July 2025 | Michael Fechter
Someone suggested that the University of South Florida advertise its new Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing to prospective students.
Provost Prasant Mohapatra politely declined. “I don’t want to spend money on that because we (already) get so many applications,” Mohapatra says. “The demand really is speaking volumes.”
The college opens next month with 3,000 students and 50 faculty teaching seven undergraduate and graduate degree programs. By year three, Mohapatra says, faculty should double, and enrollment should surpass 5,000 — that’s about 10% of USF’s total student body.
The demand cuts both ways. While USF already offered these degrees and most of the courses, it wasn’t enough to keep pace with workforce needs. “It was loud and clear that we needed to do something” different, Mohapatra says.
While AI and cybersecurity programs exist throughout the state university and college systems, this is Florida’s first freestanding college dedicated to the emerging technologies.
USF is uniquely positioned, Mohapatra says. It’s an Association of American Universities research institution located in a major metropolitan area that is home to major cybersecurity operators and a teaching hospital and has two military commands at MacDill Air Force Base.
Creating a new college is rare — the Bellini school is the 15th in USF’s 69-year history — and Mohapatra has never been part of the process before. Its interdisciplinary nature could sound daunting. More than 30 years in the academic world have made two things clear to him: “We are reluctant to make major changes. And we make the process very complicated.”
Thankfully, that has not been his experience this time. USF’s Faculty Senate had questions but unanimously endorsed the new college. And he was able to show the other deans that the college wouldn’t take bites out of their own budgets. USF has more than 200 faculty engaged in AI research, with engineering, health sciences, business and liberal arts the most engaged with planning the new college.
A huge boost came last spring when Arnie Bellini, founder of the software company ConnectWise, and his wife Lauren donated $40 million to the college — USF’s largest gift ever — pitching it as a way to turn Tampa Bay into “Cyber Bay.”
To Bellini, the college provides “the last piece of the puzzle” in Tampa Bay’s tech ecosystem by adding an innovative teaching and research institution to “be completely interactive with the local business community just like Stanford is with Silicon Valley.”
Courses will be in the College of Engineering and campus library for now, Mohapatra says. A new, permanent home likely will cost more than $100 million. He plans to keep Interim Dean Sudeep Sarkar in charge for a couple of years to establish its presence.
The college will emphasize experiential learning. Each student should have an internship or other practical experience before earning their degrees. “I want the students to be job-ready as soon as they walk through the graduation,” Mohapatra says.