2022 Reflections

Core Values

Core Value

Excellence

Excellence is not based on a singular act or moment. It’s about an unrelenting drive to expand and enhance what we as Gators are called to do. In the two years the pandemic has been part of our lives, the University of Florida and UF Health have never stopped improving systems and services to support our community.

Core Value

Discovery and Innovation

As the pandemic evolved, UF scientists pivoted, proposing responses big and small — many from makeshift home labs. Through all the challenges that the past 2 years have presented, our scientists, scholars, researchers, biostaticians, engineers and more continued to pursue other avenues of scientific inquiry, breaking records for new proposals and new funding for research, from astronomy to zoology.

Masked, distanced, and taking all safety precautions, students took to the classrooms and laboratories as soon as they were allowed back into them. The University of Florida is a world leader in scientific discovery and innovation, and due to the leadership by resilient and adaptable faculty, staff, and students, UF

Core Value

Inclusion

We learned how to be truly more inclusive by working closely with leaders in traditionally underserved areas within our city. By forging these new relationships, we created a healthier and more empowered community. The pandemic highlighted new areas of opportunity, and we’re thankful for the compassionate and empathetic care providers who stepped up and stepped into that role. We’re better for it.

During the summer of 2020, while everyone was still attempting to adjust to the realities of the pandemic, there was an explosion of protests after the killing of George Floyd. In a demonstration of solidarity with the social justice movement, faculty, staff, and students held a White Coats for Black Lives demonstration in the Academic Health Center. Participants from all six colleges and UF Health took a knee and observed a moment of silence for 10 minutes - © University of Florida, Photo by Jesse S. Jones - © University of Florida, Photo by Jesse S. Jones

Core Value

Community

When life changed so drastically, our daily routines were upended, giving us all an opportunity to reach beyond our normal boundaries. We learned to better understand how we all connect to support each other — students, staff, faculty, neighbors, businesses, health care teams, farm workers. We pushed the greater good on campus, throughout Gainesville and across the state by sharing what we knew each step of the way.

As mobile Covid testing became a necessity, UF Health stepped up to deliver numerous remote site drive through testing operations. At the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred, Florida, students, staff, and faculty were given the opportunity to receive Covid tests where they wouldn

Core Value

Stewardship

Whether it meant students volunteering in droves to inoculate the public, medical leaders persuading the reluctant to choose vaccination or intensive care unit doctors, nurses and staff stepping into the void to care for patients felled by a disease the likes of which they had never seen, the UF Health team took a leadership role in working to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.