President Mark B. Rosenberg and Provost and Executive Vice President Kenneth G. Furton sent the following memo to the university community on Oct. 25.

One of the goals of the FIUBeyondPossible2020 Strategic Plan is the identification and support of the university’s preeminent programs. We are excited to announce the inaugural group of FIU programs that have been designated as “preeminent” and “emerging preeminent.”
A preeminent program at FIU is defined as a collaborative endeavor that demonstrates extraordinary success in providing unique learning opportunities, pioneering research, and engagement while expanding FIU’s financial base. Designation as a preeminent Program is recognition for outstanding contributions to advancing our BeyondPossible2020 strategic plan and enhancing the university’s reputation at the national and international level.
An emerging preeminent program is a collaborative endeavor with high potential to be designated preeminent. With strategic support, an emerging preeminent program could potentially build upon its distinctive merits, strengths and successes to earn the preeminent program designation.
A total of 29 excellent FIU programs responded to our call for applications. After a rigorous and thoughtful peer-review process, driven by a nine-member faculty selection committee, nine programs have been recommended by the committee and have been selected for this designation by the president and provost. We are inspired and proud of the spirit that emerged from the motivated faculty who collaborated to create and refine these preeminent and emerging preeminent programs.

Of course, these are not the only exceptional programs at our university. We know that impactful work is happening university-wide in numerous top-ranked programs in a variety of fields that may not yet meet the criteria for this designation. We expect that there will be additional collaborations that will yield additional preeminent programs being named in the future.
In the coming year, there are a number of programs that will be invited to apply for designation in the next round of reviews.
To learn more about this process, click here.
The nine programs identified below help lift the prestige of our entire university as we focus on student success and research preeminence. These designations are for five years with annual renewals to ensure continued excellence.
FIU’s preeminent programs are:

• The Bridge Engineering Program
• The Center for Children and Families
• The Extreme Events Institute
• The Institute for Water and Environment
• The STEM Transformation Institute

FIU’s emerging preeminent programs are:

• The Brain, Behavior and the Environment Program
• The Health Disparities Program
• The Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center
• The Tropical Biodiversity, Sustainable Agriculture and Conservation Program

To read details about these programs, click here.
Please join us in congratulating these exceptional programs. We wish to thank the dozens of people who served on multiple committees over a period of two years to thoughtfully design this program. All of this will help us reach our ambitious goals.