The University of Central Florida has stood at the edges of Orlando for 40 years, a major institution of research, culture, education, and professional development stitched into the fabric of one of the nation's most dynamic and influential metropolitan areas. Conceived in 1963, at the height of America's fascination with the space program and less than an hour from Florida's Space Coast, the school began as Florida Technological University, a vast and remote tract of wild palmettos and swampland that held the promise of a cutting-edge "Space University." But 1963 was the same year that Walt Disney made his fateful fly over Central Florida and chose the location for Walt Disney World, a decision that would ultimately transform the entire region. Florida Tech found itself growing along with the surrounding community in size, prominence, and power into a diverse institution that no one in those early years could have envisioned. Renamed the University of Central Florida in 1979 to better reflect its broad curriculum and its strong marriage with the region, the school has blossomed into the prototype for the modern metropolitan university.