Marshall Criser

Marshall McAllister Criser, Jr. (born September 4, 1928) is an American corporate lawyer and former university administrator.

[1] In 1941, his father sold his little grocery store and moved his family to West Palm Beach, Florida.

He earned his way through his undergraduate studies as a construction worker and cafeteria cashier, while remaining an active member of various extracurricular organizations.

Criser was president of Sigma Nu Fraternity (Epsilon Zeta chapter), student government, and the Florida Blue Key leadership honorary society,[4] in addition to being a senior officer in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the business manager of the Seminole yearbook, and homecoming chairman.

[7] As chairman, Criser led the search committee that selected Robert Q. Marston as the new University of Florida president in 1974.

[4][10] His term as president is remembered for the enhancement of the university's instructional quality, the rapid rise of its admissions standards, the growth of its academic reputation, and its successful fund-raising among alumni and the business community.

[14] At the time, the capital campaign realized the third-highest total of private donations ever raised by an American state university.

The university will not be operated for the benefit of the athletic programs.Criser advocated reducing class sizes to improve the quality of academic instruction, and proposed reducing undergraduate enrollment by 1,500 students while maintaining the size of the university faculty and budget.