2.0 km) in Buckingham.

Now Marieb Hall, it was dedicated to Elaine Nicpon Marieb in 2012.

In 2014, the Collection Analysis Project (CAP) began so that the FGCU library could determine what parts of the collection were being utilized by students and what could be removed in order to make way for various new projects within the library.

FGCU also opened a new facility a few miles northeast of campus in 2016, the Emergent Technologies Institute.

Under the guidance of Bradshaw, who retired as president in June 2017, the university celebrated its 20th anniversary.

In 2019, the Library Complex was formally named after FGCU's third president, Doctor Wilson G. Bradshaw.