Miami Magazine | Spring 2013

How to Be an Artist  |  Rooms with a Viewpoint  |  Cycling

MIAMI

THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MAGAZINE | SPRING 2013

UM creates an Office of Civic and Community Engagement to help students and faculty build bridges from the classroom into the community.

Putting the U in Community

UM’s $1 billion milestone is making history.

The University of Miami’s $1.6 billion Momentum2 campaign has raised upwards of a billion dollars from more than 100,000 donors, including thousands of loyal alumni. This marks the second time that UM has achieved this impressive milestone.

Momentous Achievement

Your generous support provides life-changing opportunities for bright young scholars, state-of-the-art educational resources, leading-edge health care, pioneering research, innovative community-building, and much more. Thanks to you, we are transforming not only the University we all love, but the future we all share.

For more information about Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami, visit miami.edu/momentum2.

Painting professor Darby Bannard celebrates six decades of following his muse and 24 years of teaching technique at UM.

A Wheel Good Cause

Having only one leg didn’t prevent teenage survivor Lazaro Cordero from taking the bike ride of a lifetime to fight cancer.

Living the Green

These four residential projects show how sustainable strategies can be used to transform our lives and living spaces.

solve real-world problems.

On the cover: Christine, Chris, Stefania, and Brett stand with the U statue, an instant campus icon since its October reveal (p.8).

Inbox

COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

No Headline Needed

In an issue where the graphic simplicity and worldwide popularity of the U brand is discussed, hats off to the graphic designers responsible for the Fall 2012 cover! The image is both clever and thought-provoking—frankly, a headline wasn’t even needed. One of the best covers of any magazine I’ve ever seen!

Julio J. Barroso, B.S.C. ’03 Key West, Florida

Saluting UM

Your article “From Service to Scholarship” (Fall 2011) triggered a fond memory. I enrolled in the “Cardboard College” in 1949, after having served with the U.S. Marines in China for two years. I looked forward to four years under the G.I. Bill, but in 1950 the Korean War came, and I was called back into the Marine Reserves, serving at Camp Lejeune and Quantico. In 1951, as my discharge approached, I called UM to ask if I could still qualify as a student. The wonderful lady who ran the vets program

said something like, “You get here as soon as you can, and we’ll try to work something out.” As soon as I was discharged, I packed my gear and hustled off to the train station. I was on campus the next day. The day after that I was attending my first class. The University has a history of helping veterans, particularly through the G.I. Bill of Rights after World War II.

Don Jeka, A.B. ’54 Mountainside, New Jersey

Newsworthy Mentor

On January 29, 2012, we lost the man who was our UM documentary scriptwriting professor and who taught many UM communications alums how to write for television news.

Fred Mooke, A.B. ’56, was a pioneer in local TV who set the standard and then influenced how news was done at television stations around the country. As the assignment editor and executive producer of the numberone-rated The Ralph Renick Report on WTVJ, where he worked for 25 years, Fred was revered. He knew everyone and everyone knew Fred. He was a consummate professional who never missed a day of work. Somehow he also made time to teach, and we were all so lucky to learn from his vast knowledge, unparalleled expertise, and great experience.

He was a mentor to many students, myself included. I can safely say my career in television broadcasting was launched by Fred. He chose the script I wrote in his

class, which earned an A+, and the scripts of three of my colleagues, including present Channel 23 news anchor Alina Mayo-Azze, A.B. ’81, giving us the opportunity to present our stories on WTVJ’s newscast in a special series he called “The Young Journalists.” We were each assigned a cameraman, an editor, and a seasoned reporter to assist us in our on-camera reporting and delivery. What an experience for a 20-year-old student! Many of Fred’s students, and the reporters he worked with, have gone on to successful television careers. I’m sure many would credit Fred, in part, with their success.

Fumbling the Ball?

Editor’s Note: In light of national news that the NCAA’s investigation of the University of Miami did not measure up to its own principles and rules of governance, we’ve devoted space to a letter that ran in The Miami Herald on February 21.

He was 80 years old and still teaching writing at another local college. His students there loved him every bit as much as we did at UM and WTVJ, where I went on to work after graduation, thanks to my experience with Fred. Those were the golden days of television news, and with his passing we could say it was the end of an era.

Marlene May, A.B. ’82 Miami, Florida

On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the University of Miami, I wish to reaffirm President Donna Shalala’s expression of regret and our acceptance of responsibility for violations of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules by current and former student-athletes, coaches, and staff. Our institution can—and must—do a better job of ensuring compliance to NCAA and ACC rules, and that effort of strengthening our policies and procedures is well under way. Unfortunately, over the last two and a half years, the University has lived under the glaring light of a protracted and sensationalized NCAA investigation, which often overshadows the wonderful accomplishment of our current student-athletes, most recently the dramatic rise of our men’s basketball team to unprecedented heights.

Despite the often unwieldy investigation, the University of Miami, at President Shalala’s and the Board of Trustees’ insistence, has held itself to the highest standards in its model cooperation with the NCAA. Our administrators, staff, and student-athletes have been forthcoming with information and transparency

Fred Mooke, A.B. ’56, made a big impression on students and alumni.

in their efforts to address any concerns. What has been lost in recent months is the fact that it was the University that first advised the NCAA of potential violations back in 2010. The University has selfimposed unprecedented sanctions, including the football program’s two-year bowl ban and forfeiture of a hard-earned conference championship game. Student-athletes found to have violated NCAA rules were withheld from competition, and they repaid any inappropriate benefits that they had received.

Regardless of the many troubling aspects of the NCAA’s conduct, we must

keep our focus on our core mission as an institution of higher learning: fostering our students’ intellectual and, in the case of our athletes, physical development. We must never lose sight of our role in helping them become effective and ethical leaders, both on and off the playing field. I believe our approach and conduct during this lengthy investigation has done just that.

While I believe that the University of Miami will emerge stronger and more committed than ever to the letter and the spirit in which the NCAA’s rules of conduct were established, the trustees

From the Editor

Live from the Arena

respectfully, but firmly, add our own voice to President Shalala’s in asking that no further sanctions be imposed on the dedicated, talented, and outstanding men and women who proudly represent the Miami Hurricanes. Leonard Abess, Chair University of Miami Board of Trustees

WRITE TO US

Letters should be fewer than 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity. Please include contact information.

WRITE TO: Inbox, Miami, P.O. Box 248105 Coral Gables, FL 33124 EMAIL: miami.editor@miami.edu.

MIAMI

The University of Miami Magazine

Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing

Todd Ellenberg

Executive Director for Communications and Marketing

Barbara Pierce, M.A.I.A. ’11

Editor

Robin Shear

Director of Creative Services and Art Director

Scott Fricker

Graphic Designer

Sau Ping Choi

Production Manager Angie Villanueva, A.B. ’12

Editorial Contributors

Erik Bojnansky

Annette Gallagher, B.S.C. ’94

Peter Haapaniemi

Robert C. Jones Jr. Nick Madigan

Brett Sokol

Robert Strauss

President

Donna E. Shalala

Vice President for University Communications

Jacqueline R. Menendez, A.B. ’83

I remember like it was yesterday the phone call I received about my brother’s test results. But it’s not yesterday. It’s nearly the fifth anniversary of his death from colon cancer at age 51. My brother died, but he never, ever gave up. For two years, he continued to run a business, take chemo treatments, and stay up late at night, hunting the Internet for the latest advances.

Lazaro Cordero was just 10 when his diagnosis came. He has since moved from Cuba to the United States. His leg had to be amputated here, and he has been a cancer survivor for almost half of his life. Cordero was one of the many participants of the 2012 Dolphins Cycling Challenge, written about by Robert C. Jones Jr. on page 24. Cordero and his Miller School of Medicine physician J. David Pitcher teamed up to take on the ride in November. Cordero is now going to physical therapy three times a week to learn how to use a prosthetic leg. He is tall and strong and works out daily. Despite his youth and strength, he admits that learning to walk with his prosthesis has been grueling, painful work, but he has no intention of giving up.

Delivering his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech in Paris in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt posed, “It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who spends himself in a worthy cause … so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

The stories in this issue take place in that arena, where people act on ideals and set the highest standards for themselves and those around them. They dare, and sometimes accomplish, what seems impossible. Sometimes it’s what others have given up on; other times it’s what most would never attempt in the first place.

It’s a surgeon who leaves his operating room to take one of his patients on a multi-city bike ride to fight cancer.

It’s a college student walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood until strangers become friends.

It’s a professor who guides his students every day into a universe of color, form, and beauty.

It’s living our principles by using materials and technologies that show respect for and recognition of our precious environment.

It’s living—above all else, living.

—Robin Shear, Editor

Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs

Sergio M. Gonzalez

Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations

Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95

Miami is published by the University of Miami Division of University Communications. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Distributed free of charge to alumni and friends of the University. Postmaster and others, please send change of address notification to Miami, Office of Alumni Relations, P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410; telephone 305-284-2872. Contributions of articles, photographs, and artwork are welcome; however, Miami accepts no responsibility for unsolicited items.

The comments and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Miami or the staff of Miami

Copyright ©2013, University of Miami. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

www.miami.edu/miami-magazine

UniversityJournal

NEWS, PEOPLE, CULTURE, AND RESEARCH FROM CAMPUS AND BEYOND

Played by the Rules?

NCAA investigation of UM Athletics called into question

Two and a half years after launching an investigation of University of Miami Athletics based on claims made by jailed Ponzi schemer Nevin Shapiro, the National Collegiate Athletic Association released a report on February 18 revealing missteps in its own information gathering process.

As a result, the NCAA fired its vice president of enforcement and tossed some 20 percent of the case materials.

In her response UM President Donna E. Shalala wrote, “We believe strongly

cars for players, expensive dinners paid for by boosters, player bounty payments, rampant alcohol and drug use, or the alleged hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts given to student-athletes, as reported in the media,” she stated. “The fabricated story played well—the facts did not.”

Emphasizing that it was UM who alerted the NCAA of alleged violations back in September 2010, Shalala added that the University has been working hard ever since to improve compli-

“We believe this process must come to a swift resolution.”

in the principles and values of fairness and due process. However, we have been wronged in this investigation, and we believe that this process must come to a swift resolution….”

The next day, in the wake of the shakeup, the NCAA delivered UM’s Notice of Allegations, a document detailing alleged NCAA violations.

Again, Shalala responded: “The NCAA acknowledged that it violated its own policies and procedures in an attempt to validate the allegations made by a convicted felon.” Further, the NCAA enforcement staff had previously explained to UM that if Nevin Shapiro, a convicted con man, said something more than once, “it considered the allegation ‘corroborated,’” she wrote, “an argument which is both ludicrous and counter to legal practice.”

Shalala also pointed out that most of the sensationalized media accounts of Shapiro’s claims don’t appear in the Notice of Allegations. “The NCAA found no evidence of prostitution, expensive

ance oversight. It self-imposed harsh sanctions, such as enacting a two-year bowl ban and forfeiting its chance to play in an ACC championship game. Further, student-athletes were withheld from competition and required to repay a total of approximately $4,000 in benefits.

Athletics has hired highly respected football and basketball coaches as well as a new Athletic Director, Blake James, who has no involvement in the investigation. The University brought on Rudolph “Rudy” Green to fulfill the newly created position of vice president and chief compliance officer.

“We have been and should be held accountable,” Shalala acknowledged. “We deeply regret any violations, but we have suffered enough.”

The University is preparing its official response to the Notice of Allegations. The NCAA’s Committee on Infractions is scheduled to hear UM’s case in mid-June. For full coverage, go to miami.edu/ncaainvestigation.

INVESTIGATION TIMELINE

9/2010

Onetime donor Nevin Shapiro pleads guilty to fraud and money laundering related to $930 million Ponzi scheme. University of Miami advises National Collegiate Athletic Association of potential violations involving UM Athletics.

3/2011

Shapiro first contacts NCAA to claim that he gave impermissible benefits to UM studentathletes. NCAA launches investigation. 6/2011

Shapiro gets 20 years in prison for Ponzi scheme.

8/15-16/2011

UM learns NCAA is investigating possible rules violations involving UM Athletics. UM President Donna E. Shalala insists on full cooperation from staff and studentathletes and offers to conduct a joint investigation. Yahoo! Sports publishes Shapiro’s allegations of improper benefits. 11/2011 and 11/2012

For two consecutive seasons, UM announces self-imposed bowl bans. 1/23/2013

After learning that its enforcement staff worked with Shapiro’s attorney to obtain information for its UM investigation, NCAA announces it will commission an external review of its enforcement program.

2/18/2013

NCAA releases the external Enforcement Review Report, revealing it will dispose of some 20 percent of its case as a result of the probe’s findings.

2/19/2013

UM receives NCAA Notice of Allegations. Shalala responds, concluding, “We deeply regret any violations, but we have suffered enough.”

Sources: miami.edu/ncaainvestigation, miamiherald.com

Capital Contributions Continue

At $1 billion and rising, Momentum2 ’s impact is building University-wide

Just over a year from its public launch, Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami is indeed breaking through. It passed the $1 billion mark toward its $1.6 billion goal in October, with contributions reaching every corner of campus. Recent highlights include a $10 million gift to create a vision research center, a pledge to dramatically expand the Toppel Career Center, and a matching fund to give law scholars a boost.

The gift from Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid, founder and chairman of Rashid Engineering, who lost vision in one eye as a child, is the largest the nation’s top-ranked ophthalmology program has received during Momentum2. It will establish the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Orbital Vision Research Center in the Miller School of Medicine’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Vision Research Center. The Bascom Palmer Eye Institute surgeon Al-Rashid credits for preserving the sight in his other eye, David T. Tse, M.D. ’76, professor of ophthalmology and holder of the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Chair in Ophthalmic Plastic, Orbital Surgery and Oncology, will be the center’s director.

The Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center will be housed in a new building on the Gables campus that doubles its current 6,000-square-foot size, thanks to a gift from UM trustee Patricia Toppel, B.Ed. ’58, M.Ed. ’59, along with a

significant Parents Council contribution. “I am honored to continue to support the important legacy Harold and I created 17 years ago,” Toppel said. “The new center will be much more integrated into the overall learning experience and help prepare our students for a globally competitive job market.”

As chair of the School of Law’s Momentum2 and Visiting committees,

Wired for Learning

The University of Miami ranked No. 4 on U.S.News & World Report’s first-ever ranking of the “Most Connected Colleges,” released in December. UM, which has Wi-Fi in all of its college housing facilities, was selected from 1,471 schools that submitted responses to the U.S. News Best Colleges statistical survey. Ranking factors included percentage of housing units with free Wi-Fi, highest Internet bandwidth available to undergraduates on campus, and ability of students to perform online tasks such as submitting tuition payments through a centralized system.

UM trustee Wayne Chaplin, B.B.A. ’79, J.D. ’82, launched the Chaplin Challenge. The dollar-for-dollar match on donations to new or existing Miami Law scholarships through 2016 has raised $500,000 to date, with 13 new scholarships created.

The sweet sound of student support is also in play at the Frost School of Music. Groundbreaking took place in February on the Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, made possible by longtime UM philanthropists Patricia Louise and Phillip Frost, the latter a UM trustee. The state-of-the-art, environmentally sound complex will include 82 chamber music and teaching studios, replacing the antiquated Foster Building practice rooms, which have needed updating since the 1970s, Patricia Frost said at the event. “Well, we’re doing more than updating,” she added. “And I’m proud to have my name on your educational building.”

For more information about the campaign, visit miami.edu/momentum2.

The Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, the Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center expansion, and the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Orbital Vision Research Center (renderings clockwise from top) are just a few of the exciting projects funded by Momentum2’s 100,000-plus generous donors.

JAMES YANG / ILLUSTRATION SOURCE

Historic First Step

Miami Project begins FDA-approved Schwann cell trial for spinal cord injury patients

With 27 years of promising research came new hope for the new year. In December doctors at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis performed the first-ever Food and Drug Administration-approved Schwann cell transplantation on a patient with a recent spinal cord injury.

The procedure was performed by University of Miami doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital five months after the FDA green-lighted its Phase 1 clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of transplanting human Schwann cells, which are found in the peripheral nervous system.

The Miami Project, a Center of Excellence at the Miller School of Medicine, will enroll eight participants with acute thoracic spinal cord injury in the trial, which is part of the Christine E. Lynn Clinical Trials Initiative. They will be followed for a year post-surgery and then monitored for four more years under a separate clinical protocol.

Green, co-founder and chair of The Miami Project, and professor and chair of neurological surgery. “This achievement reaffirms that the tens of millions of dollars and the incalculable work hours were well invested in this first-

harvested from tissue obtained from a nerve in one leg and then grown for several weeks in a culturing facility.

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project and professor of neurological surgery, neurology, and

of-a-kind human Schwann cell project.”

“This trial and these first patients in this trial specifically are extremely important to our mission of curing paralysis,” says neurosurgeon Barth

Allan Levi, professor of neurological surgery, orthopaedics, and rehabilitation, and James Guest, associate professor of neurological surgery, conducted the historic procedure several weeks after the patient’s Schwann cells were

From Research to Results

A $20 million National Institutes of Health grant has enabled the University of Miami to establish the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute in order to improve health outcomes in South Florida and beyond.

Allocated over five years, the prestigious Clinical and Translational Science Award places the University in an elite research consortium of 60 institutions charged with speeding the translation of biomedical discoveries into therapies, engaging communities in clinical research, and training new researchers to be better prepared to resolve complex

health problems facing an increasingly diverse nation.

Led by José Szapocznik, A.B. ’69, M.S. ’73, Ph.D. ’77, chair of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Miller School of Medicine, the Miami CTSI spans all UM campuses. Its community advisory board is co-chaired by President Donna E. Shalala and Health Council of South Florida president and CEO Marisel Losa.

Ranked No. 38, the Miller School is Florida’s only Top 40 institution in the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research’s national NIH funding rankings.

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis

cell biology and anatomy, says the trial’s successful completion “will lay the critical foundation for future cell-based therapies to target spinal cord injuries.”

miamiproject.miami.edu/page. aspx?pid=1048

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities director John Ruffin, José Szapocznik, A.B. ’69, M.S. ’73, Ph.D. ’77, and Norma Kenyon, UM vice provost for innovation and Miller School of Medicine chief innovation officer, at the Miami CTSI’s inaugural research forum on obesity in February

Schwann cells

Heart Alert

Early detection is key when it comes to heart attacks. Now the University of Miami Health System is conducting a clinical trial on a device designed to track significant changes in the heart’s electrical signal and alert patients to seek medical attention—even if they aren’t experiencing obvious or typical symptoms. The investigational study of the AngelMed Guardian monitor will play a significant role in FDA approval. The subcutaneous device connected inside of the heart would be able to detect any cardiac changes that indicate a heart attack is about to occur, says Claudia A. Martinez Bermudez, who heads this UHealth clinical trial. Initial studies suggest the monitor could help reduce the time it takes potential heart attack patients to get to a hospital from the current average of two to three hours to just 20 minutes.

Crash Diet

Can stressful headlines expand your waistline? That’s the conclusion of a study Juliano Laran, assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration, conducted with doctoral student Anthony Salerno. Their research, published in the February edition of the journal Psychological Science, suggests that bad news triggers a “live for today” impulse that leads people to eat more—and to eat higher-calorie foods with the expectation the sustenance will last longer. Subjects subconsciously primed with information about adversity during a mock taste test consumed nearly 40 percent more high-calorie food than those primed

M&Ms). The neutral message control groups consumed roughly the same amount of chocolate, regardless of purported calorie content. Laran says it wasn’t taste but “a longing for calories” that caused the reactions.

Strokes & Stems

with neutral messages. Within the adversity information group, those asked to taste a “higher-calorie candy” ate nearly 70 percent more compared with those in the group offered a “lower-calorie” version of the candy to try (in reality, both received regular

The first two stroke patients have been enrolled in a phase 2 clinical trial of a revolutionary new treatment for ischemic stroke being conducted by the University of Miami at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The trial, using a patient’s own bone marrow stem cells, is the first intra-arterial stroke stem cell trial in the U.S., and the two patients at UM at Jackson are the first in Florida to participate. The trial, being led by Dileep Yavagal, assistant professor of neurology and neurological surgery, is examining the efficacy of ALD-401,

derived from bone marrow and manufactured by Aldagen, to repair and regenerate tissue following an ischemic event.

HIV Discovery

Left untreated, HIV almost always progresses to AIDS in humans. Yet about one in 300 HIV-infected people control the virus after an initial burst of viral replication, even without medications. The mystery of how these individuals, known as “elite controllers,” suppress the rapidly adapting virus is answered in a seminal study published in the journal Nature. David I. Watkins, professor of pathology, and his team discovered that elite controllers generate a “killer cell” CD8+ T response against a few small regions of the virus, successfully controlling it. Watkins adds that understanding this mechanism may shed light on how to develop an effective HIV/ AIDS vaccine. He and colleagues in Brazil are working on a vaccine with support from a $10 million National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant.

A New U Landmark

University unveils giant U statue on campus

It adorns everything from letterhead and T-shirts to the helmets worn by the school’s football players. Now the University of Miami’s iconic symbol— the orange-and-green split U—can be found in one of the most visible locations on campus.

UM unveiled a 7-foot-tall statue of its ever-popular logo on October 12 on Foote University Green. Situated between the Iron Arrow mound and the Rock, the 1,000-pound steel-andaluminum icon serves as a reminder of the institution’s spirit and traditions.

“It’s the perfect location,” announced Nawara Alawa, president of UM Student Government, which spearheaded the drive to get the statue erected. “Every student is going to pass that statue at least once a day. If they’re on their way to something important—like a test or an interview—we’ve asked the students to touch the statue for good luck, support, and a show of spirit for their University of Miami family.”

The sculpted U, half orange and half green, sits atop a 32,000-pound concrete base. It was funded through the Student Activities Center project.

miami.edu/miami-magazine

Justices Sotomayor, Kennedy Hold Court at UM

On the book circuit to promote her new memoir, My Beloved World, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor visited the University of Miami on February 1, giving an audience of mostly students a rare, in-depth look into her life—from what it was like growing up poor in a Bronx housing project and attending Princeton University to sitting in judgment on the nation’s highest court.

Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and only the third woman appointed to the Supreme Court, also talked about her love of books during the conversationstyle event with UM President Donna E. Shalala.

“There is a beauty to words that visual scenes can’t create,” Sotomayor

Special visitors from the Supreme Court

explained. “I think most people, and especially the younger generation, forget to let the creativity of their minds be provoked by words. That’s what books did for me when I found them.”

The event, presented in association with Books & Books, preceded by ten days a visit from one of Sotomayor’s

colleagues, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who delivered the Robert B. Cole Distinguished Jurist Lecture at the BankUnited Center Fieldhouse on February 11.

Kennedy, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 and is widely regarded as the court’s “swing vote,” also taught a Constitutional Law class at the School of Law, speaking at length about the Framers of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, and the concept of checks and balances. He frequently tested the students’ knowledge. “Are the words ‘checks and balances’ in the Constitution?” he asked. “I’ll buy you a bottle of beer if you can find it.”

UM President Donna E. Shalala, Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Whitely, and Sebastian the Ibis pull the tarp off the newly installed U statue during Homecoming Opening Ceremonies.

“There’s too much emotion and not enough rationality.”

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, during his February 11 visit to the University of Miami, explaining to Miami Law students that he’s “discouraged about the lack of principled discourse in this country.”

“It felt very X Files-ish, creepy.”

Singer Lorraine Feather, describing the song “Out There,” which she co-wrote with Frost School of Music Dean Shelton G. Berg, who was nominated for a Grammy Award for its arrangement.

“I’m glad we can go out and support those guys. They deserve it.”

Dwyane Wade, 2012 NBA Champion Miami Heat Player, on sitting courtside with teammates LeBron James and James Jones, B.B.A. ’03, at the BankUnited Center on February 9, when the Hurricanes defeated North Carolina 87-61.

“It’s another way of opening the faucet, letting some of the pressure out.”

Andy S. Gomez, special assistant for international affairs and senior fellow at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, explaining that Cuba’s new migration policy, which went into effect on January 14 and eases some travel restrictions that have been in place for more than 50 years, isn’t likely to lead to a mass exodus because most people in Cuba can’t afford a passport, a visa, and transportation.

Sources: University of Miami School of Law, The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Voice of Russia

The University of Miami is Florida’s top National Institutes of Health recipient, receiving $117.6 million for the 2011-12 federal fiscal year, a five percent yearover-year increase. Its national rank is 38, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.

$360.9 million

Amount of research and sponsored program expenditures at UM for FY2011

8

National ranking the School of Business Administration received in HispanicBusiness magazine for 2012. Hispanic Outlook’s Top 100 Colleges for Hispanics list ranked UM No. 6 overall for doctoral degrees awarded.

400

Number of institutional collaborations the University of Miami has around the world

65th

Anniversary of the founding of the UM College of Engineering

Latin Vision

Presidential doubleheader draws U.S. Hispanic audiences to UM again

On the eve of the 2012 election, Hispanic media leader Univision selected the University of Miami as its co-host for back-to-back interviews with the Democrat and Republican presidential contenders. Two days in a row, on September 19 and 20 at UM’s BankUnited Center Fieldhouse, the popular anchors of the news program Noticias moderated one-on-one discussions with Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, respectively.

During the Q&A, titled “El Gran Encuentro” (“The Great Meeting”),

Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, asked tough questions about education, the economy, global security, and, most pointedly, immigration. The candidates, who received translations of questions posed in Spanish, responded in English, with translations provided for viewers. Ramos and Salinas also moderated questions that came from audience members and Facebook followers.

This double-candidate coup was likely something no other university could claim during Election 2012,

Univision’s Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, and Maria Elena Salinas interview President Barack Obama at UM.

Rudy Fernandez, UM vice president for government affairs, told the Miami Hurricane. About 300 UM students and other guests had the chance to attend the forums, which were also streamed live online and then aired in prime time on Univision across the country. The Nielsen Company reports that each “Gran Encuentro” broadcast reached more than four million viewers.

The University previously partnered with Univision in 2007, hosting two presidential debates during the primaries.

Sea Sounds Catch Foundation’s Attention

A University of Miami Ph.D. candidate studying the impact of undersea sounds on fish was honored by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program during its recent 60th anniversary celebration.

Erica Staaterman, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow studying bio-acoustics and larval fish navigation, traveled to Washington, D.C., in December to accept an award for Sonic Reef, a 90-second video that takes viewers to the bottom of the ocean to learn about her cutting-edge experiment.

Former NSF fellow Robert Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, presented the award. Then-U.S. Secretary

of Energy Steven Chu, a former fellow and Nobel laureate, was one of the event’s speakers.

Staaterman, a member in the lab of Applied Marine Physics Professor Claire Paris at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, also co-directs a marine science and conservation film festival called Beneath the Waves. She is recording sounds of a coral reef in Florida to better understand how “fish larvae can orient toward reef sounds,” she says. “Understanding the navigational cues used by larval fish will help us to protect coral reefs.”

http://tinyurl.com/c8myazk

Award-winning doctoral student Erica Staaterman dives deep for a listen in Sonic Reef.

Peak Performance

Game Changer: Coach Larrañaga

Hurricanes basketball Head Coach Jim Larrañaga didn’t take on the challenge of coming to the Atlantic Coast Conference at age 61 just to be the caretaker of Miami’s program. He came to make his mark on the court and in the community.

NCAA tournament-bound as of press time, Larrañaga stands by a philosophy he developed 25 years ago and made legendary at George Mason University. It’s built around “three words: attitude, commitment, and class,” he says.

“Ten percent of life is what happens to you, and 90 percent is how you react to it, so a positive attitude is essential. Commitment— you make a total and unconditional commitment to being the best you can be. Develop a work ethic second to none and be passionate about what you do.

“Finally, class,” Larrañaga continues. “Always behave in a first-class manner. Take great pride in who you are and who you represent, in word and deed.”

Last season, his first with the ’Canes, Larrañaga became the first Miami head coach to post 20 wins in an inaugural season. He led Miami to a 9-7 conference record—UM’s firstever winning record in the ACC—and a tie for fourth in the league, another program best.

“This is the best basketball conference in the country,” he says. “You play

UM basketball’s highest-ranking team and first ACC regular season and tournament titles ever have punctuated a stellar second season for Jim Larrañaga, the 2012-13 ACC and Henry Iba Coach of the Year.

against the best every night, and you have to feel confident that you can compete against them in all ways.”

He also launched the Jim Larrañaga Basketball Camp and now has his players and staff spending Sundays mentoring youngsters who took part in the summer program. Through Cane Nation, they offer continuing help with jump shots, English papers, and anything else the kids may need guidance on through the year.

“My players get personal attention on the

court and in the classroom,” explains Larrañaga, “and I want them to be role models for those campers.”

This holistic approach proved sound at his three previous head coaching jobs. At American International, Bowling Green, and George Mason, Larrañaga turned teams with losing streaks into winners. In 2006 George Mason pulled upset after upset, beating the two previous national champions, Michigan State and Connecticut, to make it to the Final Four before

The Larrañaga Files

Born: October 2, 1949, Bronx, New York

Personal: Wife, Liz; sons, Jay and Jon; four grandchildren

Education: Archbishop Molloy High School, 1963-67; Providence College, 1967-71 (B.A. Economics)

Overall Record: 517-353 in 29 seasons

losing to eventual champ Florida—a team he now gets to recruit against.

Larrañaga’s lessons also have reached the NBA, where his son Jay was recently hired as an assistant coach for the Boston Celtics. “What I am most proud of is that he has taken my coaching philosophy with him,” says Larrañaga, whose UM contract was extended through 2019. “It will be as good for the Celtics as it has been for the athletes I’ve had along the way.”

—Robert Strauss

UniversityJournal

‘Fraser

Was College Baseball’

Miami coach revered game, revived fan base

Baseball legend Ron Fraser, who died on January 20 at 79 years old, will be remembered as much for his marketing brilliance as his winning teams.

When Fraser was hired as coach in 1962, America’s pastime was something of an afterthought at the University of Miami. But he quickly set his sights on creating a national power and getting fans excited about UM baseball.

He started the Dinner on the Diamond event, formed the first-ever group of batgirls (the Sugarcanes), and created a mascot—the Miami Maniac. He also convinced ESPN to broadcast college baseball.

These and other smooth moves turned the Hurricanes into one of college baseball’s most recognized teams. In his 30 years at the U, Fraser never suffered a losing season. He won two College World Series titles and saw more than 140 players go on to play professional ball.

His international coaching accolades include European championships in 1960, 1962, and 1973 with the Dutch National Team, silver medals at the 1971 and 1987 Pan American Games with the U.S. National Team, and heading the 1992 U.S. Olympic baseball team.

“He played such a significant role in the history of college baseball and this program.”

“He played such a significant role in the history of college baseball and this program,” says UM baseball coach Jim Morris, Fraser’s successor and fellow two-time national title winner. “We will always be a tribute to him.”

Known as the Wizard of College Baseball, Fraser led the Hurricanes to 20 consecutive NCAA regional berths, 12 College World Series appearances, and national titles in 1982 and 1985. With 1,271 wins, he retired as NCAA Division I Baseball’s winningest active coach.

Born in Nutley, New Jersey, Ronald George Fraser attended Florida State University. He was letterwinner for the Seminoles from 1954 to 1956.

In honor of the man Collegiate Baseball named the 1980s Coach of the Decade, the UM baseball players are wearing a commemorative patch on their uniforms this season, and National Baseball Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda was among the notable speakers at a celebration of Fraser’s life attended

Singled Out

by about 1,000 people at UM’s Knight Sports Complex on February 23.

Former Hurricane Rob Cooper, A.B. ’94, M.S.Ed. ’96, Wright State University’s head baseball coach, helped launch the 2013 Ron Fraser Classic at the USA Baseball National Training Complex to raise money for the Ron Fraser Wizard Fund. “Fraser was college baseball,” says Cooper. “This is just a small way for us to celebrate Coach Fraser’s impact on collegiate and USA Baseball—two things he loved a great deal.”

Fraser is survived by his wife, Karen; three daughters; and five grandchildren.

The Ron Fraser Wizard Fund aims to erect a bronze statue of the coach at UM. Visit http://gocan.es/ RonFraserWizardFund or call 305-285-9517 for more information.

Last issue’s “Name that ’Cane” profile is on page 43. Recognize this mysterious mover and shaker? Email miami.editor@miami.edu. We’ll unearth his identity in our next issue.

Ron Fraser will be remembered as the Wizard of College Baseball. Below left: Celebrating the first of his two national title wins at UM.

Decoding Multicultural Marketing Messages

After six years in Miami, Wan-Hsiu Sunny Tsai admits, “I still experience culture shock.”

But in Tsai’s case, culture shock is a catalyst for academic insight.

One day at a Winn-Dixie grocery store, for example, the assistant professor of advertising spotted a colorfully packaged item that baffled her: chicharrones, fried pork rinds. She excitedly brought the Latin American snack to her students in the School of Communication for a taste test and a discussion on culturally targeted branding.

“My teaching and

research is focused on the social, cultural impact of media and advertising,” says Tsai.

For more than a decade, she’s investigated how mass marketing strategies act on the complex identities and affiliations of consumers.

Born to two high school teachers in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Tsai received her bachelor of arts in English from the National Cheng-Chi University in Taipei before earning master’s and doctoral degrees in advertising at the University of Texas at Austin. It was there that she grew fascinated by the interplay between niche

marketing and identity formation.

“Taiwan is a relatively homogeneous society. We don’t have niche marketing,” Tsai says. “But the whole multicultural experience of the United States made me want to study the local culture.”

That interest has led to scholarship on campaigns aimed at Asian women, gays and lesbians, ecoconscious consumers, and, most recently, Hispanics.

A report she coauthored with colleagues Gonzalo Soruco and Cong Li on “brand ethnicity” purchasing preferences among Miami’s diverse

Latino community, titled “Perceived ‘Hispanicness’ versus ‘Americanness’,” won the American Academy of Advertising’s Best Paper Award for 2012.

Another niche group more companies are openly courting is the gay community. Tsai views this gay advertising gaze as a sociopolitical milestone already reached by many ethnic consumer segments.

“Marketers may argue that, no matter who they target, it’s just business,” she says. “But their messages have broader cultural impacts on the minority community.”

—Robin Shear

RICHARD

Where Humans Fear to Tread

Tackling unprecedented dilemmas in the robotic age

Robotic aircraft and drones, unmanned machines with names like Predator and Reaper—in our brave new world, hightech robots are becoming increasingly prominent in war, law enforcement, and many aspects of civilian society. The legal, ethical, and policy questions raised by such advances were addressed during We Robot, an international conference inaugurated at the University of Miami School of Law in April 2012.

The conference’s director, A. Michael Froomkin, the school’s Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law, came up with the idea for the event, taking inspiration for its name from the title of Isaac Asimov’s 1950 book I, Robot. The objective, Froomkin told Miami Law magazine, was to “start a conversation now between people who make the robots and those who make the rules.”

The weekend forum gathered experts in robot theory, design, and development, as well as those who influence the legal and social structures in which robots operate.

On Course

SAT Bio

Known as MOOCs, massive open online courses emerged as learning events for tech industry types. As the name suggests, they offer free instruction for anyone with an Internet hookup. These days higher education is embracing the concept, with many institutions developing college-level MOOCs.

One of those presenters, Brigadier General Richard M. O’Meara, professor of international law in the Division of Global and Homeland Security Affairs at Rutgers University, said the field of military robotics has grown so fast that there has been little time in which to “consider the legal, ethical, and moral

appropriateness” of their use. He recommended “creating new international treaties and practices, amending old ones, and forging new ethics for the use of new weapons.”

http://robots.law.miami.edu/ 2012-video-archive

Last November the University of Miami Global Academy started a new trend, teaching what may be the world’s first MOOC for high school students—a free preparation class for the SAT subject test in biology.

“We created this from scratch, so we’re pioneers in that respect,” says Craig Wilson, headmaster of UMGA, an online middle school and high school program based out of the Division of Continuing and International Education. “We recognized a need to help high school students prepare for college, and we wanted to use the MOOC model to give them

that opportunity without having to worry about going through a payfor-preparation aspect.”

More than 650 students, some as far away as China, took the inaugural “MOOC SAT Bio” course, held in six sessions via Skype and an electronic classroom platform. The sessions, taught by UMGA lead science instructor Jennifer Taylor, aired live, allowing students to pose questions in real time—a MOOC rarity, notes Wilson. UMGA is watching the success of this first foray to decide whether to develop additional MOOC offerings.

Rebecca Fox, UM’s dean of continuing and international education, says, “We pride ourselves on making it possible for students to have an online experience that keeps them at the center of the learning process.” Visit umga.miami.edu/mooc

MOOC

Amir R. Rahmani, a UM College of Engineering assistant professor, displays a micro aerial vehicle.

One bright Saturday in August, Saramati Narasimhan stood on campus sheathed in a plastic Glad bag as friends armed with paint bottles squirted a rainbow of fluorescent colors all over her.

“I had to tell them to stop flinging paint into my eyes,” Narasimhan, 21, recalls with a laugh.

In minutes she was dripping tropical shades of pink, blue, green, and yellow—the line blurred between artist and art.

The celebratory project marked Narasimhan’s triumphant return to the University of Miami after almost a year spent struggling to move.

Narasimhan used photos of her paint-splattered form taken that day to promote her Art for a Cause charity. She says she began creating art while bedridden. Despite what she describes as excruciating pain, she found that she could sketch and paint.

Born and raised in Miami to Indian parents who are both ’Canes, Narasimhan says, “UM is in my blood.” Her father, Ram Narasimhan, Ph.D. ’88, is the director of advising and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UM College of Engineering, where she is studying biomedical engineering.

Narasimhan was always active. She danced salsa, played piano and violin, and biked up to 20 miles a night.

But in October of her sophomore year, everything changed. “It felt like my

Living Colors

Creative expression gives engineering student Saramati Narasimhan a path out of pain.

bones were breaking when I took a step,” she says. “To go from that level of activity to being completely handicapped was a drastic jump, to say the least. Moving was a nightmare.”

At Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, doctors worked to diagnose her sudden condition and alleviate its symptoms. They had no clear answers.

During that dark time, a visiting friend surprised Narasimhan with a sketch pad and colored pencils. “I would do a lot of art just to keep occupied,” she recalls. “The other patients admired my work and wanted to buy it, but I couldn’t take money from people with cancer.”

So Narasimhan, who says she has a chronic pain disorder, began to use her art for philanthropy, launching Art for a Cause. She sells hand-painted henna tattoos and original art, advertising that all proceeds go to treat children with cancer.

She’s also working overtime to graduate by December. Her own unresolved illness managed by holistic treatments, Narasimhan says she’s acutely aware of the profound duty and potential affiliated with her chosen academic path: “I have an entirely new appreciation for the fact that my work might one day offer a solution for someone else who is desperate for a cure.”

—Robin Shear

miami.edu/miami-magazine

I’M VERY LUCKY TO BE HERE,” SAYS DARBY BANNARD, professor of painting, while sitting in his acrylic-splattered campus studio. n When he joined the University of Miami faculty in 1989 to become chair of the art department, after three decades of slugging it out in what he wryly calls “the real world” of art dealers and collectors, academia mystified him. n But it wasn’t his colleagues or students who left him wide-eyed—it was the University’s payroll office. “It was remarkable to me that they would send you a check without ever being asked. And the checks never bounced!” Bannard chuckles. “In the art business, you spend a lot of time on the phone listening to people’s excuses. You sell a painting and then two and a half years later you get paid for it.” n Yet to hear some gallery owners tell it, Bannard, now 78, has often seemed on a mission to sabotage his own career. He’s been featured on the cover of Artforum magazine, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other national awards, and exhibited his work everywhere from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to Manhattan’s Whitney—all while continually violating the cardinal rule of the marketplace: When you find a style that sells, stick with it. Instead, Bannard has been intent on blowing up his brand and following his muse wherever it leads.

Throughout his career, award-winning painter Darby Bannard has been making original contributions to the field of art—both on canvas and in the classroom.

BY BRETT SOKOL

PHOTO BY RICHARD PATTERSON

Upon earning a degree in philosophy from Princeton in 1956, where his studio pals included Frank Stella, Bannard burrowed deep into Minimalism. At a time when anything-but-orderly Abstract Expressionism was in its heyday, he fashioned artwork focused on boldly hued circles and squares that married Mark Rothko’s visceral punch with crisply defined geometry.

Then, at the very moment the art world caught up with him, Bannard moved on. He recalls planning for a fall 1964 show with Leo Castelli, New York’s leading contemporary art dealer at the time, who was grabbing headlines with shows from buzz-laden figures such as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. “I thought I was all set,” Bannard quips.

When Castelli arrived at Bannard’s studio to pick up his paintings for the show, however, he discovered that the work had evolved into a more graphically complex and tonally varied style— the opposite of what Castelli had been pitching to clients, and what would eventually become known as Color Field painting.

“Leo took one look at them and turned green,” Bannard laughs. His big coming-out party on the New York scene? Cancelled by a fuming Castelli

and immortalized only by some magazine ads that had already gone to press. Most of those early works that first attracted Castelli wouldn’t see the public light for another four decades. Their unveiling in a 2007 gallery exhibition led New York Times art critic Roberta Smith to conclude that Bannard, long considered one of Color Field’s key architects, “started out playing for the other team: the Minimalists. In fact, he might have helped get the team started.”

That proved to be only the first of Bannard’s turns. By the early ’70s, his commercially successful Color Field aesthetic was mutating anew. Cloudlike wisps were thickening into what one

critic called “the consistency of very good taffy.” Brooms and squeegees replaced fine brushes; ethereal was out, viscous was in; and Bannard’s gallerists were left to gnash their teeth over the artist’s unpredictable output.

What has remained constant through the years, besides a willingness to experiment, is an emphasis on technique over theory—an approach Bannard’s students treasure.

“He addresses the work very formally. ‘What exactly are you trying to do here? Let’s talk about your edges—they don’t seem right,’” explains Jacqueline Gopie, B.F.A. ’05, M.F.A. ’12, whose work can be seen at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood, the Miami

Darby Bannard’s Tips for Aspiring Artists

1. Find a friend who has a good eye and is honest.

2. Photograph and title everything you do.

3. Find a good dealer—they’re worth every penny they cheat you out of.

4. If you can’t understand the art criticism you’re reading, you’re probably not the stupid one.

5. The big secret is persistence: Working hard is no guarantee of success, but not working hard is a guarantee of failure.

—From Bannard’s preview lecture, “So, You Want to Be an Artist…,” delivered at the opening of his exhibition at the Lowe Art Museum last spring

Ivory Rising, 1959-60

Green Valentine #2, 1964

neighborhood where UM also has an off-campus gallery.

Gopie recalls the pointed questions Bannard posed about her canvases during Friday morning “crits,” the group critique sessions her classmates initially dreaded—and eventually cherished. “He breaks it down in a visual sense, not conceptually.”

In contrast, in a graduate art class she’d taken at another South Florida school, “they wanted to know what the painting was about, what you were feeling. No one there talked about the paint,” Gopie says. “They talked about everything but the paint—which is the most important thing!”

David Marsh, M.F.A. ’10, seconds that belief. Before attending UM, says Marsh, who now exhibits at Wynwood’s Dorsch Gallery, “I was just throwing paint around.” He felt his paintings were too disjointed, and no amount of theory was going to fix that. So he came to UM specifically to study with Bannard. “I had the rest of my life as an artist to work on philosophy,” he notes.

Still, Bannard’s anti-philosophical take on painting is a philosophy in

itself—as discovered by Franklin Einspruch, M.F.A. ’94, a Boston-based painter and the creator of a website dedicated to Bannard’s pithy classroom provisos (aphorismsforartists.com).

Einspruch, now an art instructor in his own right, particularly remembers one of Bannard’s visits to his UM studio. “He said, ‘You’re like Jonas Salk. You have penicillin growing in a petri dish in the sink’—he pointed to a passage in one of my canvases—‘while you work on some other experiment that isn’t amounting to anything.’

“Over time I learned that when it comes to art, what you see is more important than what you think, and you cling to your ideas at the peril of missing out on vital discoveries.”

Bannard blushes when some of his students’ praise is repeated to him. All he tries to do, he insists, is nudge them in positive directions: “The talent is all theirs.”

Darby Bannard: Recent Paintings was on view at the Lowe Art Museum from April 14 to June 3, 2012.

Ledonia, 1992

Plains Lizzie, 1982

Butterfly Island, 2002

Firewalker, 2011

Surgeon J. David Pitcher and one of his young patients, Lazaro Cordero, arrive at the Dolphins Cycling Challenge finish line.

A Wheel Good Cause

Dolphins Cycling Challenge spins gold out of asphalt to help cure cancer.

AT MILE 26, J. DAVID PITCHER JR.’S 6-FOOT 3-INCH FRAME ACHED BEYOND DESCRIPTION. The Miller School of Medicine orthopaedic surgeon had completed four marathons in 2012, but the metaphorical expression, “hitting the wall”—used by most endurance athletes to describe the point at which glycogen stores in the liver and muscles are depleted, ushering in fatigue and energy loss— didn’t even come close to describing what he felt on this early-November Sunday as he neared the end of a 30-mile bike ride.

Despite the pain, Pitcher pressed on, downing three bottles of water and a Gatorade to replenish his energy stores. With two miles to go, he picked up the pace and soon entered the 75,000-seat Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens—his destination—to the applause of hundreds.

Of those who crossed the finish line at the end of the 2012 Dolphins Cycling Challenge, Pitcher stood out. He’d pedaled his recumbent bicycle from Fort Lauderdale to Miami while towing in a custom buggy all 165 pounds of his 17-year-old patient Lazaro Cordero, who lost his left leg to bone cancer.

“A chauffeur is never more important than his passenger,” Pitcher told Cordero at one point during their trek.

Outfitted in cycling jerseys, the duo joined nearly 1,500 others who rode to raise funds for lifesaving research and treatment programs for the school’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. The 2012 fundraising total of $2.2 million is believed to be the largest single-event donation made by any NFL team and one of the biggest in Sylvester’s history.

BY ROBERT C. JONES JR.

PHOTOS BY DAVID SUTTA

“From the survivors who participated to those who rode for loved ones, it was a big success in supporting cancer research at Sylvester,” says Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, who rode through three South Florida counties to complete the DCC’s full 170-mile route. “It’s this commitment that propels our work to save more lives.”

Former Miami Dolphins tight end Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich helped start the fundraiser three years ago while he was battling bile duct cancer, a disease that took his life in April 2011 at the age of 62.

Ridership has more than doubled each year since the launch.

The third annual ride began on Saturday, November 3, 2012, with cyclists setting out from Sun Life in the cool air of an early-morning darkness that eventually gave way to clear skies and warm temperatures. Some completed a 30-mile journey to Miami Beach; others, like Goldschmidt, cycled on to West Palm Beach, where they stayed overnight before riding back to Miami.

Day two’s climactic conclusion resembled the Champs-Élysées finish at the Tour de France, with a multitude of cyclists entering Sun Life Stadium along a path lined with cheering spectators, a jumbo screen displaying each arrival.

Members of the TriCanes, a UM club that competes in triathlons, were among the first finishers, completing the West Palm Beach-to-Miami journey at a brisk 20-mile-per-hour pace. Each rode for a family member or friend who had either passed away from or is undergoing treatment for cancer.

John Labriola, 22, a meteorology and math major from New Jersey, rode for his aunt Jennifer, who died from complications of cancer last August. Engineering major Maggie Ricciuti, 19, was thinking of the aunt whose ovarian cancer is now one year in remission. Finance major Monte Eiseman, 20, rode for his grandparents, both of whom died of the disease.

Luis Cardona, 23, rode for his late grandfather Pacho, who had prostate cancer, and for his uncle Jesus, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer.

“Cancer runs in my family, so riding in the challenge was important to me,”

says Cardona, an industrial engineering and economics major who graduates in May but plans to return for the 2013 challenge.

For the second year in a row, the Sunday finale at Sun Life Stadium was held in conjunction with Sylvester’s Cancer Survivors Day, a gathering of people from all walks of life who have defeated cancer with the help of Sylvester physicians. Among them, sitting with her husband, was Joan Scheiner, chair of Sylvester’s Board of Governors and a 16-year survivor of leiomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the

she has every year, to welcome them. “I never thought I’d see my kids grow to be men,” says Scheiner, who has two sons and two granddaughters. “In most other places, just being a doctor would be enough. But at Sylvester, their commitment runs deep. It’s a true partnership.”

Breast cancer survivor Annie Anderson, a kindergarten teacher for Miami-Dade Public Schools, and her daughters, Adrienne and Rashauna, also watched the riders enter the stadium.

“We wanted to celebrate our mom’s recovery in hopes that someday there’ll be a cure,” says Adrienne.

soft tissue. “I felt like my world had stopped and was spinning out of control,” says the 61-year-old, recounting the day she received her diagnosis. “But from the very beginning, I knew that I was going to make it if I found the right doctors.”

The Miller School’s Pasquale Benedetto, professor of medicine, became her oncologist. “I put my trust and faith in him,” Scheiner says. After undergoing chemotherapy and enduring several surgeries, she is cancer-free.

“Our partnership with the Dolphins has created not only funds but also enormous awareness of the worldclass cancer center we have right here in Miami,” Scheiner adds. “And when you’re sick, there’s no place like home.”

With the first riders rolling in, she walked toward the stadium tunnel, as

“Someday” may be closer than she and others would believe. DCC funds will give a boost to research that has already resulted in significant findings. Last year a team of Sylvester breast cancer experts participating in a multicenter study of breast tumors discovered the existence of four main breast cancer classes—a discovery that could lead to more targeted therapies.

In other recent studies, a research team that included Sylvester’s new director, Stephen D. Nimer, identified a gene responsible for a subtype of childhood leukemia and found that the signaling protein Akt, implicated in a number of human cancers, can also impair the growth of blood-forming stem cells that develop into cancers like leukemia.

JENNY ABREU

Recruited last year from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Nimer was among those who rode in the DCC to benefit Sylvester, which has set “an aggressive agenda that,” Nimer explains, “will allow us to develop and expand our clinical programs and recruit more outstanding physicians and scientists devoted to research.”

“We’ve been very fortunate over the years to have great support from the Sylvester family,” he adds. “The Pap Corps is a big group of supporters who work tirelessly to raise money for us, and we’re fortunate that we now have

the Dolphins Cycling Challenge as well.”

For surgeon Pitcher, the challenge is a way to bear his young patient’s burden. As a 10-year-old boy in Cuba, Cordero was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the most common malignant bone tumor in kids. Surgeons operated, but he lost so much muscle in his left leg that he needed crutches to walk. By the time Cordero came under Pitcher’s care after arriving in the U.S. years later, the leg had to be amputated.

“Osteosarcoma has an overall survivorship of about 65 percent, and only 20 percent without chemotherapy,” Pitcher notes. “Each person who survives it has a rare story. Each health care provider involved in their story is forever changed. It’s as simple as that. I’m changed by my patients. If I could take their place, I would—I see

that sentiment in the eyes and hearts of their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters too. And it has rubbed off onto me. If it rubs off onto another from me, bless the Lord for that. It’s what we’ve trained for and been created for.”

Today Cordero, a student at South Dade High School, is cancer free. As he and Pitcher biked from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, they discussed the path— from diagnosis and sadness to treatment and renewed hope—that brought them to this point.

“We talked about the kids in Cuba with his kind of tumor who didn’t make

The ride drew

and survivors. Bottom, from left: Sebastian, UM trustee and Miller School of Medicine Campaign Chair Stuart Miller, Sylvester Board of Governors Vice Chair Jayne S. Malfitano, UM President Donna E. Shalala, and Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt.

it, and how he wished they could be part of the race and the excitement,” Pitcher recounts. “We talked about how God had given him another chance and what he was going to do with that chance. We talked about his parents and the sacrifices they made for him. We talked as brothers, as father and son, as friends on the same journey.”

The idea to ride in the DCC while pulling one of his patients came weeks before the event, somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line. As Pitcher pedaled

his recumbent from Maryland into Pennsylvania, he towed his wife, Pam, who’d been injured while training for their planned tour of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail.

“Person after person commented on what a great thing we were doing,” Pitcher recalls. “Pam kept saying she’d rather be pedaling, but eventually she realized that it’s a great opportunity to bear another’s burdens. It was then that we thought perhaps we could turn something bad into something good.”

Pitcher and Cordero just made the DCC entry deadline.

“It was a long, tough ride,” says Cordero, “but Dr. Pitcher made it easy, telling a lot of jokes to keep up my spirits.”

Nimer, the Sylvester director, says each cancer patient is unique. “We have to understand the patient’s individual cancer, and then we have to understand the impact on the patient. Some of this involves the highest technology—proteomics, genomics— and the other part involves the simplest technology, which is listening to the patient.”

Pitcher describes his patient as “a young man with a bright future and all the world ahead of him.”

Cordero agrees. With his new prosthetic leg, received after the DCC, he plans to return for the 2013 event—this time riding his own bicycle.

scores of cyclists, supporters,

A glimpse inside four UM-fueled, eco-friendly housing projects

LIVING GREEN

TheMORE THAN JUST A PLACE TO REST YOUR HEAD, home should be a safe haven. But these days, we worry whether the paint on our picket fence is toxic. We fear that our dream house may be spewing waste or simply wasting resources. In need of a little green-spiration, we found four diverse dwellings to highlight. Each of these eco-friendly abodes addresses environmental concerns with elegant, innovative, and livable solutions, proving that sustainability, like charity, can indeed begin at home.

Presidential Preserve

Its eye-catching interior includes a light fixture assembled of discarded plumbing pipes, a backsplash fashioned from recycled cans, wallpaper made of Sunday funnies, and floors crafted from Florida sand and seashells.

Ibis House, the University of Miami president’s new home, is green down to its last detail. Completed in August 2012, it recently earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Low-E glass windows block solar heat, a white roof and walls reduce heat load, and roof-installed solar panels heat water. High-efficiency water fixtures, safer paint coatings, nontoxic pest-control products, and green cleaning agents are among its many other eco-friendly features.

A few new custom pieces, such as a striking Odegard rug, have been mixed with furnishings recycled from the president’s previous home to conserve University resources.

Ibis House is the final green jewel in the 32-acre crown of Smathers Four Fillies Farm, a sustainably built community for University faculty and administrators located in Miami-Dade County’s Village of Pinecrest. The 31

single-family homes sit on land bequeathed to UM by philanthropist, horticulturist, and longtime UM trustee Frank Smathers Jr., J.D. ’34. He and his wife bought the lush estate in 1967 and named it in honor of their four daughters (thus the “four fillies”).

Four Fillies’ mango grove is “the single most important mango collection in the world,” notes Bruce Greer, chairman of the board of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, which has partnered with UM to maintain and preserve the property’s more than 21 acres of fruit groves and natural hammock.

The community—built on 11 acres, with two-thirds of the parcel left intact—earned the Urban Land Institute’s Woolbright Dream Green Reality Award, which recognizes projects that reduce environmental impact through energy and water efficiency, use of green building materials, and clean indoor air quality.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

Although this one-story may look similar to others in the neighborhood, life is definitely greener on the Jones side of the fence.

In 2009, Richard K. Jones, B.Arch. ’91, M.B.A. ’01, and his wife, Dawn Jones, B.B.A. ’90, completed an extensive remodeling project that earned a Platinum rating—the highest obtainable— under the Green Building Council’s LEED certification system. The upgrades also earned the family a tax break from Uncle Sam.

Jones, the associate vice president for facilities design and construction at UM, incorporated into his South Miami residence some of the basic sustainability strategies he’s used in spearheading green facilities at UM such as the LEED-certified Clinical Research Building on the Miller School of Medicine campus.

“We looked at almost every aspect of our home, from the air-conditioning system and insulation to the landscaping and finishes,” Jones says.

Improvements included a reflective white roof to keep the house cooler, countertops made of recycled paper, solar tubes, LED lights, drought-resistant landscaping, and much more.

The renovation added 1,100 square feet to the 1,200-square-foot midcentury-style house the couple had purchased 11 years earlier—before their three children were born. Even with nearly twice the living space, says Jones, the family’s annual energy consumption has dropped 73 percent. He estimates that, compared with a traditionally built house of similar size, they save $3,500 a year in energy costs.

Ian McKeown, A.B. ’07, M.S. ’09, sustainability coordinator in UM’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, applauds the platinum standard Jones has set by taking his work home with him.

“He’s willing to make a commitment not only to helping the University be more sustainable, but to his own home and lifestyle,” McKeown says. “Anyone can learn a lesson from this.”

Grid Relief

If James Englehardt has anything to do with it, treated wastewater will be coming soon to a tap near you.

But first the environmental engineering professor is perfecting an experimental water treatment process on campus.

Backed by a $2 million National Science Foundation grant, Englehardt is leading an interdisciplinary effort to

COURTESY

JAMES ENGLEHARDT

Christopher Poehlmann’s custom light fixture for Ibis House is made of discarded plumbing pipes.

Green upgrades at the Jones household included a 100 percent recycled-paper countertop and high-efficiency appliances.

develop and demonstrate a low-energy, low-emission system for recycling residential wastewater in one of the University Village apartments.

The “Design for Autonomous NetZero Water Buildings,” known more informally as the “Zero Water Project,” went online this semester. Currently four students reside in this historic home laboratory. Their apartment’s novel system collects used water from sinks, laundry, showers, the dishwasher, and toilets, and treats it to above drinking water standards with calcium carbonate, natural ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and ethanol. Tested three times daily, the treated water returns to the test community’s taps for all uses but cooking and drinking. A rainwater cistern and city source supply those needs.

The project team includes students and faculty from the College of Engineering, School of Architecture, College of Arts and Sciences, and Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy.  Englehardt’s co-principal investigator, Kamal Premaratne, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is developing smart technology to detect risk to the system in real-time.

UM cultural anthropologist Kenny Broad, along with a psychologist and two architects, is assessing potential motivations for adopting this kind of technology. “We’re learning how to explain and present these systems to the public so they can be accepted,” says Englehardt. Though not yet completely “off the water grid,” this preliminary demo is intended to point the way toward a global model for conserving energy, saving water, and reducing burden on our natural resources.

According to Englehardt, South Florida’s treated wastewater currently meets 87 of the 93 numerical drinking water requirements, but instead of entering a direct potable reuse system like the one in University Village, it

gets pumped into the ocean or deep saltwater aquifers. That means it has to be treated again and reconveyed to users at great energy expenditure and expense. Water flowing to and from centralized treatment plants uses about 3 percent of this nation’s total electricity, he notes.

Those resources could be better spent getting rid of pharmaceuticals and chemicals in our water supplies, he contends, adding, “We can learn from ecosystems by treating waste as a resource.”

Eco Park

In 2005 a one-two punch from Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma damaged

breezes yet keeps mosquitoes out; and a roof fashioned from a durable handsewn fabric.

Rocco Ceo, the School of Architecture professor who co-teaches the semesterlong Design Build Studio, says the idea was to give the park “something that would minimally impact the landscape while supporting the park’s mission and promoting environmental awareness.”

One of the materials used, for example, is heat-treated pine, which lasts longer than its chemically treated counterpart.

Throughout the 2012 spring semester, 11 fifth-year students designed, constructed, and tested the eco-tent on UM’s Coral Gables campus. They disas-

a 107-room hotel and 12 cottages in Everglades National Park so severely that officials decided to demolish what was left of them. Ever since, visitors have had to pitch tents or use an RV to camp at the park’s southernmost Flamingo section on the bay.

But demand for permanent sleeping facilities remained, says Park Superintendent Dan B. Kimball. “What we heard loud and clear was that there were family traditions based on staying overnight, and people wanted us to return to that tradition,” he adds.

The park took a giant step toward meeting those demands this past December, when it unveiled a 200-square-foot eco-tent designed and built by University of Miami architecture students.

The furnished dwelling, which had a waiting list of 80 by its first day, sleeps four comfortably for $16 per night. It boasts bamboo and recycledplastic flooring; screening that captures

sembled the finished product for transportation to Everglades National Park. A generous grant from the South Florida National Parks Trust funded the project.

Violet Battat, B.Arch. ’12, who took the lead finding a suitable roof fabric, decided on a strong solution-dyed polymer yarn material intended to withstand water, mildew, and even vultures. Michael Galea, B.Arch. ’12, made sure the custom hardware connected the eco-tent’s poles properly. “The biggest challenge was measuring 50 times and cutting once because we had one chance to get everything correct,” he says.

Pleased with UM’s prototype, park officials would like to build 20 more. Says Kimball: “To team up with the University of Miami and young students who came up with something that’s innovative and functional and also beautiful is fabulous for the park.”

The eco-tent is open from midNovember to mid-April.

Plans for the eco-tent, situated at the edge of Florida Bay, call for solar lights.

The Net-Zero unit’s drinking water still comes from the city.

Students and faculty explore community-based learning with support from a University-wide initiative.

Academics in Action

BY ROBERT C. JONES JR. AND BARBARA PIERCE

PHOTO BY DONNA VICTOR

WHENEVER

MEERA NAGARSHETH’S FATHER CALLS HER, HIS FIRST QUESTION IS, “What have you done for the world today?”

It’s a big question, but Nagarsheth, who grew up steeped in her family’s strong dedication to service, embraces it.

“The world is our community,” says the University of Miami junior. “A lot of times kids get caught up in the study grind—I have to get a degree, I have to have a 4.0—and they forget there are other things in college, outside of the academic setting, that they’re never going to get the opportunity to learn again.”

Robin Bachin, the Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences, agrees. She thinks the question Mr. Nagarsheth regularly asks his daughter is one all students should consider.

Bachin directs the University’s Office of Civic and Community Engagement, which was launched in the summer of 2011 to help UM undergraduates find meaningful ways to integrate academic experience and service learning.

The office “is the kind of pedagogical model educational reformers like John Dewey developed,” explains Bachin. “It’s based on the idea that there should not be a disconnect between learning and living, between theory and practical application, that all learning should be experiential, and that we should know how to apply what we learn to real-world settings.”

In her own quest, Nagarsheth, an aspiring physician studying microbiology and immunology, completed a year-long internship through Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida in Brownsville, a Miami neighborhood where the majority of residents live below the poverty line.

Almost immediately she learned an invaluable lesson in community-based research. “We went in with really high hopes on how we were going to raise the standard of health—from changing bus routes to make fresh food more accessible to starting summer camps for kids. Then we realized our first task would be getting the community to trust us,” she recalls. “So for six months we just talked to people. We realized there’s no point in doing any of these things unless you’re addressing the needs of the community itself from the beginning.”

Undergraduate Meera Nagarsheth, ’14, got to know residents of Miami’s Brownsville before conducting a public health survey there.

Nagarsheth and a fellow premed student walked door to door to meet residents of all ages, learned about Brownsville’s rich cultural heritage, and took part in existing community improvement efforts. Gradually they were able to help develop a sports program to keep kids off the street and a public

higher education is under scrutiny by those who question whether current classroom teachings can be adapted to real-world experiences.

While such opportunities abound at the U, “There was never a central place where, if you were a student and wanted to take a course that had a community-

PR Campaigns class, where students get to develop and implement a public relations campaign for a local charity. In 2011, the project’s first year, 30 nonprofit agencies received assistance from 300 student, faculty, and staff volunteers, notes Tilson, A.B. ’72, M.A. ’86, an associate professor at the School of Communication.

Professor Donald Spivey, one of Bachin’s colleagues in the Department of History, gives students in most of his courses the option of writing a research paper or devoting 40 hours of their time to a service-learning project at a local organization. “I went back to what is really an old idea,” Spivey says, referring to his undergraduate years at the University of Illinois, when he tutored elementary school students in American history. “All of us should be involved in some kind of way, whatever skills you can bring, whether teaching kids history or helping them with science.”

Associate professor of religious studies Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado took her class on Guatemalan religion and culture to San Lucas Toliman, where they helped with rebuilding efforts after flash floods and mudslides from Tropical Storm Agatha devastated the impoverished town. The experience, Maldonado says, “reinforced the notion that the classroom is not the only place for knowledge.”

Citing national reports that state the city of Miami’s civic well-being lags far

“You can’t learn empathy in a classroom.”

health assessment questionnaire to help evaluate residents’ well-being.

“It really changed my view on medicine,” says Nagarsheth, who was named a 2012 Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow for her community leadership efforts. “You can’t learn empathy in a classroom.”

She says Bachin’s office provided important insights via “complex conversations about service that helped shape who I am.”

As an urban historian, Bachin views cities as laboratories. She says that now, more than ever, students must be civically engaged because

based component, you could find out about it,” explains Bachin.

Toward that end, the Office of Civic and Community Engagement serves as both a clearinghouse and an incubator for service-learning and communityUniversity partnerships. Students can simply search for course listings with the “civic” tag in the University’s database, visit the office’s website at www. miami.edu/index.php/civic, or consult directly with Bachin and her small staff. Bachin estimates that around 230 courses with a strong community component are offered in the UM curriculum. Among them is Donn Tilson’s

behind that of other U.S. municipalities as measured by volunteerism, voting, and other engagement factors, Bachin says the Office of Civic and Community Engagement has an important role to play in reversing this trend.

The ultimate goal, she explains, is to unite faculty and students with community organizations and leverage the University’s intellectual and academic resources “to collaboratively shape solutions for improving civic life and addressing community concerns.”

She and her team work closely with the Butler Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development, the UM

Professor Robin Bachin is aligning the University’s academic resources with community efforts such as Verde Gardens, an innovative housing complex in South Miami-Dade.

JOHN ZILLIOUX

Citizens Board, and multiple schools and colleges to strengthen relationships between the University and the South Florida community. They also encourage engagement by selecting UM Civic Scholars and Engaged Faculty Fellows, developing programming, and spearheading research initiatives.

For the inaugural year’s strategic focus on affordable housing in 2011, the office presented noted scholars, policy makers, and housing practitioners while highlighting related local agencies such as Carrfour Supportive Housing and its groundbreaking Verde Gardens project, a transitional housing facility that offers agricultural training opportunities for residents and a farmers’ market.

This year’s research emphasis is on urban and environmental sustainability. Bachin says future initiatives may address poverty, children’s health, aging, and immigration.

UM schools and colleges such as architecture, communication, education and human development, law, and medicine already have clinics and centers addressing these issues, but their efforts primarily involve graduate and professional students. The Office of Civic and Community Engagement targets undergraduate education.

Daniella Levine is president and CEO of the advocacy organization Catalyst Miami, which has long partnered with the School of Education and Human Development and Miami Law. She praises the Office of Civic and Community Engagement’s strategic focus areas, its alignment of faculty and students University-wide, and its aim of linking service with public policy and research, saying it is in a unique position to make a significant impact at the community level.

Levine’s group is one of many already allied with the office. In addition to human service agencies, its community partners and task force members include city and county governments, the Miami-Dade County School System, and private partners such as JPMorgan Chase, which recently announced a $75,000 planning grant to support the office’s affordable housing initiative.

Says Bachin: “We want to be not just part of a trend, but a leader.”

SERVICE CLOSE-UPS

“ Civic engagement is part of my everyday life. Seeing the positive impact my engagement has on the quality of people’s lives in our community is unlike any other experience.”

—Brett Abess, ’13, business management and ecosystem science and policy

Abess created an award-winning proposal for The Edible School Bus, a mobile farmers’ market designed to support sustainable agriculture locally and convey healthy, affordable food to underserved communities. He volunteers with various community groups.

“ Service doesn’t mean you have to plant trees, and it doesn’t have to be something huge. It means coming from a loving and kind part of yourself, thinking of others before yourself, and thinking about how others will be affected by the things you do.”

—Christine Job, School of Law third-year student Job is president of the school’s Student Bar Association and winner of the Joseph H. Bogosian Student Leadership Award. She counsels budding entrepreneurs at The Launch Pad at UM and is involved in the Mindfulness in Law Joint Task Force of South Florida. She hopes to launch a “mega” day of service at Miami Law in collaboration with other law schools.

“ Engagement means getting to know the needs of different communities and sub-populations and then working with them to address their needs and eliminate existing disparities.”

— Stefania Prendes-Alvarez, M.P.H. ’12, M.D. candidate Prendes-Alvarez is executive director of the Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service, which coordinates the Miller School of Medicine’s major community outreach efforts and health fairs. In 2009 she founded Let’s Talk About It, a month-long mental-health educational curriculum for eighth-graders to combat the stigma associated with mental illness. The program has been adopted by 17 area schools and incorporated as a servicelearning component of a Miller School M.D./M.P.H. course.

“ Engagement means being an aware and active citizen—figuring out what issues you are most passionate about and how you can be directly involved in solving them.”

—Christopher Stampar, ’14, international relations, computer science, and geo-spatial technology Stampar, a Dickinson Scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences, is director of international partnership development for the youth-led organization IDEAS For Us (Intellectual Decisions on Environmental Awareness Solutions) and coordinates a sustainable agriculture initiative called nourish9billion.org. In the past year he has been to Sweden for the Stockholm Conference on the Environment, Brazil for the Rio 20 Earth Summit, and New York City for a meeting on happiness and well-being at the United Nations.

Take the GOLDstein Challenge! Family

Sean is #1. What’s your number?

As a member of the Miami Hurricanes football team, Sean Goldstein, B.B.A. ’12, wore #53. As a GOLD alumnus (Graduate of the Last Decade), Sean is the #1 contributor to the GOLDstein Family Challenge.

Sean’s parents, Sandy, B.B.A. ’81, M.B.A. ’85, and Cindy, B.S.N. ’79, Goldstein, are challenging 2,013 young alumni like their son to make a donation in any amount to the University of Miami before May 31, 2013. When the goal is reached, the Goldsteins will make a $25,000 gift to support need-based student scholarships.

To learn about additional annual giving opportunities, visit www.miami.edu/annualgiving.

Be counted today! Support the University by making a gift online at www.miami.edu/annualgiving or by mailing your gift to:

Annual Giving

University of Miami

P.O. Box 248053

Coral Gables, FL 33124-9972

Alumni Digest

New Opportunities for New Alumni

Young Alumni Program encourages recent grads to ‘be a force’

With the University of Miami’s newest graduates blazing a trail toward bright futures, the UM Alumni Association wants them to know it is keeping pace. In January it launched the Young Alumni Program.

“We want to create a reciprocal relationship with young alumni,” explains Kate Lake, director of Alumni Programs, Young Alumni, and Student Advancement. “We’re excited to engage this unique group in ways that both are relevant to them and position them for future alumni leadership roles.”

UM alumni of the past decade, typically ages 21 to 35, now number around 23,000 and represent a new era—all earned undergraduate degrees during President Donna E. Shalala’s tenure, which began in 2001. This year Shalala is embarking on a first-ever national tour devoted to them.

lead in developing benefits, services, and events for their millennial peers through the newly formed Young Alumni Leadership Council. “We look forward to bringing meaningful programs, leadership opportunities, and networking outlets to young alumni around the world,” says council member Danny

Internet-savvy sisters Adrienne, B.B.A. ’09, and Stephanie, B.B.A. ’11, Vendetti, founders of HowtoBeaRedhead. com, see value in this targeted outreach. “As students we were trained to think outside the box,” they say. “This program allows young alumni to continue innovating, networking, and building relationships together.”

One of the first Young Alumni initiatives is the GOLDstein (Graduates Of the Last Decade) Family Challenge. Sandy, B.B.A. ’81, M.B.A. ’85, and Cindy, B.S.N. ’79, Goldstein will give $25,000 to need-based scholarships if 2,013 young alumni like their son Sean Goldstein, B.B.A. ’12, make a gift to UM by May 31. Plans for a regional challenge are also under way between young alumni in Boston and Washington, D.C. And one

“We’re excited to engage this unique group in ways that both are relevant to them and position them for future alumni leadership roles.”

anonymous ’Cane has pledged $20,000 to the Schools of Communication and Architecture if the number of gifts designated to those schools from their young alumni goes up 25 percent and 33 percent, respectively, over last year.

“With this challenge, young alumni have the chance to be a real force in the University’s Momentum2 capital campaign,” says Gabe Trieger, B.L.A. ’10, assistant director of Annual Giving, Young Alumni, and Student Philanthropy.

Prominent ’Canes are also taking the

Carvajal, B.B.A. ’08, a former Student Government president. “It’s so important that young alumni become the next generation of alumni leaders—supporting and preserving the future of the U.” Ian Chambers, B.S.M.A.S. ’12, agrees: “The Young Alumni Program is allowing me to encourage my classmates to support the U, from the sports stands to the far reaches of social media.”

For more information, visit miami.edu/ youngalumni

NEWS AND EVENTS OF INTEREST TO UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI

Ian Chambers, B.S.M.A.S. ’12, bottom left, is among the many UM graduates of the past decade passionate about contributing to his alma mater’s new Young Alumni Program.

PHOTOS: JENNY ABREU

Alumnus Leads Charge in Texas

For Doyle Beneby, M.B.A. ’97, being bullish on alternative energy deep in the heart of oil country isn’t a paradox; it’s just good business sense.

The Texas-sized CEO (he’s 6’5”) is bringing seemingly immovable forces—environmentalists and fossil-fuelfriendly executives—to negotiations in the Lone Star State’s second-biggest city. In the process he’s making serious strides toward meeting San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro’s challenge to pump up the use of low-carbon fuels by 2020.

than their predecessors.

As the head of CPS Energy, the nation’s largest combined municipal utility company (gas and electric), Beneby has fast gained a reputation for supporting traditional low-impact energy sources like wind and solar as well as fossil fuels that are cleaner and safer

To that end, CPS Energy recently spent $500 million to buy a cleanburning natural gas plant, a move that should enable its 35-year-old coalburning facility to be retired about a decade ahead of schedule.

“Rather than spend a half-billion dollars retrofitting an old plant, we

u Elegant spaces available to alumni and the community for meetings, intimate gatherings and celebrations.

• More than 9,500 sq. ft. of indoor event space

• More than 4,000 sq. ft. of outdoor event space

• Room and furniture configurations can change for maximum flexibility

• High-end finishes throughout

• State-of-the-art acoustic and audiovisual equipment

• Conveniently located on the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus

chose to invest in newer technology with renewable energy and natural gas options,” explains Beneby, who was named 2012 Utility CEO of the Year by the Solar Electric Power Association.

“As a municipal utility, we can take a longer view and make strategic decisions looking out over the next decade or two. Because we don’t have to answer to a quarterly earnings call, our investment decisions are driven by choices that benefit our company and customers over the long run.” —Robert Strauss

• Available to the public Read the full story at miami.edu/ miami-magazine

Doyle Beneby, M.B.A. ’97, is bringing new energy, like Centennial Solar Farm, to San Antonio.

Survey, Strategic Plan Highlight Alumni Interests

After a comprehensive two-year effort that involved internal assessments, benchmarking against peer institutions, and an alumni survey, the University of Miami Alumni Association has rolled out its 2012-2017 Strategic Plan.

“The process has been a great source of pride,” says Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, associate vice president for alumni relations, who worked closely with staff, volunteers, and the Alumni Board of Directors. “It has reminded us how far the UM Alumni Association has come since its founding in 1930.”

Survey results showed alumni consider putting UM’s strengths toward solving realworld problems to be “extremely important.”

The plan’s broad goals call for adopting UM’s Accelerating Ambition program to achieve higher goals and distinctions, as well as working toward cementing alumni bonds to the University and cultivating national and international networks of volunteer leaders.

One of the plan’s recently launched strategic initiatives is miami.edu/ alumni/volunteer, a clearinghouse for ’Canes with a yen for community service. Other initiatives already in play are career programming, regional events, young alumni outreach, the Stories of U campaign, and a rebranded UM Alumni Association logo.

Among respondents, 74 percent of young alumni and 47 percent of alumni over 35 expressed interest in going to UM sports-related gatherings.

Sixty-three percent of young alumni and 47 percent of all other alumni expressed interest in attending a reception with President Shalala or other administrators.

real-world problems in areas of strength specific to UM, and success in both academics and athletics were viewed as most important.

Respondents said their alumni association should make career networking and mentoring top priorities, followed by local and regional gatherings. They

“The process has reminded us how far the UM Alumni Association has come since its founding in 1930.”

The independently administered survey garnered replies from nearly 3,800 alumni respondents (a 13.5 percent response rate) on a variety of topics. Those alumni rated UM highly and expressed pride in its growth. Moving up in national rankings, being recognized as Florida’s best university, solving

Awards Season

The UM Alumni Association will bestow its highest honors at the 2013 Alumni Awards Ceremony in April. Recipients cited for going above and beyond to serve the U and their communities include alumni Dwayne Johnson, B.G.S. ’95, Barbara Hecht Havenick, A.B. ’72, J.D. ’75, Frederic Guerrier, M.D. ’81, Stuart Ellison, B.B.A. ’70, and Spencer Weinkle, B.S.C. ’07; student Jacqueline Landes, ’13; and UM Provost Thomas J.

felt strongly that their alumni association should increase national outreach. Volunteer opportunities, particularly mentoring students, were listed as strong interests.

To learn more about the strategic plan findings, visit miami.edu/alumni

LeBlanc. Being distinguished as this year’s “Outstanding Affiliate Group” is the College of Engineering Alumni Association. Additional awards will be announced at the event, which is scheduled for Thursday, April 18 at 6 p.m. at the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center.

For more information, visit miami.edu/ alumni/umaa/awards

JENNY ABREU

Dwayne Johnson, B.G.S. ’95

Hurricane Couples: When Gil Met Ellie

Gil, B.B.A. ’52, and Eleanor, B.Ed. ’52, M.Ed. ’69, Levine are not your typical octogenarians. Ellie sports a purple manicure and favors sparkly T-shirts. Gil wears a University of Miami Hurricanes polo and thick mane offset by a healthy tan. They’ve just returned from a trip to Spain and Portugal to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary and Gil’s 82nd birthday.

They attend Hurricanes sporting events religiously, even though some games lead Ellie to curse, she admits with a sheepish smile. Ellie, a leader in special education, taught Miami-Dade County’s first class in learning disability and still shares her knowledge with new special ed teachers. Gil, known as Silvertop to his close-knit clan, is the retired VP of sales for his family’s furniture business.

The gregarious couple met in the wake of the September 1947 hurricane.

You can watch Gil and Eleanor Levine’s Stories of U interview at https://vimeo.com/55438944.

Their love for one another and their alma mater now spans three generations.

Gil first laid eyes on Ellie on the seaweed-strewn sands of Miami Beach. “I met my mermaid there,” he says. Introduced by a mutual friend, they went to a dance, and the next morning Gil showed up at Ellie’s front door at 9 a.m. to see her again. “I had such chutzpah,” he recalls. He was 17; she, 16.

They’ve been inseparable since. His plans to go to the University of Florida

and hers to attend UCLA were jettisoned in favor of a joint decision to become Hurricanes. Ellie’s father insisted they finish college before marriage, so she graduated in three years and Gil in three and a half. Commencement was on a Friday; by Sunday they were Mr. and Mrs.

Their love for one another and their alma mater now spans three

’Canes Flock to LinkedIn

The University of Miami Alumni Association’s LinkedIn group is taking off. Its membership leapt from 130 to 2,700 during 2012.

Adlar Garcia, director of alumni education and career services, says LinkedIn, billed as the world’s largest professional networking site, “connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.”

The UM Alumni Association’s LinkedIn group, launched in 2010 and maintained by Garcia, is exclusively for UM graduates. Basic membership is free.

generations. Son Randy Levine, B.F.A. ’78, and granddaughter Heather Levine, B.S.Ed. ’04, M.S.Ed. ’06, carried on the UM tradition.

Asked the secret to their lasting union, Gil and Ellie say they don’t hold much back, are very supportive of each other, have fun, and laugh a lot. Plus, they admit, after all these years, they don’t see any alternative to being together. Says Gil: “Maybe you just get so used to each other, you’re afraid you can’t live without one another.”

Hurricane Couples is a semi-regular column.

LinkedIn is just one of the ways the University is addressing career development for its more than 160,000 alumni, and it is quickly becoming one of the most popular, according to Garcia.

“Even if you are happy in your job,”

he says, “it can’t hurt to have a minimal profile on LinkedIn. Our LinkedIn group is not solely for job seekers. It offers a way to connect with fellow ’Canes, create or join discussions, share career experiences and goals, and post career resources and job opportunities.”

To join, visit miami.edu/alumni/career/ linkedin.htm

JENNY

1950s

Class Notes Citizen ’Cane

Leonard P. Schwartz, A.B. ’56, of Incline Village, Nevada, spoke at the National Society of Certified HealthCare Business Consultants in Las Vegas last year on “How to Perform a Dental Practice Valuation.” The society recently named an annual award for him called the “Leonard Schwartz Annual Go-Getter Award.”

Bruce S. Reznick, A.B. ’57, J.D. ’60, was featured in the New York Daily News for his notoriety as the Brooklyn Nets NBA fan who has been sending hex messages to opposing teams for the past 15 years, earning him the nickname “Mr. Whammy.” He is a season ticketholder with his wife, Judith L. Reznick, B.Ed. ’57.

William Schiff, A.B. ’58, M.S. ’60, has written a book titled Growing Up and Getting Old Behind the Wheel: An American Auto Biography (William Schiff, 2012). He and his wife, Susan, live in Vermont. They have two adult children and four granddaughters.

Dave Madden, A.B. ’59, actor/ comedian, published his memoir, Reuben on Wry, featuring stories behind the scenes of the iconic television series The Partridge Family and the role he is most known for—Reuben Kincaid. Highlights of his successful career as an actor and stand-up comedian are included, as well as the pranks he played during his years at UM, where he made the UM Who’s Who while majoring in broadcasting in what was then called the Radio/TV/Film department. He is married to author Sandra M. Madden, A.B. ’61.

1960s

Leon J. Hoffman, A.B. ’61, continues to enjoy his practice of clin-

ical psychology in Chicago, specializing in individual and group psychotherapy and consultation with individuals, couples, and organizations. The former Miami Symphony cellist maintains his fulfilling, lifelong connection to chamber music and is eager to hear from classmates.

Hugo Guiliani Cury, B.B.A. ’62, is the ambassador of the Dominican Republic in the State of Qatar.

John E. Beltran, B.B.A. ’63, is the founder of and a consultant with Beltran Insurance Consultants Inc., owned by him and his wife, Lourdes. He has been in the insurance business for 50 years, most of those in Miami. Their granddaughter Melissa Fernandez Beltran is a sophomore at UM.

Amy Steele Donner, A.B. ’64, J.D. ’87, LL.M.T. ’87, joined the Miami office of Broad and Cassel as senior counsel after serving as a judge for 27 years in the 11th Judicial Circuit’s Criminal, Civil, and Family Divisions.

John E. Penick, B.S. ’66, M.A. ’69, professor emeritus at North Carolina State University, received the National Science Teachers Association Distinguished Service to Science Education Award for his extraordinary contributions to the advancement of education in the sciences and science teaching in 2012 at NSTA’s 60th National Conference on Science Education.

Bruce Brandwen, A.B. ’67, president of Broadway Worldwide Inc., was executive producer and producer for the high-definition production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Memphis His production, which was part of the PBS Great Performances series, won a 2012 Primetime Emmy Award. Memphis is the first Tony-winning musical

A National Treasure

When a teenaged Derek Ross was building houses in Washington, D.C., in the dead of winter, he had one goal in mind: to return to the University of Miami to finish his architecture degree. Today, Ross, B.Arch. ’81, is acting director of engineering, design, and construction for the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum complex.

Whether it’s an otter exhibit for the Washington Zoo or a new museum to house the recently retired space shuttle, Ross’s job is to make sure all 19 museums and galleries, nine research centers, and 168 affiliate museums spanning 39 U.S. states, Panama, and Puerto Rico are developed, designed, constructed, and restored smoothly and efficiently.

The job has had its challenges, such as renovating the 19th-century-era Patent Office Building, the oldest public building in the nation’s capital (“We gutted that building to its brick structure and updated it for the 21st century, putting in alarms and suppression systems”); erecting the National Museum of the American Indian, a curved 250,000-square-foot building with fewer than five 90-degree angles in its entire structure (“It doesn’t fit the traditional building mold”); and constructing research installations on remote islands in Panama (“The materials had to be barged in”).

“What makes me smile is when I get to see something finished and in use,” says Ross, 55, who started as a contracting officer’s technical representative 20 years ago and is now involved in creating the $300 million National Museum of African-American History and Culture, scheduled to open in 2015.

A gifted student and athlete, Ross had his pick of colleges after graduating from D.C.’s Theodore Roosevelt High School. His drafting class instructor convinced him that UM had fresh, exciting architecture professors.

“I gave Miami a shot, not knowing it or ever having seen it,” Ross says. But his scholarship covered just one semester, so Ross took a leave of absence and, determined to return, cobbled together funds from side jobs and student loans. The rest is history. “I’m a ’Cane through and through,” Ross professes. “People up here get sick of me talking about the Hurricanes all the time.” —Erik Bojnansky

released theatrically while still on Broadway and is the only one to also win a primetime Emmy.

Loren Kennedy, B.B.A. ’67, is founder and principal of Raleighbased Kennedy Advisors, LLC, which helps companies put together public-private partnerships nationally such as The American Tobacco Historic District in downtown Durham, North Carolina, and the U.S. Gypsum plant in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Barbara, also invest in start-up and early-stage companies such as TechShop.

Michael J. “Mike” Satz, J.D. ’67, was re-elected state attorney for the 17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, Florida, in the 2012 elections. He has been elected state attorney of the district every four years since 1976.

Robert Schatzman, B.B.A. ’67, J.D. ’71, made the Best Lawyers in America 2012 and 2013 lists.

Andris A. Zoltners, B.S. ’67, founder of ZS Associates, is coauthor of Building a Winning Sales Management Team: The Force Behind the Sales Force (ZS Associates, 2012), highlighting the importance of first-line managers in driving bottom-line results.

Michael H. Bernstein, A.B. ’68, was nominated by Governor Lincoln D. Chafee to be a member of the newly created Rhode Island State Board of Education, tasked with overseeing K-12 education and three public colleges. His appointment is pending approval by the State Senate. He serves on the boards of directors for the Rhode Island Student Assistance Program and Coastline Employee Assistance Program.

1970s

Richard S. Browdy, A.B. ’70, of Jacksonville, was appointed by Governor Rick Scott as governor’s chair of the Florida Building Commission through October 2015.

David C. “D.C.” Copeland, B.Ed, ’71, had a reading of his play Once Upon A Time In Harlem: A Jitterbug Romance (Palmetto Bug Books, 2012) at the prestigious National Black Theatre in Harlem in 2012. The reading edition won the African American Playwrights Exchange Jaz Dorsey Fusion Award.

Richard Greco, M.B.A. ’72, retired from a career in homebuilding and started a band called Romance, for which he plays

yoursUniquely

UMAA Boutique

trumpet and writes songs. Michael N. Kesselman, B.Ed. ’72, M.Ed. ’75, Ed.D. ’79, is an official Florida state supreme court certified family mediator, practicing in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties.

Michael Messer, B.S. ’72, president and CE0 of the Arc of South Florida, was elected president of the Florida Conference of Executives at the Arc of Florida’s annual meeting. The Arc of South Florida, a local chapter of The Arc national volunteer organization, serves Miami-Dade County’s more than 60,000 citizens with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Silvia Ibanez, B.B.A. ’73, M.S. ’74, is treasurer of the board of directors for the Hispanic Bar Association of Central Florida and is on the Florida Bar’s member benefits committee.

India Johnson, A.B. ’73, was named president and CEO of the New York City-based American Arbitration Association for dispute resolution services worldwide.

Jeffrey David Reynolds, A.B. ’73, a judge and an attorney, has written a novel titled Justice Betrayed (Sunstone Press, 2012).

Mauricio Collada Jr., B.S. ’74, is a neurosurgeon who launched his own winery, Cubanisimo Vineyards in Salem, Oregon, which produces pinot noir wines. His son, Maurice Collada, B.S.C. ’06, practices law in Manhattan.

Gayle S. Cubberley, B.M. ’74, M.M. ’75, retired from the Miami-Dade County Public School System after 37 years of teaching instrumental music. She is respected for her awardwinning bands and tireless energy. She will be living in the Florida Keys and using that energy for boating, swimming, diving, and playing tennis. She will also continue playing clarinet professionally and traveling.

Judi Garratt, M.A. ’74, a theatre artist and educator widely known for her work as a mime, received the California Educational Theatre Association’s CETA Medallion for distinguished leadership, loyalty, and support.

Kim Hoyo Striker, A.B. ’74, selfpublished her first novel, Zoned for Murder: A Catherine Swope Mystery, under the pen name Kait Carson.

An exciting array of high-quality personal items and accessories that highlight your ’Cane pride, this limited-edition collection also features wonderful gifts for friends and family members.

Al Sunshine, A.B. ’73, is a television reporter for WFOR Channel 4 on the CBS4 news team in Miami. Last year he celebrated 40 years on the air in South Florida. He is known for his “Shame on You!” investigations as a consumer affairs reporter. Pamela H. Woodcock, A.B. ’73, of Marietta, Georgia, writes, “I’m sorry to say, my husband, Thomas B. Woodcock, A.B. ’73, died in August after a courageous battle with a rare bone marrow cancer. We met during freshman orientation in 1969. We were married after graduation in 1973. He served in the Air Force and was a retired Delta Airlines pilot. The U has suffered a great loss, as have I. He loved his alma mater.”

Francine P. Peterman, B.Ed. ’75, was appointed dean of the College of Education and Human Services at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She was previously a professor and dean of education at Queens College of the City University of New York.

Ofelia San Pedro, B.S.I.E. ’75, M.B.A. ’79, was named chief financial officer of República, a Miami-based cross-cultural marketing agency.

Denset J. Serralta, B.S.E.E. ’75, M.S. ’78, is chief technology officer and co-founder of City Labs. The small high-tech company, opened in 2005 in Homestead, has announced its creation of a low-power commercially viable beta voltaic power supply called NanoTritium.

Stefan Bechtel, A.B. ’76, is the author of Mr. Hornaday’s War: How a Peculiar Victorian Zoo -

keeper Waged a Lonely Crusade for Wildlife that Changed the World (Beacon Press, 2012).

Jessica (Stern) Beir, B.M. ’76, sent word that her father, noted violist and music educator Victor Stern, who taught and conducted the UM string orchestra dating back to the 1950s, passed away in August 2012.

Art Jasper, B.B.A. ’76, was named sales manager of wholesale HVACR distributor Johnstone Supply in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Iron Arrow inductee was on the UM cheerleading squad and went by the nickname “Frosty.”

Terry Rosenberg, B.F.A. ’76, a visual artist, exhibited at Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City, in collaboration with La Manga Video y Danza in September.

Kathie G. Brooks, A.B. ’79, M.A. ’84, was appointed interim city manager for the City of Miami Beach on July 8, 2012. She had been the city’s budget and performance improvement director since 2004.

Jeff Coopwood, B.F.A. ’79, was one of several actors signing autographs and taking photographs with fans at the 2012 Star Trek Convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and attended by more than 20,000 people. He voiced the character of The Borg and uttered the now-famous tagline “Resistance is futile” from the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Sara B. Herald, J.D. ’79, an attorney, a former advisor to Governor Jeb Bush, and a Fortune 500 executive, was named Barry University’s vice president of institutional advancement and external affairs.

1980s

Matt Avril, B.B.A. ’82, and John Finnin, B.S.Ed. ’82, former Hurricanes golfers, qualified to play in the 2012 U.S. Senior Open in golf.

Sharon Quinn Dixon, J.D. ’82,

LL.M.T. ’87, was named Best Lawyers’ 2012 Miami Employee Benefits Law Lawyer of the Year

Gregory P. Durham Sr., B.B.A. ’82, M.B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86, a civil trial lawyer in Melbourne, Florida, received a Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating indicating the highest ethical standards and professional ability.

Francisco “Frank” Costoya Jr., B.Arch. ’83, was appointed by Governor Rick Scott and confirmed to the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design.

Jim Kelly, B.B.A. ’83, a Hurricanes and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback, received the Jefferson Award, one of the nation’s top honors for community service and volunteerism for his work with Hunter’s Hope Foundation to fight Krabbe leukodystrophy, the disease to which he lost his son in 2005, and for promoting prostate cancer awareness and prevention.

Linda Singer Stein, B.B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86, associate administrative judge for the Miami-Dade County Court Civil Division, co-chaired the annual Law Day program at the North Dade Justice Center, assisted with a bench/bar conference with the Dade County Bar Association on family and criminal law and appellate practice, and received the Spanish American League Against Discrimination’s Outstanding Community Service Award.

Jo Lynn Burks, M.M. ’84, played keyboards and B-3 organ and sang background vocals on tour last summer with country music artists Laura Bell Bundy and Miranda Lambert.

Steve Bailey, B.M. ’85, was named chair of the Berklee College of Music’s bass department. A six-string fretless bass pioneer, educator, and author, he has recorded and performed with Paquito D’Rivera, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Lew Tabackin, Victor Wooten, and many, many others during the past 25 years.

Citizen ’Cane

Studying Creepy Crawlers to Save Lives

Insects will always be one spindly-legged step ahead of us, says Adriana Troyo Rodríguez, Ph.D. ’07, who’s been a fanatic follower of arthropods for as long as she can recall.

As a bug-obsessed child, she collected beetles, spiders, grasshoppers—whatever she could get her hands on in her native Costa Rica. “I even learned I had to give caterpillars the same plant they were feeding on when I collected them or they would not eat,” says Troyo Rodríguez, an associate professor of microbiology at the Universidad de Costa Rica in San Jose.

In 2010, at age 33, she was the first woman to be named Most Distinguished Scientist of the Year by Costa Rica’s Ministry of Science and Technology. The prize recognizes her achievements in researching Chagas disease, dengue fever, and other insect-borne tropical diseases.

After training with professors John C. Beier and Douglas O. Fuller in the College of Arts and Sciences’ interdisciplinary Ph.D. program, Troyo Rodríguez was involved in one of the world’s first efforts to study dengue epidemiology and Aedes aegypti ecology using high-resolution satellite imagery—a method that’s helping to predict outbreak times and locations.

“My latest scientific research is oriented toward understanding the epidemiology of rickettsial diseases such as typhus or spotted fevers, many of which are emerging tickor flea-borne infections that can be fatal,” she says.

In addition to teaching, publishing research, and training health officials, Troyo Rodríguez’s days still revolve around collecting bugs. She travels door to door with her research team, taking blood, flea, and tick samples from dogs and other domestic pets. Her team also treks through forests to catch ectoparasites found on wild rodents and opossums.

“We begin the day with our rubber boots on at 7 a.m. and finish when the sun goes down, looking like we rolled in the mud with the animals—which we probably did,” she says.

The work is hard, sometimes dangerous, and ultimately lifesaving. “One of the most fulfilling aspects of my job,” says Troyo Rodríguez, “is knowing I can make a difference in my own country on topics where scientific research is very limited, but where we have much to give.” —Robin Shear

Virginia Johnson, J.D. ’85, is the Miami managing partner of Foley & Mansfield, P.L.L.P., named one of Florida’s Best Companies To Work For by Florida Trend magazine.

Gary Salzman, B.B.A. ’85, J.D. ’88, of Orlando, was elected to his second three-year term as a member of the Orange County Bar Association’s executive council.

Lettie Bien, J.D. ’86, retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, was honored with the Lifetime Contribution to Military Service Award by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce last year. Colonel Bien, an Iraq War veteran, was acknowledged for her 30 plus years of military service and years of volunteer support and assistance to local military organizations, soldiers, and veterans. She was named Florida State University College of Social Sciences and Public Policy’s Distinguished Alumna of 2011-12.

Carol Biggs, M.B.A. ’86, is vice president of South Miami Hospital. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Theodore L. Shinkle, J.D. ’86, made the Best Lawyers in America 2012 list.

Mark Brown, A.B. ’87, M.P.H. ’90, organized an all-UM alumni

men’s masters rowing team that includes former UM varsity men’s crew team members from the 1980s and ’90s: Brandis Marsh, ’93; Aldo Tinoco, B.S. ’94; David Miller, ’94; Adrian Olivo, ’98; Swen Ericson, ’92; Jim Heller, B.S.E.E. ’92; and Patrick Sullivan, B.B.A. ’94. Wendy Zalles, ’92, serves as coxswain. They competed for the first time in 2010 at the Head of the Potomac race in Washington, D.C.

Laird A. Lile, LL.M.E. ’87, was named in Best Lawyers in America 2012 (Woodward/White).

Michelle Dunaj Lucking, J.D. ’88, an attorney in Coral Gables, was elected chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission for Women and serves on the Miami-Dade Community Relations Board.

Colette Brown-Graham, M.D. ’89, a board-certified Ob/Gyn in Wellington, Florida, is president of the T. Leroy Jefferson Medical Society of Palm Beach County. She was named one of

’CANE IN THE ACT

“South Florida’s 25 Most Powerful and Influential Black Business Leaders of 2012” in The Palm Beach Post Legacy Palm Beach magazine

1990s

Shenita Hunt, B.M. ’90, is a singer/songwriter and the CEO of Rolls Voice Entertainment. She has been chorus director at American Senior High School in Hialeah, Florida, since 1999.

Gladis Kersaint, B.S. ’90, M.S.Ed. ’93, a professor of mathematics education at the University of South Florida, serves on the board of directors for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Carlos J. Martinez, J.D. ’90, Miami-Dade public defender, received the Coral Gables Latin Kiwanis Club’s highest honor, the Freedom Award for public service, dedication, and commitment to the neediest members of

Nelson Dellis, B.S. ’06, M.S. ’10, got into memory training about the time he began mountain climbing. Around the same period, in 2009, he also lost his grandmother to Alzheimer’s disease. He has since won the U.S.A. Memory Championship twice and scaled Mt. Everest. He does both extreme activities to bring awareness to his cause, Climb for Memory, to combat Alzheimer’s. He’s on track for his second Everest ascent in April. Learn how he does it all at miami.edu/miami-magazine.

the community.

Gail Shivel, B.S. ’90, Ph.D. ’04, has been appointed academic dean of the Acupuncture and Massage College in Kendall, Florida.

Dion Joannou, M.B.A. ’91, was named CEO of Advantix Systems, a leading manufacturer of energyefficient dehumidification and air conditioning technology in Miami.

Robin S. Rosenbaum, J.D. ’91, an adjunct faculty member in the School of Law, was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida by a vote of 92 to 3.

David Slatter, A.B. ’91, was appointed vice president of investments at Family Guardian Insurance Company of Nassau, Bahamas.

Joseph Ciresi, B.M. ’92, director of advertising sales at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia; his wife, Pam Ciresi, B.B.A. ’93, director of financial affairs at Research Design Team; and music conductor Candace Wicke, D.M.A. ’99, president and executive director at Continuo Art Foundation in New York City, visited Limerick, Ireland, last year, where the Ciresis founded an annual cultural exchange program in 2007 between students there and in the town of Limerick, Pennsylvania.

Clay Stafford, M.F.A. ’92, is a songwriter, author, and production executive whose Nashvillebased multimedia production company, American Blackguard, recently released its first imprint, a musical collaboration with author Jeffrey Deaver. The songs complement Deaver’s novel XO, offering audio clues to the thriller.

Jason Terzis, B.S.C. ’92, weekend sports anchor for the past 14 ½ years for WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, last

September with his wife, Deborah, a nurse practitioner, and their daughters. He is now a sports anchor/reporter for LIN Media.

Susana Alvarez-Diaz, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’95, and Frank Diaz, B.B.A. ’98, founders of the Revenue Club mentor program, hosted the inaugural Alumni Career Day at Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School last May with other notable alumni of the school, including Wifredo Ferrer, A.B. ’87, U.S. attorney, Southern District of Florida; and pharmacist Angela M. Choy, B.S. ’93.

Paul N. Conner, B.B.A. ’93, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, spent six months last year as a commander/administrator of Craig Joint Theater Hospital, one of the busiest combat hospitals in Afghanistan.

Jennifer Ladkani Fryns, B.M. ’93, of Ocala, Florida, is an associate dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at College of Central Florida.

Scott E. Kamholz, B.S.M.E. ’93, Ph.D. ’99, M.D. ’01, a patent agent/attorney in Boston since 2001, was appointed the administrative patent judge on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in July 2012. Kevin Moon, A.B. ’94, was named director of human resources at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.

Benjamin W. “Ben” Newman, J.D. ’94, is chairman of the government relations committee for Kids’ House of Seminole.

Detra Shaw-Wilder, J.D. ’94, is a shareholder at the law firm of Kozyak, Tropin & Throckmorton. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Kristie A. Blum, B.S. ’95, M.D. ’97, co-director of the lymphoma program and associate professor of medicine in The Ohio State University School of Medicine

Division of Hematology, was elected to the scientific advisory board of the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

Tanya Brinkley, J.D. ’95, is a Miami-Dade County Court judge. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Kiersten Kluckhuhn Mooney, A.B. ’95, opened Bala Vinyasa Yoga in Naples, Florida, six years ago and last year opened her second studio blocks away from the UM campus in Coral Gables.

Andrew Paskoff, B.S.C. ’95, was promoted to vice president of original programming at Sony Pictures Television Networks.

Danielle Butler, A.B. ’96, a shareholder with Fowler White Burnett in Miami, was elected to the board of directors for both the Marine Industries Association of South Florida and the International Superyacht Society.

Melanie Emmons Damian, J.D. ’96, a partner with the law firm of Damian & Valori LLP, received the Miami Dade Florida Association of Women Lawyers’ Mattie Belle Davis Award. The award is named after Judge Mattie Belle Davis, the first woman Judge of Metropolitan Court of Dade County, Florida. She was appointed to a one-year term as chair of The Florida Bar Federal Court Practice Committee in July 2012.

Joycelyn Lee, A.B. ’96, is an associate research scientist at the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, and Maria Elena Salinas, the co-hosts of the long-running news show Noticiero Univision—a pioneer in Spanish-language broadcasting—

Citizen ’Cane

Adaptation Is Key for New UM Trustee

After a long career in the technology industry, T. Kendall “Ken” Hunt, B.B.A. ’65, founded VASCO Data Security International, a software company that provides online authentication and e-signature solutions. Today he is chairman and CEO of the Chicago-based enterprise, which serves 10,000 businesses in 110 countries, including major banks, government agencies, and health care organizations.

A member of the UM President’s Council and School of Business Administration’s Board of Overseers, Hunt was elected alumni trustee on the Alumni Board of Directors in 2012.

He says that, in the tech arena, it pays to adapt and to “never give up”—lessons he grasped early. “I was attending the University of Miami on a football scholarship and was a starting halfback with a reasonably good chance of playing in the pros,” relates Hunt. “Then, on a visit to a firing range, someone accidentally shot me in the leg with an automatic, shattering the bone just above the ankle. It put an end to my plans for football. I wasn’t happy, but I decided to reinvent myself as a focused student working toward a business degree and a business career.”

Hunt’s degree led to a good job at IBM, then to a technology-services corporation, where he eventually headed up a $220 million global division. From there he was recruited as CEO of an electronic-training-solutions company.

A disagreement with its founder about strategy caused Hunt to launch his own consulting firm at age 41. In 1989 he came across a struggling startup whose security technology could generate one-time passwords for people making network connections. He bought the venture by taking out a second mortgage on his home. “That was the start of VASCO,” he recalls.

The company soared with the rise of the Internet and online banking—until the 2008 financial sector crash. “Once again, it was time to take stock,” Hunt says. Instead of cutting back, he expanded into Turkey, Spain, Chile, and India, and invested in a cloud-based authentication product—more bold moves in a lifetime of successful adaptation.

“In some ways,” Hunt reflects, “getting shot in the leg may be one of the most important and instructive things that ever happened to me.”  —Peter Haapaniemi (From BusinessMiami)

were honored in 2012 by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for their lifetime achievements.

Thomas E. Vickers, M.B.A. ’96, was promoted from vice president of finance to chief financial

officer at OmniComm Systems, Inc., an Electronic Data Capture company with its U.S. headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Crissa-Jean Chappell, B.S.C. ’97, M.F.A. ’99, Ph.D. ’03, sold her third young adult novel. Flip The

Switch will be published by Flux in 2014.

Francisco Cruz-McRea, A.B. ’97, changed professions and is presently employed with Allstate Insurance Group.

Drew Joanides, J.D. ’97, a social studies teacher at Miami Sunset Senior High School, competed in the 2012 Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament on television, making it to the semifinals with eight other teachers from around the nation.

Tiffani Lee, J.D. ’97, is a partner with the law firm of Holland and Knight. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Robert F. Lewis, J.D. ’97, an executive shareholder in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale offices of GrayRobinson, P.A., received a Martindale-Hubbell “AV Preeminent” rating from his peers for legal ability and adherence to professional standards of conduct, ethics, reliability, and diligence. A former special agent with the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, he concentrates his practice on laws governing alcohol, tobacco, and other regulated products.

Afshin Yazdian, J.D. ’97, joined American Bancard, LLC as president. He will focus on continuing to expand the company and further develop its proprietary point of sale technology.

Marisa (Agapito) Gianino, A.B. ’98, was named North American Global Giving Campaign Volunteer of the Year during her employer’s 2012 State Street in the Community Awards in Boston, Massachusetts. A $5,000 grant went to Catholic Charities of Greater Boston on her behalf. Horacio Gutierrez, J.D. ’98, is corporate vice president and deputy general counsel in charge of Microsoft Corporation’s worldwide intellectual property group. He lives in Clyde Hill, Washington,

with his wife and three children. He enjoys soccer, boating, and reading about history.

Kendra Preston Leonard, M.M. ’98, is a musicologist who publishes and presents regularly. She is on the American Musicological Society’s membership and professional development committee and is managing editor of the Journal of Music History Pedagogy

Nikki Lewis Simon, J.D. ’99, is a shareholder at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Stephanie Seiffert, J.D. ’99, left a position as executive director and senior wealth advisor at J.P. Morgan Chase Bank to join Nixon Peabody LLP as counsel in the firm’s private clients practice, based in Rochester, New York.

2000s

Ileana E. Christianson, B.B.A. ’00, was promoted to shareholder at GrayRobinson P.A.

Jane Decker, B.Arch. ’00, and Sebastian Eilert, B.Arch. ’01, are Miami-based architects who launched a weekly radio show called ArchiTalk on WZABAM (880), The Biz in South Florida. For podcasts, visit www.architalkradio.com.

Kecia Reynolds, J.D. ’00, joined the litigation practice of Goodwin Procter, a national Am Law 50 firm, in its Washington, D.C., office. She joined the firm from the International Trade Commission, where she worked on patent and trademark infringement as an attorney in the Office of Unfair Import Investigations.

Rioger “Rio” Ramirez, B.B.A. ’01, a four-time NCAA diving champion and three-time All-American at UM, was hired as Florida International University’s diving coach.

David Rand, B.S.C. ’01, and his brother relaunched their

Mixed Media

Words: The Journal of Best Practices

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband (Scribner, 2012) is a New York Times bestseller by semiconductorengineer-turned-humorist David Finch, B.M. ’99. Diagnosed with Asperger syndrome after getting married, the author details his relentless journey toward self-improvement. Finch, who also writes a relationship blog for Psychology Today, spoke at the University of Miami last year about his life experiences.

Music: The Montreal Sessions

As one-fifth of the newly formed North America Jazz Alliance, vibraphonist Steve Hobbs, M.M. ’82, arranged tunes such as “Just One of Those Things” and Count Basie’s “Cute” for what may be a one-off project. Then again, given the praise it’s drawn, this quintet, featuring vibes, accordion, guitar, drum, and bass, may be just heating up. As of press time, The Montreal Sessions (Challenge Records, 2013), recorded over a few days, had hit number 16 on JazzWeek’s Jazz Chart.

Music: So Good, So Right

On her sixth album in less than a decade, vocalist Nicole Henry, B.S.C. ’00, showcases a devotion to ’70s-era soul, pop, and rock in a baker’s dozen of hits titled So Good, So Right: Nicole Henry Live (Banister Records, 2013).

Cinema: Ferlinghetti

California photojournalist and filmmaker Chris Felver, A.B. ’69, has known Beat Generation poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti since the 1970s. That lasting friendship and professional association informs Felver’s latest documentary, Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder (First Run Features, 2013). Appearing on screen in addition to Ferlinghetti (now in his 90s) are Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, and Gary Snyder, among other noted post-war artists.

family’s noted New Jerseybased advertising agency, HarrisonRand, three years ago. Their work has since won awards from the New Jersey Advertising Club and the Insurance Marketing and Communications Association, among others.

Brian Bandell, B.S.C. ’02, an award-winning reporter for the South Florida Business Journal, has published his first novel Mute (Silver Leaf Books, 2012). It is available on Kindle.

Jose Felix Diaz, A.B. ’02, was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2010 and reelected in 2012.

Daniel Miller, B.B.A. ’02, financed and produced the 2012 feature film For a Good Time Call…

Richard P. Morris, J.D. ’02, a member of the Aviation Group at Fowler White Burnett in Miami, was made a shareholder.

Jessica L. Saiontz, A.B. ’04, is vice chair of the board for National Voices for Equality, Education and Enlightenment, Inc. She co-founded the organization with Jowharah Sanders, ’04, its executive director; Juliana Ruiz, B.B.A. ’03; Nicole Simon, B.S. ’04; and others. Jeffrey D. Rubinstein, J.D. ’74, is chair of the board. The South Florida-based nonprofit organization—dedicated to preventing bullying, violence, and suicide among youth, families, and communities—was featured on ABC’s Secret Millionaire on August 5, 2012.

Jaimee Todd, J.D. ’04, a New York-based photographer and painter had her first solo show, Visions of New York, at the Brooklyn Artist Gym in Gowanus, Brooklyn, in 2012.

Vanessa Valera, B.B.A. ’04, and Diego Valera, B.B.A. ’06, recently launched the Holstein Fun small appliances line with 13 new patent products and their coffee ware line. They co-founded Holstein Housewares in 2007.

Matthew Debenedictis, M.B.A. ’05, became an associate at EWM

Realty’s Gables-South Miami branch.

Alexis N. Guenette, B.S. ’05, received her doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is continuing her training in internal medicine at Mercy Suburban Hospital in East Norriton, Pennsylvania.

Keith A. Pierro, J.D. ’05, joined the law firm of Gold & Gold. P.A. focusing primarily on personal injury litigation in Boca Raton, Florida.

Garrett C. Reuter Jr., J.D. ’05, LL.M.T. ’06, of St. Louis, Missouri, joined the estate planning and corporate practice groups of the law firm Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale P.C.

Dionne Richards, B.B.A. ’05, is senior vice president in the audit division of Continental National Bank of Miami. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Jason Starr, B.B.A. ’05, joined the New York Civil Liberties Union as the Nassau County chapter director in May 2012. He is vice chair of the board of trustees for the Fahari Academy in Brooklyn.

Kristin Francisco, B.B.A. ’06, a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual Foundation in Miami, was a winner of her company’s 2012 Community Service Award, receiving a $10,000 grant to award to the Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade, of which she is a board member.

Joshua Henry, B.M. ’06, is playing the role of Jake in the Tony Award-winning revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess on Broadway.

Kelly Evert Jackson, B.S.N. ’06, is a family nurse practitioner with a specialty in orthopedic trauma and geriatrics at Scottsdale Healthcare Hospital. She and her husband, James, live in Scottsdale.

Citizen ’Cane

Rocking the Red Planet

From her undergraduate days studying mechanical and aerospace engineering in Miami through her master’s degree projects at M.I.T., Missouri-raised Erisa K. Hines, B.S.M.E. ’02, dreamed of exploring space.

That opportunity arose in 2006, when she was hired by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech. Just five years later she was working on the agency’s largest Mars rover yet, Curiosity.

Hines, an attitude control systems engineer, was on the team tasked with keeping the spacecraft on target—aligned with Earth for communications and the sun for solar power. She developed commands to communicate with the spacecraft during its eight-and-a-half month, 354-millionmile cruise towards Mars.

Hines shared the spotlight with hundreds of other “blue shirts” in JPL’s Pasadena control room as they famously erupted in cheers and tears when the rover’s 13,000-mile-per-hour entry, descent, and landing phase (dubbed “seven minutes of terror”) ended seamlessly in the wee hours of August 5, 2012.

The surprise, Hines notes, was how smooth the landing was: “We did a few dress rehearsals and, each time, something went wrong. When the time came for the actual landing, it was flawless. The rover hit within 1.5 miles of the landing target, well within the success parameters.”

As keynote speaker at the 2012 College of Engineering Homecoming Breakfast, Hines said her own trajectory was guided by supportive family and mentors. “There are probably at least three professors in this room who remember me crying in their office during my first two years, while I was trying to figure out how engineering works,” she shared. By junior year, though, her advisor insisted that she apply to graduate school at M.I.T. “That’s how much he believed in me.”

Another mentor was her grandfather Robert H. Colledge, ’53, who died two weeks before the landing. “He was always proud of Erisa’s many accomplishments,” notes his widow, Barbara Colledge, B.Ed. ’59.

Now, with her cosmic career launched, Hines is on the surface mobility team, which includes simulated Martian terrain testing intended to help Curiosity scour the Red Planet for answers to vast questions. “Dream big,” urges Hines. “These moments are why we do what we do.” —Annette Gallagher, B.S.C. ’94

Damian C. Stanziano, Ph.D. ’06, is an associate professor at the University of Indianapolis Center on Aging and Community. His expertise is in distance learning, physical performance, functional testing, chronic disease risk reduction, and public health.

Whitney Collins Thompson, M.S.Ed. ’06, published a book titled 25 Before 25 (Whitney Collins Thompson, 2012), about 25 things women should know before turning 25.

Noelle McMahon, A.B. ’07, is senior assistant director of International Admission at the University of Miami, where she’s pursuing her master’s degree in Community and Social Change. She was featured on the College Lifestyle television series in Jamaica and travels to the Caribbean and South Asia to educate students about college opportunities. A past ambassador for the Miss Jamaica Florida pageant, she sits on the executive committee of the Partners for Youth Foundation.

Jeff Segal, B.B.A. ’07, and his

race partner took the top spot in Grand Touring at the 2012 Miami Grand Prix.

Jorge Tavarez, A.B. ’07, obtained a master of arts in communications specializing in electronic media from St. Thomas University in Miami. He writes for La Casa, an art and architectural magazine.

Victoria Champion, M.A.L.S. ’08, is director of major and planned giving at Barry University’s Division of Institutional Advancement. She was named one of the 25 Most Influential & Prominent Black Women in Business for 2012 in the Miami Herald’s Legacy magazine.

Alexander M. Correa, A.B. ’08, B.S.B.A. ’08, joined McCombie Group as an associate consultant for investments and business operations. He earned a master’s degree in economics and public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Previously he was an international economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and a consultant to the World Bank Group. Past assignments include

the U.S. Embassy Quito, Ecuador; the Office of the U.S. Executive Director at the Inter-American Development Bank; and the International Finance Corporation’s offices in Mumbai, India.

John Harrison, M.B.A. ’08, chief financial officer of Signature HealthCare LLC since 2005, was named CFO of the Year in 2012 by the Louisville business publication Business First

Mike Pieciak, J.D. ’09, served in his home state as campaign manager for Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell, who was elected to his eighth term in office last year.

Amy B. Poliakoff, B.S.C. ’09, has worked in numerous art galleries and lives in Manhattan, where she was featured on the Bravo reality series Gallery Girls. Rob Collins, J.D. ’11, is the education and outreach coordinator for Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence, Inc. in Miami.

Milana V. Kuznetsova, J.D. ’11, is the CEO of ESENEM, LLC, “a company geared to support entrepreneurship, mobile tech-

nology, and development of law practice optimization,” states the company’s social media sites.

Adriana Blanco Maurisset, J.D. ’11, joined the Miami law firm of Roy L. Weinfeld, P.A. as an associate.

Jamie Lynn Borick, B.S. ’12, and Joseph Borick, B.S. ’12, a married couple, began global health studies together at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Medical School for International Health. They are passionate about working with the underserved.

Jenna Rubaii, B.M. ’12, was cast as The Extraordinary Girl and Trent Saunders, B.M. ’12, was cast as St. Jimmy in the national tour of Green Day’s Tony-nominated Broadway musical American Idiot. Currently scheduled through September 22, the tour also includes stops in Tokyo, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea. Lanette Suarez, A.B. ’12, is a Teach For America corps member based in Miami.

In Memoriam*

Faye W. Simon, A.B. ’29

Matthew Borek, B.S. ’41, M.A. ’49

George A. Litchfield, B.B.A. ’41

Elton P. Rosenblatt, A.B. ’41

Maria D. Wurth, A.B. ’41

Roberta J. Hamilton, A.B. ’44

June B. Schmidlkofer, B.B.A. ’44

Dorothy M. Doyle, B.Ed. ’47

Edward Feinstein, B.B.A. ’47

Dorothy E. Freeman, A.B. ’47

Caroline B. Hunter, B.S. ’47

Stanley Wallman, B.S. ’47

John B. Byrne, B.B.A. ’48

Anna M. Corrigan, A.B. ’48

Louis Falk, J.D. ’48

Ernest J. Fridrich, B.S. ’48

XL. Garrison, M.Ed. ’48

Ruth C. Goldstine, B.Ed. ’48

Thomas A. Horkan, A.B. ’48, J.D. ’50

Iris M. Kiem, B.S. ’48

Ernest Mazejka, B.Ed. ’48

Richard B. Owen, A.B. ’48

Charlotte K. Rose, J.D. ’48

Barnett A. Sussman, B.B.A. ’48

Libby A. Tanner, A.B. ’48

Robert B. Bristol, B.B.A. ’49

Robert J. Clark, M.B.A. ’49

Edward S. Ferris, B.B.A. ’49

Albert Gleiberman, B.S. ’49

Irwin E. Kott, J.D. ’49

Morris S. Marlin, J.D. ’49

Robert G. Remer, A.B. ’49

Dan J. Ambrosio, B.B.A. ’50

Robert M. Bader, J.D. ’50

Paul H. Collins, B.S.E.E. ’50

James W. Harris, B.B.A. ’50

Arthur L. Higbie, B.B.A. ’50

Sara-Lou S. Kenny, B.Ed. ’50

Donald J. Kramer, B.B.A. ’50

Carl E. Lipton, B.B.A. ’50, J.D. ’53

Klyne F. Pearcy, B.B.A. ’50

William W. Rawls, B.S.E.E. ’50, B.S.M.E. ’50

Barbara A. Safron, B.M. ’50

Bennett H. Vaughn, B.B.A. ’50

James M. Wallace, J.D. ’50

James T. Corcoran, B.Ed. ’51

Vincent G. Crolius, B.S. ’51

Irving E. Dunn, J.D. ’51

James B. Elgin, B.B.A. ’51

Loring E. Hart, M.A. ’51

Robert L. Koeppel, A.B. ’51, J.D. ’53

Denver D. Langford, B.S.M.E. ’51

Harold J. Monroe, A.B. ’51

Virginia P. Prisk, B.Ed. ’51

George D. Robinson, B.B.A. ’51

Robert H. West, J.D. ’51

John E. Ashley, B.B.A. ’52

Betty G. Fitzgerald, B.B.A. ’52

Joan B. Hyman, A.B. ’52

Andrew D. Perini, B.B.A. ’52

James K. Sliger, B.S.M.E. ’52

Edward P. Swan, J.D. ’52

Mary Tchoukaleff, A.B. ’52

William H. Thomas, B.Ed. ’52

Roberta A. Tomberg, B.B.A. ’52

Edward B. Biernat, B.B.A. ’53

Norma R. Carrier, A.B. ’53

Frank W. Crossland, B.S.E.S. ’53

Mattie F. Eckhard, M.Ed. ’53

Kay A. Heimgartner, B.Ed. ’53

George E. Lane, B.B.A. ’53, J.D. ’57

Peter T. Lenas, J.D. ’53

Bland P. Lewis, J.D. ’53

Jack A. Metzger, A.B. ’53

Robert G. Minick, B.S.M.E. ’53

William R. Poorbaugh, B.B.A. ’53

Yolande L. Selik, B.B.A. ’53

John N. Stirewalt, A.B. ’53

Herbert Baron, A.B. ’54

Albert R. Ciotto, B.Ed. ’54

Nicholas J. DeTardo, B.B.A. ’54, J.D. ’67

James H. Earnest, J.D. ’54

Shirley O. Haverfield, B.S.N. ’54

George C. Kolias, A.B. ’54

Clare S. Pawley, B.Ed. ’54

Eleanor S. Ager, A.B. ’55

William Blanchard, A.B. ’55, J.D. ’55

John Bow, B.Ed. ’55

Robert A. Denk, M.Ed. ’55

Donald M. Hall, A.B. ’55

Gene A. Jannucci, B.B.A. ’55

James M. Kilbride, M.Ed. ’55, Ed.D. ’72

Priscilla R. Perry, B.Ed. ’55

Joseph A. Reno, M.B.A. ’55

Norman Schuback, B.B.A. ’55, M.B.A. ’56

Arnold M. Stone, A.B. ’55

Maynard W. Thompson, B.B.A. ’55

James M. Wheeler, B.B.A. ’55

Joseph W. Womack, J.D. ’55

Michael B. Browner, A.B. ’56, M.A. ’63

Deanna S. Friedman, A.B. ’56

Walter C. Hanck, A.B. ’56

Robert K. Hipke, B.Ed. ’56

Peter E. Klug, B.S.M.E. ’56

Thomas A. Pepsin, B.Ed. ’56

John J. Roche, B.Ed. ’56

Joyce E. Christie, B.Ed. ’57

Joel F. Horne, B.B.A. ’57

Richard E. Klingler, B.B.A. ’57

Donald L. Lazarus, B.B.A. ’57

Mara G. Littell, M.Ed. ’57

William R. Orbelo, B.Ed. ’57

William B. Russell, B.M. ’57, M.M. ’58

Francis R. Yannello, B.Ed. ’57

Dory Auerbach, B.B.A. ’58

Malcolm R. Enright, B.B.A. ’58

Robert T. Foran, B.B.A. ’58

John A. Hughes, B.B.A. ’58

Earl E. King, B.Ed. ’58, M.S. ’60

Earle V. Krivanec, B.S.M.E. ’58

James A. Menor, B.B.A. ’58

Herbert A. Miller, M.D. ’58

Gerald F. Roman, B.B.A. ’58

Larry G. Carroll, B.B.A. ’59

Audrey P. Christy, B.S. ’59

Ludwig J. Gross, B.Ed. ’59, M.Ed. ’63

Stanton S. Kaplan, B.B.A. ’59, J.D. ’62

Theodore M. O’Brien J.D. ’59

Alan J. Bekkenhuis, B.B.A. ’60

Ruth G. Berger, B.Ed. ’60

Stephen W. Locher, B.Ed. ’60, M.Ed. ’67, Ph.D. ’80

Donald S. Newton, B.B.A. ’60

Louis C. Perna, B.B.A. ’60

Ivan G. Burnell, B.S.I.E. ’61

Nicholas V. Costello, B.S.I.E. ’61

Lawrence A. Goldschlager, B.S. ’61

Giacomo Grippo, A.B. ’61, M.S. ’63

Robert M. Storer, B.B.A. ’61

Donald L. Terhune, B.M. ’61

Jane G. Breakstone, B.S.N. ’62

Phyllis C. Cleveland, B.S.Ed. ’62, M.S.Ed. ’81

Generous Spirit Shaped UM

The philanthropist for whom Hecht Residential College was named in 1986, Florence Ruth Hecht, passed away on August 23, 2012 at age 95. Hecht joined the University of Miami Board of Trustees in 1983 and became a lifetime trustee in 1995. She loved meeting students at her namesake residence hall. She and her late husband, Isadore Hecht—the former Flagler Dog Track owner—also gave generous naming gifts for the Hecht Athletic Center and Isadore Hecht Visual Communications Center at the Anne Bates Leach Eye Hospital/Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. Their largesse has extended to the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Law, Miller School of Medicine, and intercollegiate athletics as well. UM President Donna E. Shalala called Hecht a “colorful, intelligent, and larger-than-life woman” who, with her family, “helped shape the history of the University and our South Florida community.” Her children Barbara Hecht Havenick, A.B. ’72, J.D. ’75, also a trustee; David Steven Hecht, J.D. ’68, who predeceased her; and Isabelle Amdur, B.A. ’63; and son-in-law Neal Amdur, B.B.A. ’59, graduated from UM.

Saved Millions of Lives

Anyone who travels via automobile does so more safely thanks to Jeffrey S. Augenstein, B.S. ’69, Ph.D. ’74, M.D. ’74. Augenstein was a professor of surgery and director of the William Lehman Injury Research Center at the Miller School of Medicine when he died unexpectedly in February 2012 at the age of 64. Dedicated to injury prevention, he was instrumental in the creation of Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, directing it for five years. For ten years he headed the Army Trauma Training Center, which helped surgical teams prepare for deployment to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. His research on airbags and crash-related injuries led to lifesaving automotive advances and his telemedicine innovations have enabled Miami doctors to assist remotely in medical care from Baghdad to Haiti.

Norman Duchon, B.B.A. ’62, M.B.A. ’84

Fred A. Harrison, A.B. ’62, J.D. ’67

Larry R. Heffer, B.Ed. ’62, M.Ed. ’66

Robert E. Maxey, B.B.A. ’62

John H. Metzger, B.B.A. ’62

Christie G. Stavreti, B.Ed. ’62

John D. White, B.B.A. ’62, J.D. ’71

Antoinette S. Ewell, A.B. ’63

Raymond F. Risavy, B.S.E.E. ’63

Sylvia U. Rossman, B.Ed. ’63, M.Ed. ’64

Alfred M. Seaber, B.B.A. ’63

Edward G. Tidaback, A.B. ’63

Martin Blum, B.S. ’64

Daniel D. Dolan, B.B.A. ’64

Ellie M. Hartog, M.D. ’64

Jorge R. Herrera, B.B.A. ’64

Joseph M. Hurtak, B.B.A. ’64

Charles L. Mobley, B.M. ’64, M.M. ’71

James O. Nelson, B.B.A. ’64, J.D. ’67

Harold B. Probes, A.B. ’64

Geoffrey L. Randall, A.B. ’64

Richard A. Ruppert, A.B. ’64

John H. Schuler, B.Ed. ’64

Olga M. Comas-Bacardi, A.B. ’65

Jeannette T. Hunt, B.Ed. ’65

Brenda T. Ingwersen, B.Ed. ’65

Joan L. Kaufman, B.Ed. ’65

Charles N. Klonaris, B.B.A. ’65

Donald W. Smith, B.B.A. ’65

Edward E. Callahan, B.S.A.E. ’66

Russell F. Derr, B.B.A. ’66

Andrew A. Diotaiuto, B.M. ’66

Herbert H. Hand, M.B.A. ’66

Laura A. Johnson, A.B. ’66

Evelyn J. Lampe, M.A. ’66

David F. McConnell, B.Ed. ’66

Robert A. Pastor, B.B.A. ’66

Antonio Alonso, B.B.A. ’67, M.B.A. ’69

William L. Ramos, B.B.A. ’67

John D. Shelton, B. Arch. ’67

John R. Tucek, B.Ed. ’67, M.Ed. ’68

Albert C. Block, Ed.D. ’68

William H. Frank, B.B.A. ’68

Samuel J. Ha, M.S. ’68, Ph.D. ’73

Lyman R. Hazelton, B.S. ’68, M.S. ’72

Charles J. Knowles, B.B.A. ’68

Robert G. Maristany, B.Ed. ’68

Johnny M. Alterman, J.D. ’69

Thomas Devany, Ph.D. ’69

Louis L. Foster, M.Ed. ’69

Daniel R. Glow, B.M. ’69

Rouzbeh K. Parsi, M.D. ’69

Willie Wright, M.Ed. ’69

John D. Crooke, B.B.A. ’70

Thomas H. Fry, M.A. ’70

Richard S. McKinlay, B.B.A. ’70

Marcia A. Griffin, A.B. ’71

David L. Harrison, B.B.A. ’71

David F. Kelly, B.B.A. ’71

Philip S. Koplin, B.B.A. ’71

Roderick J. MacKenzie, J.D. ’71

Mary K. Parlato, B.B.A. ’71

Margaret F. Peek, B.S. ’71

Mary K. Richards, M.D. ’71

Joseph A. Toole, B.B.A. ’71

Frederick G. Barning, A.B. ’72

Sister John K. Frei, Ph.D. ’72

William A. Harloe, B.B.A. ’72

Gary R. Kamats, B.B.A. ’72 M.B.A. ’83

Wilton R. Turner, Ed.D. ’72

Suzanne R. Galloway, A.B. ’73

Gary E. Geiger, B.B.A. ’73

Jerry Green, J.D. ’73

Theodore H. Gregor, B.S.M.E. ’73

Patricia D. Kenny, A.B. ’73, J.D. ’76

Deborah A. Repka, B.B.A. ’73

Thomas B. Woodcock, A.B. ’73

John H. Beamer, Ph.D./M.D. ’74

Sherman B. Reynolds, J.D. ’74

Charles W. Rice, J.D. ’75

Jean L. Massett, A.B. ’76

Neil M. Nameroff, J.D. ’76

Julia J. Romine, M.Ed. ’76

Christine A. Castellano, A.B. ’77

Dennis J. Cotignola, M.Ed. ’77

Nancy Landstein, A.B. ’77

Michael T. Doerflein, M.D. ’78

Thomas M. Watchorn, B.B.A. ’78

Kenneth J. Condon, LL.M.T. ’79

Ralph P. Allen, B.B.A. ’80

John W. Persse, J.D. ’80

Alexander J. Rzepiela, M.S. ’80

Glenn M. Carter, B.B.A. ’81

Gary W. Gomoll, LL.M.E. ’81

Geoffrey G. Strange, J.D. ’81

David A. Stewart B.B.A. ’82

Eugene R. Bradfield, J.D. ’83

Jane G. Gailey, B.B.A. ’84, B.C.S. ’85

Ronald E. Vorp, M.S. ’84

Mark C. Bruni, B.B.A. ’85

Rene A. Nunez, J.D. ’86

Yvonne Estefan Achkar, M.S. ’87

Kelly A. Molnar, A.B. ’87, M.S.Ed. ’88

Noah H. Mann, Ph.D. ’90

Sonia M. Ortiz, B.B.A. ’90

Dale A. Johnson, B.S.M.E. ’91

Gay A. Ingram, B.G.S. ’92, M.A.L.S. ’96

Claudia S. Moore, A.B. ’92

Lauren M. Sterling Perlman, M.B.A. ’95

Karen Collins, M.S.Ed. ’98

Neil C. Cox, M.B.A. ’01, J.D. ’02

Jillian Marie Orrick, B.B.A. ’05

Austen P. Everett, A.B. ’11

Mark B. Stevens, J.D. ’12, LL.M.P. ’12

*As of January 31, 2013

We diligently research each name in the “In Memoriam” section. If you spot an error, please notify us so we can correct our records.

Early Human Sexuality Educator

Psychotherapist Libby (Arkin)

Tanner, A.B. ’48, a family medicine educator and sex therapist who trained at the famous Kinsey Institute and helped establish the nation’s first family medicine department at the University of Miami medical school in the 1960s, died of cancer on August 2, 2012 in Miami Beach. She was 85. Tanner was on faculty from 1968 to 1989. She led the undergraduate medical education department for six years, developing ahead-of-their-time courses such as Human Sexuality and Medical Interviewing.

DateBook

MARCH

Through March 24 Lowe Art Museum Infinite Mirror: Images of American Identity and Stephen Knapp: New Light

ALUMNI LEADERSHIP

Board of Directors

Executive Committee

Dany Garcia, B.B.A. ’92, President

Patrick Barron, B.B.A. ’75, Immediate Past President

John Calles, A.B. ’89, J.D. ’92, President-elect

Carrie Mahan Anderson, A.B. ’93, Vice President

Joris Jabouin, B.B.A. ’90, M.B.A. ’92, Vice President

Frank Jimenez, B.S. ’88, Vice President

Linda Steckley, M.B.A. ’87, Vice President

Brenda K. Yester, B.B.A. ’90, Vice President

Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, Executive Director

Alumni Trustees

T. Kendall “Ken” Hunt, B.B.A ’65

William Koenigsberg, B.B.A. ’77

Regional Directors

Truly Burton, A.B. ’73

Robert Cohen, B.B.A. ’84

Jorge Duyos, B.S.I.E. ’85, M.S.I.E. ’88

Larry King, Jr., A.B. ’83, M.B.A. ’93

Kourtney Ratliff, B.B.A. ’03

Alex C. Rodriguez, B.B.A. ’86

Erica Zohar, A.B. ’92

Directors

Juan Albelo, B.S.E.E. ’93, M.S.I.E. ’96, M.B.A. ’96

Suzanne M. Block, A.B ’81

James J. Blosser, B.B.A. ’60, J.D. ’65

Santiago Corrada, A.B. 86, M.S.Ed. ’91

Victoria Corrigan Fine, B.S. ’80, M.B.A. ’81

Devang B. Desai, A.B. ’97, J.D. ’03

Martin J. Ganderson, B.B.A. ’73

Cynthia Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97

Camilo Lopez III, M.B.A. ’82

Noelia Moreno, B.B.A. ’86, J.D. ’89

Leamon Green Jr.’s “Little Big Girl,” 2005

Through April 21 Lowe

Art Museum ArtLab @ The Lowe—Adapting and Adopting: Waves of Change as East Encounters West Modern and Contemporary Japanese Art 21 Black Student Scholarship Reception Newman Alumni Center

22-24 UM Baseball vs. Virginia Tech Coral Gables, Florida*

27 President Shalala Impact of U Tour Los Angeles

APRIL

5-7 UM Baseball vs. Florida State Coral Gables, Florida

John Pittaluga, B.S.M.E. ’83

Andrew F. Potter, M.B.A. ’04

Oti Roberts, B.B.A. ’03

Alan Serure, B.S. ’75, M.D. ’79

Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96

Faculty Representatives

Robert F. Moore, Associate Chair, Department of Teaching and Learning

Richard Williamson, Chair, Faculty Senate

Student Representatives

Nawara Alawa

Dashawna “Shawna” Fussell-Ware Kanesha Hines Alumni Network Clubs

Atlanta Jane Snecinski, B.M. ’74, M.B.A. ’82, janeski30@hotmail.com

Austin Lori Luza, B.B.A. ’94, M.S.Ed. ’95, lori@texasbluelime.com

Boston bostoncanes@miami.edu

Broward Jason Haber, A.B. ’03, haber.jason@gmail.com

Charlotte TBD

Chicago David Panitch, B.B.A. ’80, david@rtg-inc.com

Cincinnati Mark McPheron, B.B.A. ’78, Mark_McPheron@CINFIN.com

Cleveland Diana Le, B.M. ’09, dianale523@gmail.com

Dallas TBD

Denver John Victor, B.B.A. ’06, td4j@aol.com

Detroit Shannon Bartlett, B.S.B.A. ’12, s.bartlett4@umiami.edu

Germany Sharon Petrik, B.B.A. ’04, M.B.A. ’07, sharonpetrik@gmail.com

Greensboro Allyson Lugo, B.S.C. ’07, aklugo@gmail.com

Houston Michael Williams, B.B.A. ’01, michael.williams@aig.com

Indianapolis Jordan Miller, B.S. ’07, jordymiller@gmail.com

ALUMNI EVENT INFORMATION 305-284-2872 OR 1-866-UMALUMS SPORTS TICKETS 305-284-CANES OR 1-800-GO-CANES

WWW.MIAMI.EDU/ALUMNI

*For complete Hurricane sports schedules, visit www.hurricanesports.com Events are on the Coral Gables campus unless otherwise noted

10-17 Jerry Herman Ring Theatre Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific 11 UM Alumni and Parent Reception with President Donna E. Shalala, Bogota, Colombia 12 Official Class Ring Ceremony BankUnited Center

18 Alumni Awards Ceremony Newman Alumni Center

19 Alumni Board of Directors

Meeting Newman Alumni Center

24 President Shalala Impact of U Tour Broward County, Florida

MAY

1 President Shalala Impact of U Tour Washington, D.C.

3 President Shalala Impact of U Tour Boston

Jacksonville Merissa Amkraut, B.M. ’02, merissaum@aol.com

Las Vegas Hal Moskowitz, B.B.A. ’69, vegashal@yahoo.com

London TBD

Los Angeles Chad Fisher, A.B. ’00, canesinsocal@gmail.com

Louisville Michael Friedman, B.B.A. ’74, mfriedman@sustainablemgt.com

Nashville Mark Block, B.S.C. ’99, theblockagency@yahoo.com

New Jersey Michael Solomon, B.B.A ’98, J.D. ’01, solomon.michael@ gmail.com

New York David Goldberg, B.B.A. ’03, umnyalumni@gmail.com

Orlando Roger Jeffery, B.S.C.E. ’76, rogerlynnjeffery@aol.com

Palm Beach Stefany Allongo, B.A.M. ’06, stefanyallongo@gmail.com

Philadelphia Mark Bolen, A.B. ’07, markjbolen@gmail.com

Phoenix Kathleen George, J.D. ’88, Kathleen_m_george@yahoo.com

Portland Iraida Babilonia Hermann, B.B.A ’08, ibhermann@yahoo.com

Raleigh Amy Gretenstein, B.S.C. ’06, agretenstein@gmail.com

Richmond Matt Roberts, M.M. ’97, matt@soundcone.com

San Diego Elena Mulvaney, B.B.A. ’04, elenaquevedo24@yahoo.com

San Francisco Melissa Glass, B.S.C. ’09, missglass1821@gmail.com

Sarasota Chris Clayton, B.S.C. ’94, cclayton12@aol.com

Savannah Tom Farnkoff, B.B.A. ’69, farneey1946@hargray.com

Seattle Christian Hasenoehrl, M.S. ’95, M.B.A. ’95, seattlecanes@gmail.com

Southwest Florida Molly Caldaro, A.B. ’05, m.mcguire@umiami.edu

St. Louis Nick Turner, B.B.A. ’12, nt@dpmunited.com

Tallahassee Kelly Sciba, B.S.C. ’92, tksciba@msn.com

Tampa Larry King, Jr., A.B. ’83, M.B.A. ’93, larrykingjr@tampabay.rr.com

7 President Shalala Impact of U Tour New York City 9-10 Spring Commencement BankUnited Center

16-18 UM Baseball vs. Georgia Tech Coral Gables, Florida

17 GOLDstein Regional Competition Boston and Washington, D.C.

23 ’Canes Film Showcase Los Angeles 23 Chicago Coaches Dinner Chicago

JUNE

4 Blochbusta Classic Poolesville, Maryland

More at miami.edu/calendar

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

To nominate an alumnus for the UM Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, go to www.miami.edu/alumni/umaa/ board/nominationform.htm and complete the online form. For more information, contact Erica Arroyo, B.S.C. ’03, M.A.L.S. ’08, senior director, Alumni Programs, at 305-284-1724 or earroyo@miami.edu.

Washington, D.C. Donald Wine II, J.D. ’07, president@dccanes.com

Special Interest Groups

Black Alumni Society Phyllis Tyler, B.B.A. ’80, Phyllis.tyler@irs.gov

Band of the Hour Joseph E. Bagierek, B.M. ’03, M.B.A. ’07, jbagierek@gmail.com

Public Health Alumni Association Gabriela Halder, B.S. ’08, halderg@vcu.edu, and Isabel Kilzi Rovira, A.B. ’08, imkilzi@gmail.com

UM Sports Hall of Fame Walter “Wally” DiMarko, B.Ed. ’65, M.A. ’70, wdjkapp@aol.com, and K.C. Jones, ’97, jonesest@msn.com

Schools and Colleges Groups

College of Engineering Alfonso D. Dager, B.S.C.P.E. ’07, alfonsodager@gmail.com, and Tamara Ali, B.S.I.E. ’04, M.B.A. ’06, M.S.I.E. ’09, tamicane@gmail.com

School of Law Devang B. Desai, A.B. ’97, J.D. ’03, ddesai@gaebemullen. com, and Jaret L. Davis, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’99, davisj@gtlaw.com

Miller School of Medicine Steven F. Falcone, B.S. ’83, M.D. ’87, M.B.A. ’04, sfalcone@med.miami.edu, and

Jeffrey Block, M.D. ’82, docblock@ bellsouth.net

School of Nursing & Health Studies

Leila Adderton, A.B. ’79, B.S.N. ’05, M.S.N. ’10, leadderton@aol.com, and Jennifer A. Lopez, B.S.N. ’09, jalopez86@gmail.com

Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Erica Towle, B.S.M.A.S. ’10, etowle@rsmas.miami.edu

Alumni records of the University of Miami are kept strictly confidential. Directory information is released only to other members of the alumni community unless an alumnus or alumna has requested complete privacy. On a very limited occasion and only at the approval of the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors, directory information is shared with outside vendors who are in a joint relationship with the University. Should you not wish to release your name to any outside vendor and/or other members of the UM alumni community, please notify the Office of Alumni Relations in writing at P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410.

Big Picture

Fire, Fire, Burning Bright

UM’s boat burning tradition, first launched in 1956 before the big game against the Pitt Panthers, continued on October 19, 2012, during Homecoming. According to lore, if the boat’s mast breaks and hits water before the flaming craft sinks, the ’Canes will carry the day.

JENNY

MIAMI

The University of Miami Magazine

University of Miami

Division of University Communications

Post Office Box 248073

Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1210

In the sea of standard Florida license plates, yours can be one that turns heads. The UM plate is available at any Florida tag agenc y for just $25 above the cost of a regular plate Best of all, the extra $25 funds University of Miami Alumni Scholarships for UM students. The only requirement is that you must be a Florida resident with a vehicle registered in the state So go ahead and let your tag tell the world you ’ re a ’Cane.