Miami Magazine | Winter 2014

MIAMI

Redefining Student Life

UM’s sparkling Student Center Complex, a decade in the making, creates a world-class hub for student activities. THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MAGAZINE | WINTER 2014

At the University of Miami, academic and personal enrichment of our students drives everything we do. World-class facilities give students an edge to succeed, so we’ve made this a priority of the Momentum2 campaign.

Thank You for Taking Student Life to New Heights

w A new building transforming campus life is the Student Activities Center, part of the Student Center Complex, made possible by a $20 million gift from the Fairholme Foundation.

w The newest addition to the Hecht Athletic Center, the Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence—named in honor of a lead gift from the Schwartz Family Foundation—provides student-athletes with exceptional resources.

w A generous gift from UM alumna Patricia Toppel enabled us to open a new Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center, which supports students’ future success.

More than 133,680 donors have enabled us to raise $1.24 billion toward our $1.6 billion Momentum2 goal. Your support makes it possible to provide students with the best experiences, conduct pioneering research, offer the finest medical care, and deliver service to our community and beyond.

To make a gift or for more information about Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami, visit miami.edu/m2 or call 305-284-4443.

Student Activities Center

Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence

Toppel Career Center

A new multimillion-dollar facility for students opens on campus amid fanfare.

Dissidents Leave Mark at UM

Gen Y blogger Yoani Sánchez and other prominent figures tour UM, discussing the effect social media and activism are having on their country today.

SHHADE of Health Care to Come

Inspired by skyrocketing medical costs, students in the M.D./M.B.A. program devise a business solution that wins kudos.

President Donna E. Shalala and others in key posts reflect on NCAA compliance in a new era for UM Athletics.

On the cover: A view from the east of the Student Activities Center.

COVER PHOTO BY RICHARD PATTERSON

Inbox

COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

Praise for ‘Playing’

Gaspar González did a great job on the article “Playing for JFK” (Summer 2013). It brought back vivid memories of that time in our history. I will share it with my children and their families. I always look forward to the magazine. You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work, and Go ’Canes.

Patrick Ratesic, B.Ed. ’65 (Miami Hurricanes Football Team, 1961-64) North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

‘Playing,’ Another Perspective

As I read “Playing for JFK,” it brought to mind enduring memories of JFK and the fateful day in November. What was not in the article is that the University of Miami had a closer encounter and connection with JFK just days before his assassination. As a member of the University of Miami’s “Band of the Hour,” I was at Miami International Airport to play for President Kennedy the week prior to his fateful trip to Dallas. As I recall, the president had been invited

to speak to a union group holding a convention at the Miami Beach Convention Center. When he arrived and stepped out of Air Force One, we began to play “Hail to the Chief” as well as familiar marches by composer, conductor, and UM mentor

Henry Fillmore. After the music, the president took time to shake hands with the public and us band members. This all leads to the event just a week later. I was standing in the old bookstore at the Whitten Student Union when the president’s death was announced. As the article notes, eventually the football game went on because John Kennedy loved the game, but the pre-game was changed to a solemn memorial. Instead of the planned music, the Band of the Hour entered to the low tones of muffled drums, draped in black and beating a simple single thump-thump-thump rhythm, which was in keeping with military tradition. We

played the National Anthem to one of the most reverent Orange Bowl crowds I’d ever heard, and we exited the field as respectfully as we could. The University and the ceremony at that UM-UF game was a preview of the similar scenes that would be viewed in the weeks to follow, as the late president was honored and buried.

Aurelio Azpiazu, B.S.C.E. ’68 Port Republic, Maryland

Cyber Warriors Wanted

I read with interest the article by Robert Powell titled “How Safe Is Your Cyber Bunker?” (Summer 2013), about the new UM cybersecurity lab and the two assistant professors who are working “hard to keep digital information safe.” As someone who has been in the information security business for over 20 years, I know that the concept of academia working hard to keep digital

information safe can only work at this time if the goal is to train cybersecurity engineers to learn to recognize and mitigate against threats, and then send them out into industry and government.

The basic problem with trying to keep digital information safe is simply that the operating systems of the computers we use—the preponderance being Windows and to a much lesser extent the Apple iOS and all the various Unix/Linux flavors—are themselves unsafe. Programs written for these operating systems, such as word processors and email programs, are also unsafely written. This is why there are so many patches, i.e., Microsoft’s “Patch Tuesday.” Systems “failing” was mentioned in the article, but only some problems are due to systems failing—for example, DDOS attacks. Many cybersecurity problems are not that the system has failed, rather it’s working just as (insecurely) designed. Viruses and malware often utilize the insecurities of the operating system. When a virus or malware reproduces or exploits a system, the system did not fail—it was not designed to protect against that particular issue.

The University has a great opportunity to learn from Fortinet the real and current threats as they arise. Pumping out cybersecurity warriors can have a major impact on our nation’s security. Plus, the job outlook for such individuals is extremely bright. I hope the College of Engineering will take advantage of its Fortinet

CyberSecurity Lab in this manner for the good of the country!

Norman Hirsch, M.S.E.E. ’71 Founder and CEO, NH&A LLC North Palm Beach, Florida

A Loving Companion

I am the office manager for Miami physician David R. Nateman, B.S. ’76, M.D. ’80, who selflessly raises guide dogs with his wife. They purchased their latest trainee in memory of my husband, Robert V. Wolfe, J.D. ’51, who

was listed in “In Memoriam” (Summer 2013). They gave me the privilege of naming

From the Editor

Moving Day

the puppy. Because of my husband’s 65-year love affair with the U, I chose the name Hairy Cane. Ellen Dunford Wolfe Miami, Florida

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MIAMI

The University of Miami Magazine

Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing

Todd Ellenberg

Executive Director for Communications and Marketing

Peter E. Howard

Editor

Robin Shear

Creative Director and Art Director

Scott Fricker

Associate Art Director

Sau Ping Choi

Assistant Art Directors

Lisa Kuehnle

Kristian Rodriguez, B.S.C. ’04

Production Manager

Angie Villanueva, A.B. ’12

Editorial Contributors

Cynthia Corzo, B.S.C. ’90

Jason Fitzroy Jeffers

Robert C. Jones Jr.

A couple of weeks after we moved into the stunning Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center in September, I was making my already almost-routine trek to Sebastian’s Café when something near the ground caught my peripheral vision. A brown puff perched behind the just-manicured hedge stood out against the cream-colored Jerusalem stone ledge. It was a small owl. I snapped a photo, marveling at my good fortune.

Soon after that I began reviewing my notes to write this column. They had been hastily typed amid my purging and packing five years’ worth of habitation as we prepared to migrate across South Dixie Highway into our new offices. At the top of the page was the word reguero, the Spanish term my colleague used to describe the heap of magazines and other detritus spread across my floor as I tried to make all the tough and necessary choices related to starting over again in a new place.

Next to the words “period of change,” I’d typed: new students moving into residence halls, new Student Activities Center opening, Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence opening, move to Newman Alumni Center. Also there, under all this stream of consciousness, was the phrase “dreaming of owls.”

It came back to me: Before our move, I’d had an owl dream so vivid I had to share it with my coworker who, according to my notes, explained that owls signify change, “usually on an emotional or personal level.”

Change is always emotional and personal, experienced singularly by each of us: a new country, a new phase of life, the loss of a loved one. As our cover story on page 14 shows, everyone has his or her own take on how the new Student Activities Center has changed the campus experience, but no one questions the exponential power that transformation will have for generations of students to come.

Change can be abrupt or occur over decades. Some of us take it for granted, while others, like the Cuban activists featured on page 18, spend their lives fighting for it. Sometimes change is so incremental as to be imperceptible. But at UM this school year, the physical changes have been just the opposite: dramatic, bold, and enlivening. We can see this from our own new perch at the Newman Alumni Center, nearer the palm trees and the Hurry ’Cane Shuttle, and the fledgling owl, standing stock still, its feathers barely fluttering, wings ready to unfold.

—Robin Shear, editor

Kurt Anthony Krug

Lisa Sedelnick, M.A. ’00

Robert Strauss

Bob Woods

President

Donna E. Shalala

Vice President for University Communications

Jacqueline R. Menendez, A.B. ’83

Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs

Sergio M. Gonzalez

Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations and Individual Giving 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 ©2014, University of Miami. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

www.miami.edu/miami-magazine

Dr. and Mrs. Nateman with Hairy Cane

UniversityJournal

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

Seeing Immigration Reform from All Sides

Course creates nuanced exploration of hot-button issue

As everything from budget battles to debates over military action in Syria consumed the U.S. Congress, hopes grew slimmer for passing immigration legislation during the fall session. But that didn’t dampen the interest of more than 150 UM students who took a semester-long, interdisciplinary course titled “Immigration Reform: The Current Debate.”

Taught for the first time this past fall, the course covered complex issues and impacts surrounding U.S. immigration policy through a variety of topical lenses, such as workforce, election demographics, education, media, culture, health care, and law enforcement, among others. Weekly guest lecturers included “key players involved in shaping the immigration debate,” said Joseph Uscinski, an assistant professor of political science and one of the course’s four co-teachers.

One of the first guest speakers was immigration lawyer Enrique Gonzalez, special counsel to Senator Marco Rubio, J.D. ’96, who helped draft the new immigration bill with a bipartisan group of 20. “Three days a week the senators and staff would meet to hash out issues,” Gonzalez told students during their first class. “Any one of you could have been in that room with us. The youngest of us was 23; the oldest is me, at 46. That is the difference you all can make.” He said the bill they came up with was filed on the Senate floor by Senators Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin at 2 a.m.

Other policy insiders on the class roster included Congressman Joe Garcia, A.B. ’87, J.D. ’91, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce

Carlos Gutierrez.

The class also heard from Emmy Award-winning Univision news

anchor Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, author of Dying to Cross, and Gaby Pacheco, an undocumented American and immigrant rights leader in Miami.

“We give students the opportunity to listen to key people espous-

Students enrolled in the course Immigration Reform: The Current Debate had four instructors, including Fernand Amandi, pictured, managing partner at Miami-based Bendixen & Amandi International, a research, media, and communication strategy firm, as well as guest lectures from key figures involved in policymaking.

U.S. Senator for Florida Marco Rubio, J.D. ’96, a UM alumnus who helped introduce a bipartisan immigration reform bill last year, tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

ing very different political positions,” said co-teacher Ariel C. Armony, Weeks Professor of Latin American Studies and director of the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), which spearheaded the course. “Students listen to them, engage in a dialogue with them, and then form their own ideas on this issue.”

CLAS created the course with the College of Arts and Sciences,

the Department of Political Science, the Office of the President, and the American Studies Program. Rudy Fernandez, UM vice president for government and community relations, chief of staff to President Donna E. Shalala, and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, was one of the instructors. He said the immigration reform debate hits at the core question of what it means to be an American. The course’s fourth co-teacher was Fernand Amandi, managing partner at Bendixen & Amandi International. He said immigration reform squarely intersects with four other polarizing issues: sex, politics, race, and money. With 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., said Amandi, “billions and trillions of dollars” are at stake. Acknowledging the difficulty of the issue these students chose to tackle, Amandi peppered his lecture with a bit of hope and humor. “If nothing else,” he said, “by the end of this course, we in this classroom will have solved the immigration debate.”

Space-Age Stem Cells

His groundbreaking research already shattered the earthly view that damaged heart muscle can’t be rejuvenated. Now Joshua Hare, the Miller School’s chief science officer and director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, is expanding his research to the final frontier—outer space. The Louis Lemberg Professor of Medicine was among seven stem cell researchers around the nation to be awarded up to $300,000 each by the organization that manages research aboard the International Space Station. The grant will give Hare the opportunity to explore how zero gravity, or microgravity, affects fundamental stem cell properties. Microgravity, says Hare, “could play an important role in generating new heart muscle.” He and his team are conducting ground-based experiments in a simulated microgravity environment as they wait for NASA to certify the proposal as “flight-capable.”

The goal is to determine whether a microgravity environment can enhance the ability of stem cells to become heart muscle and reverse damage from heart attack and heart failure.

The Tweet Science

David Shiffman, a Ph.D. student at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, and his collaborators published a study on the scientific and scholarly use of tweeting, titled, “The role of Twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication,” earlier this year in the journal Ideas in Ecology and Evolution Shiffman has been named one of the top biologists to follow on Twitter (@WhySharksMatter). Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ l7jlcaa.

Diagnosis

Breakthrough for Blinding Disease

Research led by physicianscientists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute has produced a breakthrough in retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding

disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the United States. Rong Wen and Byron L. Lam, professors of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer and directors of the institute’s Adrienne Arsht Hope for Vision Center of Retinal Degeneration Research, in collaboration with biochemist Ziqiang Guan, of Duke University Medical School, discovered a key marker in blood and urine that can identify people who carry genetic mutations in a gene responsible for retinitis pigmentosa. The Journal of Lipid Research published their research paper this past September. “A simple urine test can tell who has the RP-causing mutations,” says Wen. The first mutation in this gene, named DHDDS, was identified in 2011 by scientists at the Miller School of Medicine, including Stephan Züchner, professor and interim chair of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics, Wen, Lam, and Margaret A. Pericak-Vance,

director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ n553fhx.

Plankton to the People

Plankton feed the oceans and pull CO2 from the air. To increase our understanding of these critically important yet tiny aquatic organisms, scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have launched www. planktonportal.org. Developed by emeritus professor of marine biology and fisheries Robert K. Cowen, along with research associate Cedric Guigand and graduate students Jessica Luo and Adam Greer, this citizen-supported science project invites volunteers to help classify the plankton pictured in millions of images that were collected by an underwater robot engineered at UM with help from Bellamare LLC and funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation.

Instrumental Overtures

Frost MusicReach programs are playing a key part in enriching young lives with music

Six-year-old Amad Nelson dutifully claps to the rhythm of an American bluegrass fiddle tune, paying close attention to the changes in tempo. The lively song, “Boil ’Em Cabbage Down,” is played deftly on the violin by the college-age instructor, whose tapping foot acts as a metronome.

A creative lesson about the violin’s four strings and the notes they represent— G, D, A, and E—piques the interest of Khyairee Jackson, 7. “There are strings on the violin, and these strings have names, sort of like how we have names,” explains Zach Piper, a graduate string performance major at the Frost School of Music and a student mentor in one of the Frost School’s many community outreach initiatives. “So let’s call the ‘G’ string ‘George.’ Everyone say, ‘Hey, George.’” The five students respond “Hey, George!” in unison.

provide free music education programs— funded through grants, strategic partnerships, and private donations—that target underserved and disadvantaged areas of Miami-Dade County, including West Grove, North Miami, Overtown, Goulds, and South Miami.

“In addition to teaching music, much of what we do here is to mentor these children, to teach them what’s right and what’s wrong, how to share, and how to

speak to one another,” says Cassandra Eisenreich, M.M. ’09, D.M.A. ’12, a flutist and the outreach and program coordinator at the Frost School.

Program coordinator Cassandra Eisenreich, M.M. ’09, D.M.A. ’12, encourages Amad Nelson in a beginning clapping activity. Mentor Angelo Versace, D.M.A. ’13, shares the keyboard with a quartet of young students in the Overtown Music Project.

Under the umbrella name of Frost MusicReach, graduate and undergraduate students from the Frost School

In what is known as the Harmony Project-Coconut Grove, the Frost School partners with Miami-Dade District 7

Hungry for Change

Those who have experienced the University’s dining hall fare in years past may be surprised to find a veritable buffet of new options cropping up on campus. With variety as a key ingredient, a fully reconstructed MahoneyPearson Dining Hall emerged at the beginning of the fall semester. The mouthwatering makeover, phase one of a UM Dining Master Plan scheduled to resume this summer, included revamped dining stations, an openkitchen concept, recharging stations for portable devices, a kiosk for nutritional information, and an outdoor patio seating option. Sandra Redway, executive director of Auxiliary Services, says students played a very active role in reimagining the dining hall experience.

and Miami-Dade Parks to offer music classes in that neighborhood to students from The Barnyard and Elizabeth Virrick Park Community Center. The Frost School also provides music education and mentorship in conjunction with Frederick Douglass Elementary in Overtown, two charter schools affiliated with the nonprofit ASPIRA of Florida Charter Schools, and the Guitars Over Guns Organization (GOGO), a nonprofit started by Chad Bernstein, B.M. ’06, M.M. ’09, D.M.A. ’12.

“There is research that clearly shows that for young, underserved, or at-risk kids, being involved in a music program where they are actively making music makes them far more likely to stay in school and graduate,” says Frost School Dean Shelly Berg, who has made community outreach a priority for the school since his arrival in 2007.

Other outreach programs take place at Miami Edison Middle School, West Lab Elementary, Ludlam Elementary, Mays Conservatory, and 2-1 Mentoring Program. Lisa Sedelnick, M.A. ’00

ANDREW INNERARITY

“We are slicing and dicing our shows and distributing them on different platforms.”

Les Moonves, president and CEO of top-ranked CBS Television since 1998, discussing the future of the broadcast industry at the School of Communication on November 4, 2013.

“The haters became my motivators.”

Two-time Super Bowl champ Ray Lewis, ’95, addressing more than 400 UM students at the Student Activities Center on October 2, 2013. After a triceps tear sidelined the veteran linebacker for most of the 2012-13 season, he returned for the playoffs, guiding the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl XLVVII victory. Son Ray Lewis III is now a Hurricane.

“What Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft are competing for now is data. Your data.”

Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Googlization of Everything, during his October 21, 2013 talk, “Google and the NSA: A Tale of Corporate Social Irresponsibility?,” for the College of Arts and Sciences’ American Studies Speaker Series.

#1

The U’s rank in Florida, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2014 “Best Colleges” issue. At number 47 nationally, UM has been ranked a top-tier institution for five years running. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/o3qes5x.

#8

UM Debate Team’s rank in the National Debate Tournament Rankings after a strong showing at Vanderbilt University in November 2013.

28%

UM engineering undergraduates who are female as of 2012, well above the 19% national average.

29,000

Students who applied to be freshmen at the University of Miami for 2013—that’s 7,229 more than applied just five years ago.

30

Years Frost School of Music has been producing Festival Miami.

65th

Anniversary of the School of Nursing and Health Studies (2013).

Matching Gift Challenge to Help Fund Nursing Facility

Planned simulation hospital could lead to safer practices

A prominent challenge gift from a South Florida philanthropist will help the School of Nursing and Health Studies build one of the nation’s first education-based facilities dedicated to simulation training. The R. Kirk Landon Challenge will match all donations of $50,000 or more, up to a total of $1 million, toward the construction of a five-story, 39,000-square-foot facility to be used to replicate the real-life flow of activities in a clinical practice and hospital setting.

Landon and his life partner, Pamela Garrison, share a dedication to UM’s nursing school and its innovative health care education and research. Garrison, a retired recovery room nurse, is the school’s Momentum2 campaign co-chair and has volunteered in multiple leadership roles at the school. “The School of Nursing and Health Studies has a powerful vision for improving health care through advanced education and research,” says Landon. “What we accomplish together will have widespread impact today and for generations to come.”

The simulation hospital will enable students and professionals to work with standardized patient actors and simulators that

mimic detailed symptoms and respond to interventions. Interdisciplinary teams of nurses, physicians, physical therapists, and other health care professionals also will use the facility to research patient safety protocols and test new health care products. Celebrating its 65th anniversary, the nursing school continues to be at the forefront of health care innovation. Most recently the school received a federal grant to launch Florida’s first anesthesia doctoral degree—one of only 16 such accredited

programs in the nation aimed at addressing a national shortage of nurse anesthetists. For more information call 305-284-1892 or email khernandez@ miami.edu.

State-of-the-art simulation training and exercises are already part of the curriculum at the School of Nursing and Health Studies.

Institute of Medicine Elects Schwann Cell Pioneer

Mary Bartlett Bunge, an internationally recognized authority on central nervous system regeneration, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. A professor of cell biology, neurological surgery, and neurology at the Miller School of Medicine’s Miami Project to Cure Paralysis who joined the UM faculty 24 years ago, Bunge has worked for nearly four decades on the Schwann cell, which she and her late husband, physician Richard Bunge, determined to be a key to helping repair damaged spinal

cords. Her work with Schwann cells has led to numerous discoveries and is now central to The Miami Project’s phase one clinical trial to evaluate the safety of transplanting the Schwann cells of recently paralyzed patients into the site of their injury. Bunge shared the recognition with her late husband, her mentors, Patrick Wood, research professor of neurology, and the numerous outstanding

students and fellows who trained in the Bunge-Wood laboratory. “I am very surprised but very deeply honored to have been selected to be a member of the Institute of Medicine,” says Bunge, the Christine E. Lynn Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience. “Ever since childhood I have wanted to make a difference and do something worthwhile. I hope that this honor helps confirm that I have achieved this goal.” Bunge is one of six current UM faculty who are IOM members. Her 39-year-old individual research grant from the National Institutes of Health was recently renewed for another five years.

Mary Bunge

Peak Performance

UM Dedicates Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence

Renderings of the Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence were like Xs and Os on a chalkboard to Maurice Hagens when he first saw them in 2010 as a high school football recruit out of Riverview, Florida.

Today, those renderings are a gleaming new reality, and Hagens, now a senior fullback for the Miami Hurricanes, couldn’t be more ecstatic. “During my recruitment, the coaches would tell us about the Schwartz Center and show us drawings,” recalls Hagens. “Now, to finally see it come to fruition, it’s just amazing.”

Dedicated on October 4, 2013, the 34,000-squarefoot Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center, part of the Isadore Hecht Athletic Center, will serve the University of Miami’s more than 400 student-athletes with expanded training facilities and resources such as a new academic center with computers, study rooms, and a 140-seat auditorium.

A lead gift directed by father and son pair Theodore G. and Todd G. Schwartz from their family foundation made the $14.7 million center possible; so did the generosity of many other donors, including 400 who made gifts to a Schwartz Center brick campaign.

Father Theodore’s passion for the U dates back to 1964, when by chance he

came across a UM football game on a Chicago-area TV station. “I grew up in a sea of Notre Dame fans.

One day, for some reason, they televised a University of Miami game, and I was captivated at 10 years old by the old Orange Bowl, and seeing the palm trees by the scoreboard,” he says. “I’ve been a Hurricanes fan ever since.” Two decades later he watched in person as the Hurricanes won the first of five national football championships. Though he never attended the U, he considers it a “very unique place” that embodies the values his family holds dear.

In 1999 he and his wife, UM trustee M. Christine Schwartz, made a similarly transformational gift to build a new facility for UM’s nursing school.

Son Todd thinks the new athletic facility brings UM toe-to-toe with larger, state schools. “We thought it was imperative that for Miami to compete going forward in the future, it would need a facility that was representative of the University of Miami,” Todd says.

Designed by AECOM and built by Moss Construction, the Schwartz Center sits on the north side of the Hecht Athletic Center, a facility that also ushered in a new

“It takes your breath away,” lead donor Todd G. Schwartz says of the Paul J. DiMare Gallery of Champions. “It’s really a grand entrance to a grand building.”

era for the ’Canes. Blake James, director of athletics, considers the Schwartz Center “an investment in our student-athletes that will pay dividends for years to come.”

It has already helped recruiting efforts, says men’s basketball coach Jim Larrañaga. Prospects who see the facility “realize that they’ll be in a very healthy and safe environment to do their studies,” he says.

Football offensive line coach Art Kehoe, B.B.A. ’83, calls the Schwartz Center “the Taj Mahal” of college athletic facilities. “That it helps our recruiting is the understatement of the century,” says Kehoe, a 2002 inductee in the UM Athletic Hall of Fame. “It’s just spectacular.”

Robert C. Jones Jr.

JENNY

ABREU

A Splashing Success

Creative pursuits give students immersive experiences around Miami

From the depths of a swimming pool to the heights of blue sky over Biscayne Bay, it’s clear students at the University of Miami are going to great lengths for their craft. Student actors and designers from the Department of Theatre Arts, for example, dove into Mary Zimmerman’s Tony and Drama Desk-Award-winning Metamorphoses. The updated produc-

of Engineering’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers chapter, who took part in the annual Red Bull Flugtag competition in September. The national event, which takes place in sites around the nation, drew more than 80,000 spectators to Bayfront Park for this year’s Miami contest. Following strict guidelines, competitors build human-

tion, based on classic myths from the Roman poet Ovid such as Eros and Psyche, takes place in and around a twofoot-deep pool. “Water as a place where humans come from is a pretty solid metaphor,” said Henry Fonte, chair of the theater department who directed the regional premiere this past October. UM’s third student/professional collaboration with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts was part of the center’s Theater Up Close series. The unusually fluid set allowed the actors—ten students and four professionals—to become fully immersed in 11 timeless tales of love, lust, greed, murder, and transformation. “The pool really is a character of its own,” said musical theatre student Timothy Manion. “Being able to work through the water, play with it—it’s such a new and exciting element of theater.”

Also getting their feet wet off campus was a team from the College

powered aircraft to be launched from a platform 30 feet above Biscayne Bay. The University of Miami ASME team named its entry Enalpria: The Backwards Airplane. Though the team didn’t win

UM junior Oliver Doggart stretches his wings, and engineering skills, piloting Enalpria airplane spelled backwards—for the 2013 Flugtag competition.

an audience choice award as it did with last year’s “Angry Birds”-themed creation, Enalpria did manage to soar 60 feet out before splashing into the bay—that’s almost double the 36 feet last year’s craft flew. The high-flying, hands-on experience spurs students to test engineering fundamentals learned in class. “There are not many things better than working on a craft, pushing it off a 30-foot platform, watching it ‘fly’ and then jumping in after it,” crew member Sarmad Chaudhry, an aerospace engineering major, told The Miami Hurricane. “The biggest draw of Flugtag is how awesomely fun it is.” This was the club’s fourth year participating in the event whose organizer is the energy drink company with the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings.” Flugtag is German for “flight day.”

Philanthropic Uptick

This past fiscal year was the University of Miami’s second-biggest fundraising year ever. Strong support from the ’Cane community totaled $180 million, with year-over-year increases at every school and college and a ten percent increase overall. Widespread engagement is also a hallmark of UM’s Momentum2 capital campaign. As of January 9, 2014, the campaign reached $1,240,444,816, now at 77.5 percent of its $1.6 billion goal. Donor counts reached 133,684, including 38,570 alumni who have given $218 million. UM parents have given $102 million, while $205 million has come from planned giving and $30 million from UM faculty and staff, proving that those who work at the U give to the U. Already M2 contributions have enabled 44 endowed student scholarships, 20 endowed chairs and professorships, and 17 new or renovated facilities to advance research and enhance the campus experience.

UM acting major Mary Hadsell takes her first plunge in a professional production, the regional premiere of Metamorphoses at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

Fighting for Privacy in a Public Arena

Mary Anne Franks is the kind of person you want watching your back. As an associate professor of criminal and family law, she’s focused on how to help people protect their privacy and personal space in an increasingly invasive society. She does this not only with her law books, however, but her fists.

Franks is a highly skilled instructor in Krav Maga, a deadly and brutally efficient martial art developed by the Israeli military. She became interested in it while teaching at the University of Chicago and living in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood. That wasn’t her first experience living in a rough area. Before going to Oxford as

a Rhodes scholar and later to Harvard Law School, Franks grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas—dubbed “The Most Dangerous Little Town in America” for its soaring violent crime rate.

While her pugilistic pastime may surprise some, it’s entirely in keeping with her ethos. “It’s a very physical acknowledgement of your own space, that you have autonomy over who you talk to, how you interact with them,” Franks says. “If you don’t want someone engaging with you in a certain way, you have a right to enforce that.”

Her current legal efforts target the hot-button issue of revenge porn, the disturbing trend of posting nude and otherwise

compromising photos of an ex to the Web. Besides being humiliated, victims (almost always women) have lost their jobs, found themselves stalked, and in some cases been forced to change their names.

Few laws exist to protect such victims, so Franks has been drafting model legislation for interested state and federal lawmakers. “What really disturbs me is the victim-blamers, the people who say, ‘Why did she allow these pictures to be taken? She deserves whatever happens,’” says Franks. “If you don’t understand why revenge porn is wrong, then you don’t really understand why rape or sexual harassment is wrong. The underlying principle is

the same: consent to sexual activity with one person in one context is not the same thing as consent to sexual activity with anyone else or in any other context.”

This proactive stance has brought increased media exposure, which makes Franks just a little wary. “I’m a pretty private person,” she says. “And anything you do these days, be it positive or negative, can put you in the spotlight in ways you can’t anticipate.” That has even meant some ugly threats of late, but Franks won’t back down. “I want to be one of the people shaping this conversation because it’s important. I’m not going to give up on that.”

Jason Fitzroy Jeffers

Miami Docs Help Nyad Glide to Victory

Fifth time is charm for unprecedented swimming feat

Wearing a full bodysuit, gloves, and booties to protect her from jellyfish stings, Diana Nyad began swimming the 111-mile route from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida, on the morning of August 31, 2013. It was her fifth attempt. In addition to the kayakers flanking her to help ward off sharks and jellyfish, her 35-member escort boat included Derek

On Course

B. Covington, an anesthesiology resident at UM/Jackson Memorial Hospital, and John Kot, a Miller School of Medicine voluntary assistant professor of anesthesiology. During the historic swim, Nyad suffered from nausea caused by swallowing sea water, says Kot, who tended to her along the way with Covington. Her silicone mask irritated her mouth and the sun and water caused her lips and tongue to swell up, but she was still able to swim, talk, and breathe without any serious problems. Fifty-three hours later, on the afternoon of September 2, Nyad stepped onto the beach at Key West and flashed the “V for victory” sign. Kot and

Solomon Islands Field Course Adventure

Jeffrey Aresty, B.S. ’77, and Patricia (Pickton) Aresty, B.S. ’76, met as University of Miami biology students on a research trip in Ecuador. That course set in motion a life of adventure together— from summiting Kilimanjaro to diving the Seychelles. To honor their passion for the natural world, ignited by their alma mater, the couple endowed the Aresty Chair in Tropical Ecology at the College of Arts and Sciences. Its first recipient, J. Albert C. Uy, associate professor of biology since 2011, is helping their generous gift take wing. Uy investigates the biological origins of island flycatchers and other tropical bird populations. He teaches about island ecology, evolution, and conservation in the classroom and lab, as well as on location in the Solomon Islands, east of Papa New Guinea. This past May he took five UM students on a three-week field course to the remote Pacific region where malaria is prevalent and the packing list includes Immodium, antibiotics, and “Gold Bond to prevent foot rot….” Traveling on a skiff named Miami, Uy’s well-prepared students had unparalleled opportunities to conduct research and experiments, and engage in community outreach. “The tropics harbor the greatest diversity on the planet. However, we still know little about the

Covington were there upon her arrival to administer intravenous fluids for dehydration. In that moment, Nyad became the first person to make it across the Strait of Florida without the aid of a shark cage. “It was a truly remarkable swimming achievement,” says Covington, “especially at age 64.” Nyad made her first attempt in 1978, when she was 29 years old. Before her third attempt in 2011, Nyad enlisted a volunteer team of UHealth Sports Medicine professionals, who for the past few years have been helping develop solutions to the kind of medical obstacles that would prevent her from realizing her dream—everything from inadequate intake of water and nutrients and loss of body heat to prolonged lack of sleep, tired muscles, breathing difficulties, possible shark attacks, and allergic reactions to jellyfish stings. “This time, we had very little to do,” defers Covington. “It was really a thrill for all of us at the Miller School to be part of her historic achievement.”

Professor Uy’s students study butterflies.

mechanisms that create and maintain this striking diversity,” explains Uy, who receives support from the National Geographic Society. The goal, he says, is to uncover underlying factors driving population changes and “to understand how these changes result in the formation of new species.” Not ready to take his class? You can still get a bird’s eye view of Uy’s Solomon Islands studies thanks to a forthcoming documentary funded by the National Science Foundation.

Derek Covington helps distance swimmer Diana Nyad achieve her goal.

Of all the video and film projects Angellic Johnson has done, one stands out in her heart. It is a highlight reel of her brother Josh’s exploits on the football field from his days in pads in high school.

Most of the time, Josh is the smallest guy on the field, but there Angellic captures him, scooting around an end, charging downfield on special teams, even staring down and blocking linemen seemingly twice his size.

Now brother and sister are at the University of Miami, a step farther along in the dreams that highlight reel represents. Angellic is a junior in the School of Communication, having worked at UMTV and now on her third internship—this one with the NBA champion Miami Heat.

That highlight reel helped freshman Josh—all 5-foot-5 and 160 pounds of him—get invited to be a walk-on with the Hurricanes football team.

“I had opportunities to go elsewhere, but I decided to try it as a walk-on in Miami because the coaches were the only ones who didn’t mention my size,” says Josh, who intends to major in engineering.

The Johnsons are both Gates Millennium Scholars, with grants from the Gates Foundation administered by the United Negro College Fund. They went to the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida, though Josh took his

Sibling Revelry

Angellic Johnson shares a ‘reel’ connection with her brother Josh.

senior year at nearby Providence High School when their father, Rodney Johnson, became the track coach there. Josh, who intends to run for the University, did a 48.08-second 400 meters and a 21.9-second 200 meters—both outstanding high school times.

Angellic, who competed nationally in track beginning in elementary school, now hopes to have a career reporting or producing televised sports.

“The first day I went to UMTV, they put me on ’Cane Street, and I followed [basketball coach Jim] Larrañaga around campus. They had me on air, too, so I got hooked,” she says. Since then she has interned at HBO Latin America in Coral Gables and had a chance to work with actor/director Robert Townsend on his latest film, Playin’ for Love, which is due out in 2014. Townsend shot the basketball-related romantic comedy in Miami to reexpose the city, particularly its lesser-known sections like Overtown, as a place to make films.

“I just kept showing up and asking what I could do, and finally I moved up to production assistant,” says Angellic. “I even got to stand in a few times for [co-star] Salli RichardsonWhitfield. But my dream job would be to be a producer at ESPN.”

And maybe produce another highlight reel of Josh—this time as a ’Cane. —Robert Strauss

GRAND

Opening

It is still new, but the much-anticipated Student Activities Center already feels like home to thousands of University of Miami students.

BY ROBERT C. JONES JR.

FOR ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE AND POLICY MAJOR KAMARI DURLEY, it’s the 24-hour study lounge—“there’s no other place like it on campus,” he says. For student leader Mike Piacentino, it’s the centralized student-group offices that are facilitating collaboration. And for junior Stephanie Baguidy, it’s the “phenomenal ballrooms” and convenient access to organizations such as United Black Students. “This is a place I’ll come to every day,” she says.

PHOTOS BY MONICA HERNDON, ’14 AND NICK GANGEMI, ’16

The decade-in-the-making Student Activities Center, a three-story, glass-encased knockout on the shores of Lake Osceola, has “transformed the look and feel of our campus,” says UM President Donna E. Shalala, who proposed the project not long after she arrived at the University. “It’s more than a stunning building. It’s at the heart of student learning, living, and playing, and it sets the pulse for an exciting and rewarding college experience.”

Among the SAC’s features: a two-story Rathskeller built near the site of the original eatery and campus pub that was demolished to make room for the center; a Starbucks (the Coral Gables campus now has two of the popular coffee shops);

a media suite that houses The Miami Hurricane, Ibis Yearbook, and Distraction magazine; offices and cubicles for more than 70 student organizations; a grand ballroom that can seat more than 1,000 people and be divided into three sections; the Scott and Susan Fleischner Kornspan Study Lounge; and extensive meeting and activity space.

“It’s bright, lively, and fun, which is exactly what you need for a student activities center,” says Denis Hector, acting dean of UM’s School of Architecture.

The design of the Student Activities Center connects interior and exterior spaces, offering vistas of the lush, tropical campus.

Student Activities Center by the Numbers

119,368 square feet – total SAC size

15,137 square feet of terrazzo

12,727 square feet of vinyl

3,726 square feet of carpet

8,638 square feet of sealed concrete

$46.5 million – total project cost

$25.2 million – fundraising

$55 million – SAC funds from student fees projected over 30 years

SOURCE: Campus Planning & Development

Level one has ample room to study and socialize; level two houses more than 70 student groups; and level three boasts a grand ballroom.

Designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica and built by Fort Lauderdale’s Moss & Associates, the hurricane-themed building has beach and wave, wind, and raindrop terrazzo patterns on its first, second, and third floors, respectively. The center is designed to achieve silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification with spaces that maximize daylight, a rainwater management system, native landscaping, and a recycling program.

But extensive student-centered

office space is arguably its most important benefit. “To have a building that’s 119,000 square feet and where the vast majority of that space is for students shows UM’s commitment to the student body,” says Chelsea Buffington, associate director of the Student Center Complex, which includes the SAC as well as the renovated Whitten University Center, the refurbished patio and stage area, Foote Green, and The Rock.

Bhumi Patel, president of UM Student Government, which has an

“ It will foster enhanced student engagement, programming, and a renewed sense of community for our campus.”

office at the new building, says the center was “built for students and, in a sense, by students.” The Student Center Complex Advisory Council, consisting of a member from each of the student groups, met regularly to discuss everything from the building’s operating policies to the furniture that would be installed, she notes.

“We wanted a space that would be conducive to facilitating great communication among students, and with this center we’ve achieved that,” says Patel, who believes the center’s inclusion of Graduate Student Association and Law School Student Organization suites can only increase camaraderie among students.

Patricia A. Whitely, vice president

Starbucks is one of several food and beverage purveyors located on the first floor of the center.

“Imagine the Chinese Students and Scholars Association collaborating with members from the aeronautics club—that’s the kind of interaction this place will make possible.” —Mike Piacentino, Student Government chief of staff

for student affairs, devoted a decade to helping bring the $46.5 million project to fruition. “It will foster enhanced student engagement, programming, and a renewed sense of community for our campus,” she says.

The SAC was made possible by a $20 million lead gift from the Fairholme Foundation and a 2006 referendum in which 84 percent of UM students voted to pay an annual fee to help build the new structure and renovate the 40-plus-year-old University Center. UM parents, alumni, trustees, and faculty, among others have contributed another $5.2 million.

Brandon Gross, B.S.C. ’09, M.S.Ed. ’13, was the Student Senate speaker pro tempore the year the referendum passed and served as SG president during the 2008-09 academic year. Gross is now assistant director of the Student Center Complex. “I can’t think of all the adjectives in the world to describe this place,” he says. “Students can be proud about bringing guests to our University and this Student Activities Center that

belongs to them. They come first in every decision we make for this complex.”

At the start of the 2013-14 school year, hundreds of UM students flocked to see the building, lining up to eat at the new Rathskeller, which opened August 21, and taking in the promenade that offers open views of the lake. The SAC’s official opening celebration took place on August 26, the first day of classes, followed by a formal dedication on November 7, during Alumni Weekend and Homecoming Week.

“The student involvement and enthusiasm for this project have remained true from 2003 until now, passed on from class to class,” says Daniel Westbrook, executive director of the Student Center Complex. “It is a tribute to the forethought of all the students from the last decade that they were able to work toward this goal, and now it is a reality.”

For students like biology major Baguidy, that reality is a dream come true. “This is going to be my new home,” she says.

Fabrics were tested to withstand student lifestyle staples ranging from mustard to marker, says campus planner Alicia Corral.

CUBAN DISSIDENTS

LEAVE MARK AT UM

Three women born under Fidel Castro’s rule work to open a flow of ideas across the Florida Strait.

BY CYNTHIA CORZO, B.S.C. ’90

Three Cuban women shared their personal struggles, the reality of life in Cuba, and the challenges of being dissidents in search of political reform in their homeland while visiting the University of Miami last year. Each left her mark among faculty, students, and area residents. A January 2013 change in Cuba’s immigration law, eliminating the mandatory exit permit, paved the way for blogger Yoani Sánchez; Rosa María Payá, daughter of deceased Cuban political activist Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas; and Berta Soler, leader of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), to visit UM’s Cuban Heritage Collection and the Institute for Cuban and CubanAmerican Studies (ICCAS) for the first time. Their message was clearly the same: The Castro regime must end.

YOANI SÁNCHEZ

BERTA SOLER

ROSA MARÍA PAYÁ

“They represent a very brave group of people, the dissidents in Cuba, and they are the first ones allowed to go out and spread the message about oppression and repression in Cuba,” says history professor Jaime Suchlicki, director of ICCAS. “They are talking to the world, to the media.”

Their visits, along with presentations to elected officials and international organizations, Suchlicki notes, have helped to intensify the analysis of and dialogue about the internal situation in Cuba and human rights.

“They provided insight into how the Cuban dissidents are thinking, and we used it as an opportunity to highlight their presence to the Cuban-American community,” he says. “Everybody wants to change the system in Cuba, and we need to work with them.”

The travels of these three outspoken women have included stops in Washington, D.C., Brazil, New York, Brussels, Spain, and the Czech Republic with the intent of opening the eyes of many around the world to the reality of Cuba, the repression instilled by Raúl and Fidel Castro, and the fact that changes touted by Cuban leaders are little more than an effort to refresh the government’s public face.

“It’s the same dog with a different collar,” Soler said of the Cuban government during a brief conversation with Miami: The University of Miami Magazine before her April 27 press conference at ICCAS. The changes, she added, “don’t resolve the economic necessities of the people.”

Wearing the traditional white garb of the Damas de Blanco, Soler insisted Cuba is still a country where people go

hungry and are imprisoned for expressing dissent. The organization was founded by wives and mothers of 75 political prisoners who were arrested during a spring 2003 crackdown on dissidents. Today, the group’s marches take place after Sunday Mass in virtually every major city on the island.

Soler and her family live those sanctions firsthand. Her husband, Angel Moya Acosta, founder of the Alternative Option Movement, was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Soler later waged a very public campaign, including writing a letter to Fidel Castro, urging him to allow surgery on her husband’s herniated disc. After two days of protest in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, Moya received the operation and was released from prison. In March 2012, Soler and Moya were detained along with three dozen other dissidents when they held the weekly Damas de Blanco walk ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba.

“We traveled to denounce what the Cuban government sells,” explained Soler, who took the helm of the Damas de Blanco in 2011 upon the death of its founder, Laura Pollán, “to show the international community firsthand the reality of the Cuban people, of the political prisoners, of the Damas de Blanco, and of the human rights activists.”

At every stop on her trip, Soler, born in 1964, emphasized the need for “moral, spiritual, and material help” for dissidents on the island.

Visiting the U on April 12, five days before Soler, was Rosa María Payá. Born in 1989 into a dissident family, Payá is urging international organizations to open an independent investigation

into the suspicious car crash that killed her father in mid 2012. Subject to increased threats, harassment, and vigilance since her father’s death, she made it very clear that any changes have been within the Cuban population, not the government.

“In Cuba there has been a change, but it has nothing to do with the changes of the government. It has to do with changes that are occurring in the hearts of Cubans who are convinced Cuba needs change,’’ she told The Miami Herald editorial board. “This effort by the Cuban government to sell its reforms as democratic changes, as the beginning of an opening, is what we call cambio fraude (fraudulent change).”

Barely two months after returning to Cuba from the U.S., Payá and six relatives fled back to Miami out of fear of increased persecution. They have since settled in South Florida but have not sought political asylum.

Like Soler and Payá, Sánchez is trying to build bridges between Cubans in the U.S. and their counterparts on the island. “We cannot allow ourselves to keep being divided,” Sánchez said in a speech at Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower, a memorial to Cuban immigration in the United States. She added, “Cuba must have a free press. Otherwise we just sign a blank check for the next person who comes along.”

Sánchez visited the Coral Gables campus in April and again in October.

“Information to me is like a breath of fresh air,” said Sánchez, who writes the award-winning Generación Y (Generation Y) blog and sends out a

constant stream of Twitter messages about daily life in Cuba to hundreds of thousands of followers.

“To see her in person was precious,” says Caridad Tabares, a graduate student in journalism, who attended the April event. “I follow Yoani on Twitter, and she’s so vocal. It takes courage to come outside and say what you need to say and then go back.”

Tabares, who asked Sánchez what journalists outside Cuba could do to help fellow journalists on the island, was surprised by Sánchez’s response.

“It was impressive to hear her talk about how technology is helping them be innovative,” says Tabares. “They’re doing whatever they need to get the word out.”

Sánchez pointed out that underground blogs, digital portals, and illicit e-magazines have a growing presence in Cuba, with information passed around on removable computer drives. She highlighted the need for thumb drives, hard drives, computers, and mobile phones.

“Information circulates hand-tohand through this wonderful gadget known as the memory stick,” said Sánchez, “and it is difficult for the government to intercept them. I can’t imagine that they can put a police officer on every corner to see who has a flash drive and who doesn’t.”

Technology also took center stage during Sánchez’s personal tour of the UM Libraries’ vast Cuban Heritage Collection, home to more than 50,000 Cuba-related books and documents.

Librarian associate professor María R. Estorino, the Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair of the Cuban Heritage Collection, showed Sánchez the collection’s website

and digital library. She also gave her five blank flash drives and five loaded with digital materials as well as interviews from the Luis J. Botifoll Oral History Project.

“Yoani was very interested in our collection and in how we’ve grown it to what it is today,” says Esperanza de Varona, the collection’s recently retired director.

During her initial visit, Sánchez, who was born in Havana in 1975, saw letters written by Fidel Castro when he was imprisoned in Isla de Pinos during the early days of the Cuban Revolution and copies of the newspaper the Castro brothers, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos put out while they were in the Sierra Maestra range. She also looked at a portfolio of poems, songs, and drawings compiled in 1922 by Cuban prisoners accused of being anarchists and newsletters published by Cuban rafters detained at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in 1994.

“Having Yoani, Berta, and Rosa María visit [the University of Miami] was very important, as was everything they had to say,” says de Varona. “Their message was clear: The bottom line is that their permission to travel abroad is simply the Cuban government pretending to show that they are opening up.”

While it’s difficult to understand the Cuban government’s motivation to let dissidents travel abroad, notes Suchlicki, it’s still too early to tell if the visits are backfiring on the Castro brothers.

Since January, some 20 Cuban dissidents have visited South Florida, the majority of them holding press conferences and/or meetings at UM, among other sites. Most recently, famed hunger striker Guillermo Fariñas Hernández

came to UM on August 6. “It’s recognition of the importance of the institute, and it gives UM a bigger presence for when things change in Cuba,” says Suchlicki. “We gave each of them [the Cuban dissidents] a significant amount of information about transitions in other parts of the world, thinking material.”

During her visit, Sánchez also met privately with about 20 academics at ICCAS, discussing the future of Cuba following a post-Castro transition, how to improve the flow of information into the island, and her impressions of how change will evolve in Cuba. Like Soler and Payá, she thinks some changes will come, “but none thinks these will come quickly or easily,” adds Suchliki. “All of them feel the change should be towards a democratic system.”

Most of those who participated in or attended the events featuring Soler, Payá, and Sánchez praised UM faculty and administrators for presenting them.

“It shows the world that UM is taking a bold step in its educational mission,” says senior trustee Carlos de la Cruz, J.D. ’79, who was born in Havana in the 1950s.

Further, it underscores UM’s commitment to diversity, notes journalism student Tabares, and opens the door for the U to be an important player once there is a change in Cuba. “I don’t know how much longer the Castro regime will be in place,” Tabares says, “but hosting [activists like Sánchez] opens the door for a dialogue where UM can be a conduit to bring in professors, analysts, and speakers. UM can help open lines of communication.”

M.D./M.B.A. students, from left, Onyinye Ugorji, Karan Srivastava, and Rimsky Denis, at the Miller School of Medicine, developed an award-winning business plan for the medical industry that won a Google Fiber People’s Choice Award. (Not pictured: Chaitanya Vadlamudi, B.S. ’09)

BY BOB WOODS

PHOTO BY DONNA VICTOR

SHHADE of Health Care to Come

A team of M.D./M.B.A. students wins accolades for a groundbreaking business idea.

THESE DAYS A NEW BREED OF MEDICAL STUDENTS is electing to enhance an already challenging academic endeavor by adding a business dimension—and another year of coursework—to their education. One cohort is enrolled in the University of Miami School of Business Administration’s joint M.D./M.B.A. degree program in partnership with the University’s Miller School of Medicine. Their goal is to prepare for not only practicing medicine, but navigating what’s been called the medical industrial complex— everything from running private offices and clinics to managing public hospital chains and pharmaceutical conglomerates.

In conjunction with their dual academic rigors, an ambitious foursome of M.D./M.B.A.s at the University has developed a business plan for a real-world company with the potential to take a much-needed scalpel to the nation’s skyrocketing health care costs. SHHADE—the acronym for Supplying Home Healthcare Alternatives and Dedicated Education—shines a bright light on the epidemic overutilization of emergency room services and repeat hospital admissions to treat manageable chronic diseases. Both of those dilemmas are confronted in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the much-debated new law better known as Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (ACA). SHHADE demonstrates how it can reduce costs for insurers by providing its patients with primary care directly in their homes, managing their care and teaching them to take control of their own health.

Members of this creative team of entrepreneurial doctors/businesspeople

similar competitions at Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT.

The mother of this invention was a conversation the students had in the library. “We were discussing one of our favorite authors, Atul Gawande,” recalls Srivastava, referring to a highly regarded, Boston-based surgeon and public-health researcher who’s also been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1998. They were chatting about his 2011 article in that magazine, “The Hot Spotters,” which suggests that health care can be improved by targeting high-risk individuals living within concentrated geographic areas, an innovation being used to combat crime in large cities. “We started talking about how we could potentially create a business around that idea,” Srivastava says.

Students in the University’s M.D./ M.B.A. program take an interim year between their third and final years of medical school to focus exclusively on

medical conditions—specifically diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma—too often rely on emergency rooms for care. In many cases these “frequent fliers” delay treatment until the point where they require hospitalization, and because there is usually no regular follow-up care, their readmission rates are inordinately high.

This revolving door puts an enormous strain on private insurance companies and the Medicare and Medicaid system. Under the ACA’s inherent aim of reducing costs, insurers cannot decline patients with preexisting conditions, they cannot charge more for complex patients with multiple chronic conditions, nor can they impose higher premiums for patients who utilize more medical services. Statistics reveal “hot spots,” both patient populations and geographic areas, where overutilization of ER and hospital services is rampant. What’s more, one-third of all

“We all went to med school and will practice medicine, but during our one M.B.A. year we wanted to explore as much of the business world as possible.”

are Rimsky Denis, Onyinye Ugorji, Chaitanya Vadlamudi, B.S. ’09, and Karan Srivastava. Solid evidence that they’re onto something: They’ve entered numerous business plan competitions and won major honors. Closest to home, in April they walked away with the grand prize of $5,000 in the graduate student category of UM’s 2013 Business Plan Competition. SHHADE had previously received national acclaim at Hackovate Health, an innovation competition in Kansas City, Missouri, where the students won the Google Fiber People’s Choice Award. They came in second at both Emory University’s Global Health Case Competition and the University of Cincinnati’s Spirit of Enterprise Graduate Business Plan Competition. They earned third place in the Walmart Better Living Business Plan Challenge and were semifinalists in

courses that cover finance, strategy, management, marketing, and other business requisites. Among the electives available is an entrepreneurship course that requires writing a business plan, which Denis and Ugorji took.

Armed with a basic concept and fundamentals, the group got down to business. “We didn’t have a product or service in mind,” Vadlamudi admits, “but we had certain goals, such as increasing access to health care and making sure quality care was affordable to people. The M.B.A. gave us the tools we needed to make SHHADE into a scalable, sustainable business model that was for-profit.”

SHHADE squarely addresses a perplexing, and costly, reality of the nation’s health care system. The cornerstone of the business plan is the fact that patients suffering from chronic

U.S. hospital stays and ER visits, which equates to $38 billion, could have been prevented with primary care.

SHHADE’s business model proposes a multidimensional solution to this vexing problem. These chronic diseases are largely manageable with outpatient therapies, so a core element is mobile, in-home primary care services. Once a patient is enrolled with SHHADE, he or she is paired with a physician and case manager, who visit the patient at home to evaluate medical, social, and economic needs and set up a comprehensive care plan. A nurse practitioner schedules monthly checkups, though they can visit more often if the patient’s health worsens.

The next step is to provide the patient with high-tech measurement devices that monitor blood sugar levels, heart rate, body weight, and other

vitals, automatically relaying them to a central databank. If an abnormality is detected, the care team is notified and contacts the patient to resolve the issue, hopefully avoiding a trip to the ER or hospital. Additionally, the patient can call a 24/7 hotline if a problem arises.

A care coordination team—comprising a physician, nurse practitioner, certified nursing assistant, and case manager—meets weekly to review the patient’s health and adjust the care plan if necessary. The end result is a managed, preventive care system that educates patients about their diseases, accounts for social and economic factors, and ultimately helps them control their own medical fates. “If we can provide these services in homes, it’s still expensive, but much cheaper than in the ER or the hospital,” Vadlamudi states.

“This business plan is dealing with a significant and timely issue,” says Steven G. Ullmann, professor and director of the Center for Health Sector Management and Policy at the business school, as well as an advisor to the SHHADE team. “SHHADE has a methodology that provides insurers with a way to reduce their costs. It also

Steven Ullmann, the business school’s director of the Center for Health Sector Management and Policy, says SHHADE could help hospitals cut costs.

cuts costs for hospitals and saves the country money.”

In guiding the students through the development of their business plan, Ullmann played devil’s advocate, a methodology he’s proudly honed over more than 35 years of teaching and consulting. “I push back on ideas,” he says. “Where are the holes?”

Ullmann’s tactic prepared the team for the skepticism they encountered when presenting their idea to hospital and insurance executives while preparing the business plan. “They were skeptical with our lack of experience, but I think we compensated with the amount of research we’ve done and the people we’ve spoken to,” Ugorji asserts. “We’ve looked to experts in their fields in terms of getting their advice. It’s not just us being naïve dreamers. It’s us trying to get critical feedback so we can make this more realistic.”

“Expert testimony definitely helped our business plan,” Srivastava adds, “but at the end of the day, it’s hard to argue with the numbers. Health care in general is a risk-averse field, for good reasons, so even with ACA, you see change happening in steps, not one sweeping reform.”

This may not sound like traditional med-student speak, yet it’s emblematic of the evolution of health care in America, blending compassionate, universal coverage with fiscal accountability, not just among organizations providing medical services but also physicians and other practitioners. M.D./M.B.A. students, by learning to recognize and deal with the business complexities of the industry, add a new

dimension to the Hippocratic Oath. These days, pledging to knowledgably, honestly, and ethically care for every patient also means doing so within a cost-effective, sustainable system.

It’s no coincidence, then, that M.D./M.B.A. programs are proliferating across the nation. In the late 1990s, there were only a handful of universities offering them; today there are nearly 70, with more than 500 students attending. UM’s program launched in 2008.

“We all went to med school and will practice medicine, but during our one M.B.A. year we wanted to explore as much of the business world as possible,” Srivastava says. “Going to competitions, learning how to talk to executives, how to give elevator pitches, writing business plans, making presentations, that allowed us to get a glimpse of what the business world offers and how to bring about policy changes.”

Mark T. O’Connell, senior associate dean for Educational Development and the Bernard J. Fogel Chair in Medical Education at the Miller School, lauds the program and SHHADE. “The success of our M.D./M.B.A. students demonstrates the incredible talents they will bring to the medical profession,” he contends. “Projects like SHHADE are not about the business of medicine. They are about improving the quality and delivery of health care and the health of our population. These students will be leaders in their field.”

Although SHHADE’s business plan has won over judges in competitions— including UM’s, which empanels venture capitalists and private equity investors—the $300,000 needed to get it off the ground remains elusive. In the meantime, the four M.D./M.B.A.s earned their M.B.A. degrees last May and transitioned back to the Miller School, where their busy final year included interviewing for residencies. Launching SHHADE isn’t in their foreseeable futures, but they steadfastly believe in the viability of the business and hope future M.D./M.B.A.s at UM will help them someday make it a reality. “If we can carry the torch and get more people involved in this idea,” says Ugorji, “we can make it come to fruition.”

In the wake of the NCAA ruling, UM looks forward to a bright future with its sights set squarely on compliance and collegial competition.

Moving Forward

BY ROBERT STRAUSS

A FEW DAYS AFTER THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

handed down its penalties to the University of Miami, President Donna E. Shalala took time to speak with this magazine, reflecting on the sanctions, the investigation’s impact on the University, and the future of the place she has helped transform into a top-tier research institution.

Speaking by phone from her office in the Ashe Administration Building with its expansive view of UM’s bustling campus green, Shalala said the hardest part of waiting was the impact on recruiting and the inability to move full speed ahead.

It was important, insisted Shalala, not just to cooperate with the NCAA’s 27-month investigation, but to think about how to react internally.

“The big challenge is to change the culture and get people to take responsibility, and if a rule is broken, to report it immediately,” she said. “We have already put in place stronger compliance rules.”

In a sense, the past few years have served as a call to action at the University. When the NCAA finally meted out its findings and penalties on the morning of October 22, 2013, after four months of deliberation, it was clear Shalala and the University of Miami were eager to embrace a brighter future. Almost immediately, the University announced its acceptance of the committee’s decision and its own responsibility in the case while reaffirming its commitment to the core principles of the NCAA, of which it is a member institution.

The 102-page ruling from the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions centered around entertainment perks and other impermissible benefits provided by the ill-gotten gains of a booster now in federal prison for orchestrating a nearly $1 billion Ponzi scheme. The scenarios described in the report span 2002 to 2010; all of the student-athletes or athletics staff implicated in it have either graduated from or otherwise left the University.

The committee commended UM, a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, for being a partner with the NCAA in the investigation and cooperating fully throughout the process. Further, Committee on Infractions chairman Britton Banowsky called the sanctions UM chose to impose on its athletics programs “severe and unprecedented.”

The Committee on Infractions also found fault with aspects of the NCAA’s investigation, citing, among other problems, “inappropriate conduct by the NCAA staff to gather the information,” which “resulted in the exclusion of the information from the record.”

‘We All Have to Take Responsibility’

Throughout this very public case, the University has grown accustomed to receiving cheers and jeers, along with speculation, from all over the nation, but what matters most now, say University officials, is education and vigilance: What can the University do to prevent this from ever happening again and what do those who are now in control think can be learned from the agonizing experience?

calls and texts to and from coaches, in hopes of limiting even minor recruiting infractions.

“We all have to take responsibility,” said Shalala, “not just the people who work in the athletics department.”

No one at the University wants to take a chance that this could happen again without vigilance. In November 2012, UM created the position of vice president and chief compliance officer, appointing University of Texas at Austin compliance director Rudolph “Rudy” Green to the post. He started work in January 2013.

“In making the decision to create a University-wide compliance and ethics function directed by a high-level officer, the University has made a strong commitment to strengthening management of compliance risk in all areas of operation,” said Green.

“Miami is an institution with incredible people, strong values, and a commitment to doing things the right way everywhere.”

“Miami’s cooperation throughout this process, under the tremendous leadership of President Donna Shalala, should be commended, and I’m glad the NCAA recognized and appreciated the self-imposed efforts that were at such a significant level,” stated John Swofford, the ACC commissioner, in the wake of the report.

Though the committee acknowledged and accepted UM’s “extensive and significant self-imposed penalties”—including recruiting restrictions, two years of bowl bans, and sitting out the 2012 ACC Championship Game—it still found cause to impose additional sanctions. Those included public reprimand and censure, a three-year probation period through October 21, 2016, and the loss of a total of nine football and three men’s basketball scholarships over the course of the next three seasons. The football team was given fewer hours and contacts for recruiting over that time.

“What we have to do now is work hard at trying to figure out how this happened over such a long time period and put everything we can in place to make sure it never happens again,” said Blake James, hired as interim director of athletics toward the end of the NCAA investigation in October 2012, before being confirmed in the role this past February. “I took this job knowing this case was there. From day one, President Shalala said we were going to address any issue we discovered.”

Shalala said the University had strong rules before but has implemented further rules that are more stringent than existing NCAA strictures. For example, though the NCAA permits athletes to have meals at boosters’ homes, the University will no longer allow that. Further, the University has instituted a system that enables the athletic administration to track phone

‘Headed in the Right Direction’

One of the University’s point people during the NCAA investigation is a University hire from “the other side,” senior associate athletic director for administration and student excellence Jennifer Strawley. A former studentathlete herself who played softball at the University of Pennsylvania, Strawley spent most of her professional career at the NCAA. She joined the University of Miami athletics department staff in July 2012. “I think my background offers a unique perspective, and it shows the University’s commitment to ensuring a culture of compliance,” said Strawley, whose purview includes academics, compliance, gender issues, sports medicine, and sport oversight. “Miami is an institution with incredible people, strong values, and a commitment to doing things the right way everywhere, so I think

we’re headed in the right direction.”

Strawley works closely on these issues with James and Craig Anderson, UM’s associate AD for compliance, who joined UM last year. She said it’s no secret that most vulnerabilities come in the two major sports—football and basketball—as happened in Miami’s case. “There are just more hands in those pots, more people on the outside, too, who are interested,” she said. But Strawley, James, and Shalala all have the highest praise for the coaches now in control of those teams: Al Golden in football and Jim Larrañaga in basketball, both of whom came in after the University had begun working with the NCAA to uncover the violations.

For their part, coaches Golden and Larrañaga have praised the University’s efforts in this arena and vow to work ever harder with their constituents.

Golden released an official statement the morning of the report that read in part, “I want to sincerely thank our studentathletes and their families who not only stood with the University of Miami during this unprecedented challenge, but subsequently volunteered for the mission. They shouldered the burden, exhibited class, and exemplified perseverance for Hurricanes everywhere.”

Behind the scenes, his voice cracked with emotion during a team meeting documented for an episode of the athletics department’s “Raising ’Canes” Web series titled “Moving Forward.” “You guys have dug in,” he told his players just after learning they would now be eligible for a bowl game. “You could have quit, you could have run, but look where you are now. That’s a testament to you guys.”

Golden reaffirmed for the on-camera interview: “We just have to move forward now and have a renewed spirit… and really stay focused on what’s in front of us.

“That’s what we’re trying to teach our team,” he continued, “teach them how to finish: finish every play, finish every day, finish every game, finish every challenge that we give you until that becomes a mindset.”

The lesson was not lost on quarterback Stephen Morris, who said giving up on Miami was never an option. “We

just had faith in Coach Golden and faith in the president and the AD, and they steered us the right way,” he said. Larrañaga also has used the issue as a learning tool. “I am a big believer that success is based on attitude,” his official NCAA-related statement read. “We continually remind our players that life is ten percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it. We will continue to approach our work with a positive attitude as we march towards being the best we can be.”

‘Everyone Can Move Forward’

Despite what James described as a “black cloud of uncertainty” that hung over UM as it awaited the NCAA’s final verdict, the forecast seems to be improving. In October, Athletics opened a brand-new facility for its 400-plus student-athletes (see story p. 9), who are also excelling in the classroom. “Our student-athletes are doing well academically,” said James. “Our Graduation Success Rate is 92 percent, and they had a collective GPA of over 3.0 in spring 2013.”

Warren K. Zola, assistant dean for Graduate Programs in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and an expert in college athletic program administration, said the University of

Miami did the right thing by both investigating itself and not challenging the NCAA’s findings. “Everyone can move forward and not have the NCAA’s final penalty hanging over the institution, athletic program, coaches, and studentathletes,” he said.

Marvin Dawkins, a UM professor of sociology in his second year as ACC and NCAA faculty representative for the U, thinks positive steps may be happening at a national level. He vows to be as active as possible on the compliance issue and believes the ACC is moving in that direction too. “The ACC is a very active, very dynamic core of faculty athletics representatives,” said Dawkins. “We will be involved in discussions about changes that are needed for the NCAA to be more effective. I expect there will be lively discussions and maybe some action, but certainly proposals, soon.”

In the end though, explained Shalala, better vigilance on the athletic front has not been an obstacle on the University’s road to improvement. “Anyone running a large university has to take some time to deal with athletics, but, on the other hand, it has not had any impact on our academic mission,” she said. “We are getting better and better students— and student-athletes—at the University, and that should be our primary goal, even in the face of what we have gone through here.”

Graduation Success Rates (GSR) and GPAs are on the rise for UM student-athletes.

NewmaN

A little green can make a big impact for scholarships!

Fifty years ago Judi Prokop Newman, B.B.A. ’63, came to the University of Miami on a donor-funded scholarship. Judi started giving back as soon as she graduated— she readily acknowledges it was very little at the time, but as her finances improved, so did her giving. Since then, the generosity of Judi and her husband, Robert Newman, Honorary Alumnus ’08, has enabled many other excellent students to graduate. Now the Newmans, for whom the Newman Alumni Center is named, have launched a $500,000 philanthropic challenge to encourage all fellow ’Canes to keep supporting the U at any level. Over 4,500 alumni loyal donors renewed their giving by December 31, 2013, so the Newmans have agreed to donate $250,000 in scholarships to the University of Miami! Thank you to all alumni who have supported this challenge—but the work is not over yet. If a total of 10,700 donors from last fiscal year renew their gift again this year by May 31, 2014, the whole $500,000 will be secured for student scholarships.

Any gift, any size, anywhere makes a difference.

To join the Newman Alumni Loyalty Challenge, call Troy Odom, Executive Director, Annual Giving, at 305-284-2667 or email t.odom@miami.edu. For more information, visit miami.edu/annualgiving.

Robert and Judi

ALUMNI LOYALTY CHAL -

Alumni Digest

The Rat Comes of Age

40-year tradition rocks on, blending modern comforts with familiar appeal

During the Rathskeller’s 40 years as a hub of social life at the U, no one has clocked more hours at the on-campus watering hole than Everett Price, A.B. ’84. “I worked at the Rat as an undergrad in the early ’80s. I met my wife [Germaine Guerrier-Price, A.B. ’84] there!” he says. For the past two decades, Price has managed the Rat.

As the new Student Activities Center was readied for its August debut, Price was working 18-hour days preparing the new, much larger Rat for its highly anticipated opening on August 21. The thousands who have had a chance to see the new version of the Rat know that a good deal of nostalgia and tradition have been retained in the soaring twostory space with its airy billiards loft. Carryovers from the original Rat, which opened in December 1972 and was modeled after the underground German bar concept, are the wooden gliders, now filling the Epstein Patio alongside Lake Osceola, as well as uniforms, posters, and other UM memorabilia showcased on the ample wall space. Free popcorn is another holdover, as are milkshakes and many other familiar menu items.

The Rat’s 21st-century updates include its bright contemporary look, a high-tech audiovisual system, a wall of flat-screen televisions for game viewing, a snazzy patio bar, and—Price’s favorite addition—an elevator.

He likens the transition from old to new Rat to the Hurricanes’ move from the Orange Bowl to Sun Life Stadium. “Although we loved the tradition and the old building,” he says, “we need to continue the tradition in a modern facility.”

The new Rat employs 110 students, more than ever before. Price says the Rat serves around 500 people daily who go through thousands of pounds of

food each week—including roughly 600 pounds of french fries, 300 pounds of chicken fingers, and 90 gallons of Edy’s ice cream. Price is a ’Cane to the core—his wife and daughter are alumnae and his son is a junior at UM. But as a communications major, Price never pictured himself playing such a key role in “maintaining the tradition of the Rathskeller” so many years later. He considers his job “a pleasure and an honor.” Price says all the long hours and late nights through the years have given him something invaluable in return: “Seeing students become confident and responsible, taking on and succeeding in new challenges. Overall working with the students keeps you young.”

To buy a Rathskeller Memory Brick, visit miami.edu/ratbricks or call 305-284-2805.

‘Accelerating Ambition’ in Asia

The University of Miami and Provost Thomas J. LeBlanc are headed to Tokyo on April 23, Beijing on April 25, and Shanghai on April 26 for the Accelerating Ambition tour. If you live in Asia or will be visiting, the UM Alumni Association would love to see you there. Call 1-866-862-5867 or email alumni@miami.edu for details and to update your alumni record.

PHOTOS BY JENNY ABREU

Inspiring the Next Generation with ‘Star Trek’ Exhibit

The University of Miami may have been but a brief stop on his voyage to “boldy go where no man has gone before,” but now a lasting record of this institution’s long-ago link with visionary Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, ’46, is available for all to see at the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center.

Roddenberry Entertainment, headed by Gene’s only son, recently donated Star Trek memorabilia from the estate’s personal collection. Among the unique items on display inside the Toll Library are a replica of the Starship Enterprise, a script from the original Star Trek episode “The Menagerie,” and a number of photographs of Gene and his wife, Majel Barrett Hudec Roddenberry, A.B. ’54. But Majel and Gene didn’t cross paths at UM. Gene took classes here after serving as a World War II Air Force pilot. Majel enrolled nearly a decade later. They connected in Hollywood in 1964, when Majel was cast as “Number

One” in the first pilot of a new science fiction show, Star Trek. In the series’ second pilot, she landed the recurring role of Nurse Christine Chapel. In 1969 she and Gene wed. They were married until his death in 1991; Majel died in 2008.

Son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry never attended UM but was happy to donate several pieces to represent the groundbreaking series. “Working with the University on a tribute to my parents couldn’t make me prouder,” says Roddenberry, who released the documentary Trek Nation in 2011. “It’s my sincere hope that the exhibit will inspire the University of Miami’s young minds of tomorrow towards what they can accomplish in their own futures. It is that

about the items in the UM collection at miami.edu/miamimagazine.com.

legacy of inspiration my parents handed down to me that I hope to share with future generations, including my newly born son, Zale.”

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

• Available to the public

J.C.

RIDLEY

President Shalala holds a model of the Starship Enterprise from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. Read more

Young Alumni Program Takes Flight in First Year

she graduated from the University of Miami, Shajena Erazo, A.B. ’08, has blossomed into a community leader, making a differ ence in the lives of at-risk students as a public school teacher in Washington, D.C. Erazo was named a White House Champions of Change finalist in 2012 and a D.C. Teacher of the Year finalist in 2013. Now she’s also one of more than 60 ambitious and accomplished young alumni who have chosen to serve their alma mater through the Young Alumni Leadership Council (YALC).

“The YALC creates a transition and pipeline for students to go from being recent college graduates trying to figure out how they’ll change the world to active members of society who continue to invest in their university as alumni,” says Erazo, who was a scholarship recipient at UM. “I joined because I want to keep giving back to the school that

mission is to support UM and the UM Alumni Association through the new Young Alumni Program, launched in January 2013.

GOLDstein Family Challenge—surpassed expectations (see page 34); traveling initiatives, like the Impact of U tour with President Donna E. Shalala and Welcome to the Neighborhood receptions (#W2UMHood), held from Savannah to San Francisco, have boasted strong attendance rates as well.

The goal of the Young Alumni Program is to boost involvement and philanthropy in a key constituency by educating current UM students about the program’s benefits and services and by building a group of young leaders

Already the program has received a warm welcome from those it aims to engage. Almost 7,000 young alumni opened an email sent to introduce them to the Young Alumni Program—that’s roughly 42 percent of its intended recipients. Thousands more discovered the program via social media posts. As a result, the Young Alumni Program’s first official campaign—to support the

Young Alumni Leadership

Why are Young Alumni Important?

25,000

who will guide the program to success for the foreseeable future.

With more and more volunteers like Erazo, who hopes to become U.S. secretary of education or UM president one day, that future is looking brighter than ever.

For more information visit miami.edu/youngalumni or scan this QR code.

Coming Soon!

YOUNG ALUMNI INDIVIDUALLY ENGAGED*

5,146 15%

*Engagement includes: Participation, Volunteering, and Making a Gift

Approximately of the total alumni population are young alumni, and the percentage grows each year

Florida residents will soon be able to buy the new U license plate for just $25 over the price of a regular tag. The cost helps fund scholarships at UM. For more information or to update your alumni record, call the Office of Alumni Relations at 1-866-862-5867 or email alumni@miami.edu.

Help Raise Half a Million for Scholarships

Earlier this year, Robert Newman, Hon. ’08, and UM trustee Judi Prokop Newman, B.B.A. ’63, initiated the Newman Alumni Loyalty Challenge in the hopes of inspiring fellow ’Canes to give back what they can each year to their alma mater.

The generous couple pledged $500,000 for student scholarships if a total of 10,700 alumni renewed their previous year’s gifts to the University of Miami by May 31, 2014.

Alumni surpassed the Newman Challenge’s first milestone of 2,500 repeat donors by October 31, securing $125,000 of the half-million-dollar

of scholarships. “Like many students today,” she says, “I was a scholarship recipient at UM and relied on the generous philanthropic support from alumni to keep my dreams of graduating from college alive.”

As soon as she graduated, Judi started giving back. “Granted it was very little at the time,” she says. “But as my finances improved, so did my giving. What was important was keeping engaged with the university I loved, no matter the size of my gift.”

given for so many years and know that doing so creates a good feeling and helps alumni remain engaged with the institution they hold dear.”

Visit newmanchallenge.com for more information.

total and went on to meet the next $125,000 milestone of 4,500 renewed alumni donations by December 31, 2013.

“If we all could give back, even just a little, think of the impact we could make by paying it forward to today’s students,” says Judi Prokop Newman. Judi knows plenty about the impact

Troy Odom, executive director of

Annual Giving

“What was important was keeping engaged with the university I loved, no matter the size of my gift.”

at UM, said the Newmans created the Newman Alumni Loyalty Challenge because they “wanted to encourage everyone to give every year, at any amount. They’ve

Young Alumni Exceed Expectations

The GOLDstein Family Challenge—to get 2,013 young alumni to donate by the end of the 2013 fiscal year—was so successful that the Goldstein family, Sandy, B.B.A. ’81, M.B.A. ’85, Cindy, B.S.N. ’79, and their son Sean, B.B.A. ’12, (pictured at left) offered a bonus challenge of $10,000 above their original $25,000 pledge to student scholarships if 2,400 young alumni stepped up. Exceeding expectations again, a total of 2,821 young alumni gave by the deadline, raising $602,656.79 to support a variety of programming, including student scholarships. As a result, young alumni Annual Giving participation increased to 11.3 percent, up approximately 4 percent over last year.

The top five areas supported were ophthalmology, athletics, the Miller School of Medicine, UM football, and financial aid.

JENNY

1950s

Class Notes Citizen ’Cane

Richard McConaghy, B.B.A. ’50, retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander. He lives in Pennsylvania and is a manufacturer’s representative for Protec Cooling Towers Inc. of Miami. At UM he belonged to the fraternities Sigma Nu and Delta Sigma Pi.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes, J.D. ’57, returned to Antwerp, Belgium, in September for the opening of the Red Star Line Museum, named for the fleet of ships that carried Jewish refugees like Fuentes and her family from Antwerp to New York to escape Nazi Germany. Her story was documented by several newspapers in Sarasota, Florida, where she lives.

Bernard S. Rosenblatt, A.B. ’58, was elected as the Knoxville Museum of Art’s chairman of the board. A board member since 2005, he previously served as chair-elect, chair of the strategic planning committee, and chair of the education committee. He retired in 2005 as executive director of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance. Rosenblatt has a theatre arts degree from UM, a master’s in speech and drama from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in theatre arts/ education from the University of Missouri.

1960s

Allan R. Bonilla, A.B. ’62, had his first book published: I’m in the Principal’s Seat, NOW WHAT? The Story of a Turnaround Principal (Corwin, 2013). With more than 40 years’ experience as an award-winning educator, including 14 years as a middle school principal in Miami-Dade County, Bonilla is now a leadership coach and a faculty member of the National

Principals Leadership Institute in New York City. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas.

Roger Shatanof, M.Ed. ’64, recently self-published A Principal’s Diary: Memoir of a Big City Principal after serving for 34 years as a teacher and principal in the Miami-Dade County Public School system before retiring in 1995. Previously he was a navigator-bombardier in the U.S. Air Force.

Bob A. Sheridan, B.S.Ed. ’66, a boxing and MMA commentator, recently broadcast his 950th World Title Fight with Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a member of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame board of directors.

Sam Daley-Harris, B.M. ’69, M.M. ’75, is founder and president of RESULTS education fund, the Microcredit Summit Campaign, and the Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation. In 2013 Camino Books released the 20th anniversary edition of his book, Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break Between People and Government, with a new chapter on the Citizens Climate Lobby, on whose advisory board Daley-Harris sits. The foreword is by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Edith A. Fiore, Ph.D. ’69, an author and clinical psychologist specializing in hypnoanalysis, recently self-published her first historical novel, Mistress of the Two Lands: A Novel of the Female Pharaoh.

Aida Levitan, A.B. ’69, was named to the board of directors of U.S. Century Bank in Miami.

Robert Loughlin, B.B.A. ’69, is president/CEO of Techtron Trading Corp., a commodity brokerage firm in Palmetto Bay, Florida. He is also writing a screenplay set in the Florida Keys.

Bruce S. Rubin, A.B. ’69, founder

From Cuba to Citizens Board President

Al Vara’s rise to the helm of one of his alma mater’s most esteemed philanthropic organizations, the University of Miami Citizens Board, began inside a nondescript classroom on the Coral Gables campus. But that was three University presidents and three generations ago.

The year was 1960, and Vara’s parents had just fled communist Cuba with their young family. Vara, who was a toddler at the time, says his father was one of the many immigrants who found invaluable assistance at the University of Miami, then led by Henry King Stanford, in acclimating to a new life and new language.

“Dr. Stanford extended the University’s resources to refugees, specifically Cubans, more than any other university in this country has ever done for any group,” says Vara, B.S.E.E. ’79, M.S.E.E. ’85. “Thanks to this institution’s vision, my father learned English within months after migrating to this country.”

Two decades later, Vara received his UM diploma signed by Stanford. His graduate school degree in electrical engineering was conferred by UM’s next president, Tad Foote. UM is also the place where Vara met his wife, Ana Vara, B.B.A. ’80. And it’s where the couple’s two children, Alexander, B.S. ’09, M.D. ’13, and Carolina, B.S.Ed. ’09, matriculated—this time under Donna E. Shalala’s presidency.

Through it all, Vara, a member of the University’s Board of Trustees, has experienced UM’s transformative power firsthand. He is the successful business owner of Tropical Trailer Leasing, the transportation leasing company his father opened in 1969. And since 1986, he has been a member of the Citizens Board, which has raised $380 million to support community-based efforts and outreach programs at UM since its founding in 1946. The Varas also donate generously to many other areas of the U, from the Lowe Art Museum to the Ryder Trauma Center.

Now, taking his post as Citizens Board president for the next year, Vara is steering an elite cadre of more than 250 business, professional, and civic leaders toward a Momentum2 campaign goal of $50 million. In September, he announced that their goal was already 72 percent achieved. “The magic of the Citizens Board,” he explains, “is in our members’ ability to friend-raise for the University of Miami, helping to build relationships with individuals, foundations, and corporations that can make an impactful philanthropic difference.”

Robin Shear

JENNY ABREU

of RBB Public Relations, received the 2013 Bill Adams Lifetime Achievement Award from the Public Relations Society of America Miami.

1970s

Kennneth J. Moses, B.M. ’72, M.M. ’74, associate dean for undergraduate education at the Frost School of Music, retired this past May after more than 40 years at the school, where he previously served as director of the Band of the Hour and director of admission.

Jonathan T. Lord, B.S. ’73, M.D. ’78, was appointed to the board of directors for both Vigilant Biosciences and Mako Surgical.

Enid Shomer, M.A. ’74, of Tampa, won the 2013 Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing. The award, in its fourth year, is overseen by the Florida Humanities Council and presented at the governor’s mansion. Shomer, the first female recipient of the honor, was selected from 13 nominees by a five-person panel. The author of fiction, poetry, and essays is a lecturer in the University of Tampa’s Master of Fine Arts program. National Public Radio named her debut novel, Twelve Rooms of the Nile (Simon

and Schuster, 2012), one of the six best historical novels of 2012.

Patricia A. Redmond, A.B. ’75, J.D. ’79, director of Miami Law’s Bankruptcy Assistance Clinic, was inducted for a one-year term as president of the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Andrew Smith, J.D. ’77, joined Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation in New York City as senior vice president, legal.

José Abreu, B.S.C.E. ’78, former director of Miami-Dade Aviation Department and former Florida Department of Transportation secretary under Governor Jeb Bush, was hired as senior vice president of Gannett Fleming, responsible for strategic growth and business development initiatives at the Miami-based global infrastructure firm.

Kenneth R. Benoit, M.M. ’78, had his piece “Mosaics,” composed for tuba and woodwinds, performed at a Southeastern Composers League Forum in 2013.

James S. Cassel, J.D. ’79, is cofounder and chairman of Cassel Salpeter & Co. The Miami-based investment banking firm won the “Sector Deal of the Year: Consumer Services” category in the 7th Annual M&A Advisor Turnaround Awards for its role in

Mixed Media

The Standards

The latest from Grammy Awardwinner Gloria Estefan, A.B. ’78, was orchestrated and co-produced by Frost School of Music Dean Shelly Berg. The Grammy-nominated, The Standards (Sony Masterworks, 2013) is a collection of classic tunes—some in English, some in Spanish, but all totally Gloria. The tracks selected, she says, “spoke to me personally and made me cry.” PBS video: tinyurl.com/paun2qg.

Miami Transformed

During the eight years Manny Diaz, J.D. ’80, served as mayor of the city of Miami—2001 to 2009—the national economy went from bust to boom to bust again. But in his nonfiction book, Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America One Neighborhood, One City at a Time (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Diaz goes beyond economics, addressing everything from coming of age as a Cuban immigrant in Miami to leading his hometown from corruption and cultural divides to the ranks of “a world-class metropolis.”

Lifeology 101 … Back 2 School

UMAA Boutique

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.

Once part of a rising all-male vocal group in the ’90s, Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96, has returned to R&B with a vengeance. Independent and self-funded, he wrote and performed the ten tracks on his sophomore release, Lifeology 101 … Back 2 School (2012), “about life, love, and the industry,” he says.

Vida Linda

International artist, fashion designer, and singer/songwriter Marisabel Bazan, B.S.C. ’97, sees the world as her canvas. Her work has graced airports, T-shirts, and most recently totes. As LeSportsac’s 2011 Artist in Residence, she created three cool, colorful lines that reflect her global outlook: Musica, Besos, and the butterfly-themed Vida Linda. Says Bazan: “UM helped me spread my wings and go for my dreams.”

the restructuring and $30 million sale of Silver Airways (formerly Gulfstream International Airlines) to Victory Park Capital.

David M. Hinkes, A.B. ’79, cowrote Selling By Objectives: The Handbook for More Profitability in the 21st Century, which is in its third edition.

1980s

Beryl Solla, M.F.A. ’80, professor of art, won the 2013 PVCC Distinguished Service Award from Piedmont Virginia Community College, where she has taught since 1999. Faculty, staff, and students nominated her. Her gallery openings, free movie nights, and annual light-themed exhibition have drawn thousands of community members to campus.

Gregory Hiczewski, M.B.A. ’82, has been chief financial officer of UBMD Internal Medicine at the University at Buffalo, the largest campus in the State University of New York system, since 2011.

Michael S. Rosen, M.B.A. ’84, a UM President’s Council member and senior VP of new business development for the Forest City Science + Technology Group, received the inaugural Cures Within Reach Patient Impact Legacy Award from the Midwest BioScience Industry.

Santiago Corrada, A.B. ’86, M.S.Ed. ’91, formerly the chief of staff for the city of Tampa, is now president and CEO of Tampa Bay & Co., Hillsborough County’s official tourism agency.

Laird A. Lile, LL.M.E. ’87, was elected president of Naples High School’s School Advisory Council.

Jerome Ravenna, B.B.A. ’87, earned a Doctor of Education degree in organizational leadership from Nova Southeastern University in 2012. He was accepted to Barry University’s Podiatric School of Medicine for this year.

Rhonda Smith, B.S.N. ’87, M.S.N. ’89, a nurse practitioner, retired from Jackson Memorial Hospital

after 30 years in 2013; she spent 19 years in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. Married for 35 years with two grandsons, she stays active with the Oncology Nursing Society, going to the gym, gardening, reading, and photography.

Buckley J. Hugo, B.M. ’89, is the father of a teenager with autism. He founded Midcoast Advocacy in 2008 to help families of children with special needs obtain educational support from school districts. He also works in the music publishing business and lives in Portland, Maine.

Brian Itzkowitz, B.B.A. ’89, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Arkansas, was named 2013 Nonprofit Executive of the Year by Arkansas Business. The magazine cited the 17 new retail outlets that have opened and the spike in the number of Arkansans who have received career services and job placements through Goodwill since Itzkowitz took its helm in 2008.

Jackie Nespral, A.B. ’89, who has been with NBC for 21 years, was named Best TV News Anchor of 2013 in the “Best Of” issue published by Miami New Times newspaper.

Gerald T. Roden, J.D. ’89, an attorney with the Roden Law Firm, was appointed by Governor Rick Scott to serve on the Board of Volunteer Florida, which leads initiatives throughout the state that use volunteerism as a strategy to meet needs. He lives in Vero Beach, Florida, with his wife and son.

1990s

Scott Bernstein, B.B.A. ’91, is a management analyst for the U.S. Army at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, the only active duty military installation in the New York City metropolitan area.

Christopher Parks, B.S. ’91, M.D. ’94, board certified in internal

Citizen ’Cane

A Talent for Otherworldly Roles

When she enrolled at the University of Miami, Aisha Hinds, B.F.A. ’98, planned to be an accountant and follow in the footsteps of her father, fellow ’Cane Mark Hinds, M.S. ’79.

But soon she began seeing her former classmates from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York on the silver screen, people like Omar Epps and Marlon Wayans. “I made the connection, ‘Wait a minute, this could actually be a career,’” says Hinds. “I began to pursue acting from that perspective. Miami has an incredible business school, so I learned how to marry the craft to the business.”

Hinds, whose undergraduate degree is in theater performance, broke into showbiz with voiceover work on the kids’ series Blue’s Clues. Her big break came in the 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13, starring Ethan Hawke, Maria Bello, and Laurence Fishburne.

“It was an ensemble cast of incredible people whom I admired. They were so different from each other, but worked so cohesively together,” says Hinds, of Los Angeles. “That was the job that solidified me as a professional working actress; I didn’t need a survival job anymore.”

After that movie, Hinds had a small-screen hit. “I gained notoriety as Miss Jeanette on True Blood [2008-10]. That was when I became recognizable,” she says. “That role put it over the top for me. Still to this day, people recognize me from that show.”

Her TV and film resume also includes roles in Lost, Detroit 1-8-7, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Under the Dome, among others. The latter, a sci-fi series on CBS produced by Steven Spielberg and based on Stephen King’s novel, chronicles the people of Chester’s Mill, who become engulfed by a force field that cuts them off from the rest of society.

“When I read the script, I was enamored by it,” says Hinds, who plays Carolyn Hill, one half of a married lesbian couple. “Just the idea of these different people trapped in a scenario nobody signed up for and in a situation where, as time proceeds, your character is tested further and further and deeper and deeper was very compelling for me.”

With Dome renewed for a second season, Hinds, unlike her character, isn’t feeling trapped at all. “I look back on my journey and realize it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she says. Kurt Anthony Krug

medicine and pulmonary medicine and one of fewer than five interventional pulmonologists in the state of Georgia, has joined the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southeastern Regional Medical Center.

Jonathan D. Bonchick, M.B.A. ’92, co-founded the company Viridian Spirits, LLC, which recently sold its brand Lucid Absinthe to Hood River Distillers. Viridian had lobbied the U.S. government to end a 95-year ban on absinthe, an alcoholic beverage, which it did in 2007.

Michael R. Goldstein, J.D. ’92, managing partner of The Goldstein

Environmental Law Firm and a cofounder of the Florida Brownfields Association who provides pro bono mentoring in environmental redevelopment and grant assistance, has received a brownfields leadership award from the National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals.

L.A. Perkins, B.B.A. ’92, opened her own firm, L.A. Perkins Law Firm PLLC, in Boca Raton, Florida, this past May, after practicing law for 16 years. The firm specializes in the areas of trademark and copyright law, employment law, and business disputes.

Marlene Quintana, B.S.C. ’93, J.D.

’CANE IN THE ACT

When the city of Delray Beach, Florida, decided it wanted an artistic gateway to welcome motorists arriving from I-95, it turned to wellknown textile designer Michelle S. Newman, B.Ed. ’72, to design the $1.8 million Community Redevelopment Agency project. Watch a video about Newman’s monumental installation, and read the full story of her artistic odyssey at miami.edu/miami-magazine.

’96, was named a 2013 fellow of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.

Mara G. Stern Bloom, J.D. ’94, is executive director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and sits on a number of boards. She is a 2013 MGH 100 honoree, which recognizes 100 individuals and groups nationwide who have helped advance the fight against cancer. She and her husband have two children.

Rudolph “Rudy” Moise, M.B.A. ’94, J.D. ’97, a colonel and flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, received a retirement ceremony this past April at the Homestead Air Reserve Base to honor his 21 years of national service. At retirement, he was the Air Force’s highest-ranking HaitianAmerican officer.

Christina Tangora Schlachter, B.B.A. ’94, author of Critical Conversations for Dummies (Wiley, 2013) and co-author of Leading Business Change for Dummies (Wiley, 2012), was a Denver Business Journal “40 Under 40” winner in 2013. In 2008 she founded the She Leads Leadership Institute in 2008 and is now managing partner and co-founder of Wesera Leadership Group.

Tonny Van de Pieterman, B.B.A. ’94, oversees 1,000 players as director of tennis operations at Point Set Tennis in Oceanside, New York.

Michelle Diffenderfer, J.D. ’95, was selected to serve a two-year term as a member of the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative, which aims to reduce threats to coral reef resources in the region.

Shane M. Graber, B.B.A. ’95, M.B.A. ’97, was honored during the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s 2013 South Florida Distinguished Young Leader Awards.

John B. Pascarella, Ph.D. ’95, is dean of the College of Sciences and a professor of biology at the Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Jaret L. Davis, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’99, was honored during the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s 2013 South Florida Distinguished Young Leader Awards.

Terrence Cheng, M.F.A. ’97, was named associate provost and assistant vice president for Academic Affairs at Brooklyn College-CUNY. Previously he was associate dean in the School of Arts and Humanities at Lehman College-CUNY. He lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and two daughters.

Abel L. Iglesias, M.B.A. ’97, joined Miami-based Professional Bank as chief lending officer.

Alexis D. Kurtz, B.M. ’97, a project manager and acoustic consultant in Virginia, was named to Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine’s 2013 “40 Under 40” honorees list. Among her recent projects: the broadcast studios of American University’s WAMUFM in Washington, D.C. Kurtz presented “Sustainable Acoustics from Theory to Practice” at the 2012 InterNoise conference. She is married with two children.

Pedro A. Jimenez, J.D. ’98, a Miami native who worked in the New York office of Jones Day law firm for seven years, was named partner-in-charge of the firm’s recently opened Miami office.

Jennifer Jurado, B.S. ’98, Ph.D. ’03, head of the Broward County Natural Resources Planning and Management Division and a scientist who was instrumental in launching a multi-county initiative to address the effects of climate change, was one of 12 “Champions of Change” honored by the White House this past April.

Bill Wachsberger, B.S.C. ’98, rejoined The Baltimore Sun as design director in May 2013. He had previously worked at the publication from 2004 to 2009.

2000s

Doron C. Ofir, B.S.C. ’00, M.F.A. ’02, head of Doron Ofir Casting,

has been the casting director for more than 100 reality productions, including The Profit and RuPaul’s Drag Race. LA Weekly dubbed him the “King of Reality TV Casting.”

Lance M. Barry, M.A. ’01, has joined the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber as its manager of public relations.

Eris Thomas, B.B.A. ’01, was promoted from president to CEO of Coral Gables Executive Physicians, the practice she runs with her husband, internist Robert H. Thomas, B.S. ’88, M.D. ’91, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. They live in Coconut Grove with their two children.

Nathalie Day-Tolentino, B.H.S. ’01, self-published her children’s book, titled Little Black Girl Dream a Big Dream for Me! in 2012.

Wakaba Stephens, B.B.A. ’01, is an accountant and a bodybuilder in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was thrilled to represent the U at last December’s Diamond Head Classic when men’s basketball beat the University of Hawaii 73-58.

Maryann (Tatum) Tobin, A.B. ’01, M.F.A. ’04, Ph.D. ’09, and Nathaniel Tobin, J.D. ’06, welcomed their first child, Genevieve Mary Tobin, in March. Maryann was in Phi Delta Kappa International’s 20122013 Class of Emerging Leaders.

Joshua Johnson, B.S.C. ’02, is a radio newscaster for KQED, a public media outlet in San Francisco.

Miranda Mulligan, B.S.C. ’02, is executive director of the Northwestern University Knight Lab, hired in July 2012. Before that she was a digital design director for BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com.

Jesse Fishman, B.M. ’03, a senior AV systems designer with architectural, engineering, technology design firm Westlake Reed Leskosky in Cleveland, Ohio, was promoted to associate.

Olga Martinez, B.S.C. ’03, M.A. ’05, launched originalsds.com, an online shop for the design and stationery studio she started in 2009.

Vance Aloupis, B.B.A. ’05, J.D. ’08, is the statewide director of The Children’s Movement of Florida and a commissioner for Volunteer Florida, the Governor’s Commission on Community Service. He lives in Aventura, Florida, with his wife and daughter.

Rachel A. Canfield, A.B. ’05, an attorney in Miami, was named to the Friends of the New World Symphony executive committee.

Marko Cerenko, J.D. ’05, joined the Miami law firm of Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine, P.L.

Diego Arredondo, B.B.A. ’06, joined the Coral Gables law firm of Concepción Martinez & Bellido as an associate. He was previously an assistant district attorney in Kings County, New York.

Dana Bonner, B.B.A. ’06, of Ship Bottom, New Jersey, joined USA Swimming, the sport’s national governing body and service organization headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a marketing manager.

G. Jay Hall, A.B. ’06, M.B.A. ’08, was promoted to banking officer at BB&T, where he has worked as a marketing specialist since 2011.

Jose A. Hernandez-Solaun, M.B.A. ’06, was honored during the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s 2013 South Florida Distinguished Young Leader Awards.

Zachary Eisenstein, B.S. ’08, was admitted as a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

Shaun Brown, B.F.A. ’09, is an actor with recurring roles in two HBO shows: Bruce in True Blood and Zach in The Newsroom.

Bradley Goodwin, B.B.A. ’09, created an L.A.-based comedy group called The Canes of Comedy with Ethan White, B.B.A. ’09;

Jared Quay Campbell, B.S.C. ’11; Tommy Lee, B.S.C. ’11; and Eddie Mauldin, B.S.C. ’12.

Marshall T. Holland, B.S. ’09, graduated from Southern Illinois School of Medicine and was ac-

Citizen ’Cane

Bullish on Books in the Internet Age

Some might consider Mitchell Kaplan, M.S.Ed. ’80, a sort of Warren Buffett of the book world. The independent bookseller has survived and even thrived in an industry that has felled corporate giants like Borders.

The Miami native is the first to admit his entrepreneurial path defied conventional wisdom. “I took no business courses,” he says. Instead, after attending law school, Kaplan earned a master’s degree in education and became a public school teacher. But he says the lessons learned from teaching 250 10th graders for three years were invaluable to his future ambitions— all of the planning and strategizing, in particular, plus, “to be a teacher is to be somewhat of a salesperson.”

Of course, another key ingredient was passion. “We have a quote in our stores by [the author Jorge Luis] Borges that reads, ‘I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books,’” says Kaplan. “I feel that way.”

Launching a flagship Books & Books store in Coral Gables in 1982, he worked to create a place where communities of book lovers could congregate. There are now six stores, including one in the Cayman Islands and the Hamptons. Books & Books hosts 700 author readings each year, while another 400 writers appear at the Miami Book Fair International, the festival Kaplan co-founded 30 years ago and whose board of directors he chairs.

An active alumnus and parent, Kaplan also co-chairs the Momentum2 UM Libraries Campaign, and he and his wife have twin sons attending the U.

Though a leader in his field—Kaplan has served as president of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and received the National Book Foundation’s 2011 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community—he admits there have been plenty of obstacles. In the early days, one big challenge was convincing prominent publishers that Miami was about more than prescription drugs and sunbathing. These days, it’s a different struggle. “When I started in 1982, 50 percent of books were sold in [independent] stores like mine. Now it’s only 8 percent,” Kaplan says. “There were 7,000 ABA members; now there are 1,400.”

But despite the numbers, Kaplan remains as bullish as ever on the power of the word. “I think we are going to go through a golden age of writing,” he says, “and a golden age of book buying as baby boomers retire and have time to read.”

Robin Shear

cepted to a neurological surgery residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Christopher Kitterman, B.S.B.E. ’09, earned his D.O. degree from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and is in a pediatric residency at Palms West Hospital in Palm Beach County, Florida. Megan A. Walters, B.S. ’09, graduated from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and was accepted to an orthopaedic surgery residency at the school and its affiliated hospitals in Springfield.

2010s

Brittany Schweizer, A.B. ’10, showed her charcoal drawings of blues legends for “The Sights and the Sounds of Early 20th Century Blues Music” this past June in Orlando, Florida, where she lives. Katie Podein, J.D. ’12, a law clerk at Yang & Wang, P.C. in Los

Angeles, and founding partner Tommy Wang, J.D. ’09, M.B.A. ’10, celebrated his intellectual property law firm’s first anniversary in October 2013 with local ’Canes:

Natalie (Boyajian) Daghbandan, J.D. ’10; Nema Daghbandan, J.D. ’10; Matthew Eandi, B.S.C. ’07, J.D. ’11; Jacquelyn Temple, J.D. ’11; Ramon Trujillo, J.D. ’08; and Tina Vo, J.D. ’08.

Justin Drazin, B.S.C. ’11, earned a master of science in sustainability management from Columbia University while writing his first children’s book, Albert and the Amazing Pillow Monsters, about a young boy overcoming his fear of the dark. His selfpublished book won a Mom’s Choice Award Gold Medal for Best Children’s Picture Book of 2013 and the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award for Best Bedtime Story 2013.

Margo Guernsey, M.F.A. ’11, founder of Time Travel Produc-

tions LLC, is making her first feature-length film documentary, Councilwoman Castillo, about a hotel housekeeper elected to public office in 2011. Her Kickstarter.com campaign raised more than $20,000 for the project.

Romy Portuondo Remior, B.B.A. ’11, began her Mary Kay business part-time in 2011. Now full-time, she has earned four career cars and recently became the cosmetics company’s youngest pink Cadillac-driving sales director in South Florida. The Havana-born Miamian is on the board of the Cuban American National Council and is involved with Roots of Hope, a nonprofit devoted to empowering Cuban youth.

Lara Rosenbaum, A.B. ’11, a third generation art dealer, has opened a contemporary gallery at the St. Regis Bal Harbour.

Veronica Scott-Fulton, D.N.P. ’11, was hired in June 2013 as vice president of Operations

Your Place

Memorialized

In UM History

The Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center stands as a tribute to you and others who have helped make the University of Miami what it is today. You can make sure your home away from home is paved with pride for future generations of students, educators, and leaders.

Order your own personalized brick paver today and leave a lasting impression of support.

and Patient Care Services at the Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.

Stephanie Vendetti, B.B.A. ’11, founded Freckles Social Media Agency in New York City. Her How To Be a Redhead co-founder, sister Adrienne Vendetti, B.B.A. ’09, is director of business operations.

Erica Beyl, B.Arch. ’12, is an intern architect at Konstant Architecture Planning in Skokie, Illinois.

Harland J. Gunn, A.B. ’12, was signed by the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in 2012.

Daniel B. Harris, LL.M.T. ’12, is an associate in the commercial/ corporate section of law firm ShuffieldLowman in Orlando, Florida.

Christopher Poore, B.B.A. ’12, and Ron Rick, B.B.A. ’12, opened a Miami franchise operation of the UM-launched business College Hunks Hauling Junk/College Hunks Moving company.

For more information or to order online, visit miami.edu/alumnicenter/brick-campaign or call 1-866-UMALUMS or 305-284-9200.

In Memoriam*

Cecile Alexander Weiss, A.B. ’38

Sidney Forrest, A.B. ’39

Charles G. Hodges Jr., B.B.A. ’41

Rebekah Parham Shelley, A.B. ’41

Peggy Lee Naus, B.Ed. ’42

Jeanne Atcheson Thompson, A.B. ’42

Helen Marie Crist, A.B. ’44

Helen C. Dayton, A.B. ’44

Geraldine D. Rasmussen, B.M. ’47

Payton Keith Bailey, B.B.A. ’49

James Bassett Gwin, A.B. ’49, M.Ed. ’54, Ed.S. ’70

Burton Harrison, A.B. ’49, J.D. ’52

Sheldon Klahr, B.B.A. ’49

Mack A. Roper, B.S.E.S. ’49

John T. Wells, B.S.E.S./B.S.M.E. ’49

Arleen Saks Wohl, A.B. ’49

Albert F. Yenkelun, B.S.E.E. ’49, B.S.M.E. ’50

James Bassett Gwin, A.B. ’49, M.Ed. ’54, Ed.S. ’70

Burton Harrison, A.B. ’49, J.D. ’52

Sol Charloff, B.B.A. ’50

Ralph W. Christensen, B.S. ’50

Robert L. Decker, B.M. ’50

Frank W. Harned, A.B. ’50

Rema E. Herzbrun, A.B. ’50

Thomas C. Johnson, A.B. ’50, J.D. ’52

Robert J. Reilly, A.B. ’50

William Saenz, B.S. ’50

Marshall I. Stein, B.B.A. ’50

Greene Wix Unthank, J.D. ’50

John Russell Weber, B.S.M.E. ’50

Jack Del Bello, B.Ed. ’51

William L. Bolyard, A.B. ’51

Arnold Fishgold, B.B.A. ’51

Julia Fox Hullar, M.A. ’51

George L.K Hunter, B.S. ’51, M.S. ’52

Thomas J. Jordan, B.B.A. ’51, J.D. ’53

Dexter G. Manzer, B.Ed. ’51

Richard K. Mazeau, A.B. ’51

George Ovath, A.B. ’51

George David Parrish, J.D. ’51

Pearle H. Schultz, M.Ed. ’51

Paul Herman Haeger, B.S.M.E. ’52

William Arthur Murphy Jr., B.S. ’52, MS ’53

Oakley Grant Smith Jr., J.D. ’52

Andres L. Almoina, A.B. ’53

Joseph Schultz, B.Ed. ’53

Kelly C. Thomas, B.S. ’53

Gerald Stanley Wolff, J.D. ’53

John I. Willmott Sr., A.B. ’54

Ronald H. Seiden, B.B.A. ’55

Morton Erstling, B.B.A. ’56, J.D. ’59

Bobby Jack Reeves, A.B. ’56

Elaine Glaser Stein, B.Ed. ’56

Wynne Anne Wells, B.Ed. ’56

Mortimer S. Cohen, J.D. ’57

Jack Allen Furman, J.D. ’57

Mary Gaither Varnell, B.S.N. ’57

Arthur I. Wohlgemuth, B.Ed. ’57, M.Ed. ’60

Integrity-Inspired Scholarship

“Lawyer’s lawyer” Mitchell Bloomberg, J.D. ’75, died on May 24 after an 11-year battle with cancer. From member of the University of Miami Law Review to trial attorney with the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office to partner in the law firms of Fine Jacobson, Adorno & Yoss, and Hinshaw & Culbertson, Bloomberg was a highly skilled litigator who exemplified integrity and passion, say his colleagues. They have established The Mitchell R. Bloomberg Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund at Miami Law for a third-year student who best demonstrates those traits.

Senior Trustee, Past Orange Bowl President

The son of a chicken farmer, first-generation college graduate Nicholas A. “Nick” Crane, B.B.A. ’51, J.D. ’53, attributed much of his success to his alma mater, which he gave to generously. Crane, founder and president of Neff Machinery, served for 27 years on the University of Miami Board of Trustees, 15 of those as a senior trustee. He worked on seven committees, chairing the Athletic Advisory committee for three years. He also served on the UM Hospital Board of Governors and the visiting committees of five schools and colleges. He was in the George E. Merrick Giving Society and donated to many initiatives, among those, the School of Business Administration, from which his children—Lisa A. Crane, B.B.A. ’87, and Nicholas A. Crane Jr., B.B.A. ’79—graduated and whose Della Crane Classroom is named for his late wife. Crane, who died on September 30 at age 90, was a past president of the Orange Bowl Committee, the Rotary Club of Miami, and the Executives’ Association of Greater Miami. Donations may be made in his name to UM President’s Initiatives, miami.edu/presidentsinitiatives.

Paul Kenneth Burdine, B.S.E.E. ’58

Charles Goldy Jr., B.S.M.E. ’58

Leonard L. Levenstein, J.D. ’58

Harold F. Moran, B.Ed. ’58

Stanislav Zimic, M.A. ’58

William Joy Bednarcik, B.B.A. ’59

Clifford Comfort Sr., A.B. ’59

Gordon K. Gilson, B.B.A. ’59

Michael L. Hance, B.B.A. ’59

Victor J. Martinez, M.D. ’59, J.D. ’90

James R. Riker, B.B.A. ’59

Barbara T. Willhoeft, B.Ed. ’59, M.Ed. ’71

Lloyd E. Sineath, B.B.A. ’60

Roscoe O. Whiddon, M.D. ’60

Norma Gibson Maness, A.B. ’61, M.A. ’63

Robert E. Newell, B.B.A. ’61

Frank E. Tankersley, B.B.A. ’61

Joseph C. Abell Jr., B.B.A. ’62

Larry W. Meneely, B.S.M.E. ’62

Daniel E. Connell, B.B.A. ’63

Rodney P. Dunaway, M.D. ’63

Allan R. Goldenberg, B.S.E.E. ’63

Lloyd W. Johnson, B.B.A. ’63

Frank A. Smith Jr., B.B.A. ’63

Matthew W. Steele Jr., M.S. ’63, Ph.D. ’66

Sandra Ann Harshaw, B.Ed. ’64

Hubert W. Hill, B.B.A. ’64

Joel H. Copenhagen, B.Ed. ’65, M.Ed. ’70,

Donald M. Klein, J.D. ’65

Rodney B. McCombs, B.B.A. ’65

William P. Quantz Jr., B.Ed. ’66

Marc Lipsitz, J.D. ’67

Howard Jay Magram, B.B.A. ’67

Rafael Prida, B.Ed. ’67

James Emmett Riddle III, B.B.A. ’67

Joanne F. Wolf, B.Ed. ’68

Robert Wayne Altemus, B.B.A. ’69

Les Dennis Beilinson, B.Arch. ’69

COURTESY

The Art Deco Architect

His triumphs line world-famous Ocean Drive and Lincoln Road. As Miami Beach’s Art Deco District preservation architect and an original member of the Historic Preservation Board, Les Beilinson, B.Arch. ’69, helped save and revitalize Art Deco style, restoring more than 200 hotels, including the Española Way Hotel, Essex House, the Marlin, Edison, Breakwater, Park Central, Century, Shore Park, Traymore, Tiffany, Betsy Ross, Ritz Plaza, and Imperial. On the mainland he worked on the Lyric Theater, the Opa-locka and Coral Gables city halls, the Old Fire and Police Station in Coral Gables, and Merrick Manor, among others. Most recently, his firm completed a historic renovation of the landmark Hialeah Park. Beilinson died on June 13 of complications from surgery. He was 66.

Sandra Beck Levine, A.B. ’69

Larry Shore, A.B. ’69

Jacquelyn Conway Vari, B.Ed. ’69

Robert A. Ades, A.B. ’70, J.D. ’73

Thomas Lawrence Newman, J.D. ’70, LL.M.T. ’76

William Raymond Tranter, B.B.A. ’70

J. Peter Kichline, B.Ed. ’71

Ludwig N. Ladas, B.Ed. ’71, M.Ed. ’73

James W. Varnedoe, M.A. ’71

Jean Elizabeth Wass, M.M. ’71

Arthur Jay England Jr., LL.M.T. ’72

James Edwin Fulton Jr., Ph.D. ’73

Henry Peter Michaels Jr., A.B. ’73

Clara Raeanne Randall, A.B. ’73, M.A. ’77

Terry V. Percy, M.Ed. ’74, J.D. ’77

Robert Michael Ringelheim, B.S. ’74

Wallace E. Roddenberry, LL.M. ’74

James David Keegan, J.D. ’75

German Munoz, M.A. ’75, Ph.D. ’81

Alyson Fogel Pilzer, B.F.A. ’75

Robert H. Meyer, B.M. ’76, M.M. ’78

Steven M. Adase, B.B.A. ’77

Janis Risbergs Jr., A.B. ’77

Sheryl Fishman Berrin, M.Ed. ’78

Gary D. Carothers, MBA ’79

Stephen A. Giaratano, B.Arch. ’81

Amy Beth Karan, A.B. ’82, J.D. ’86

Joseph F. Wapinsky, A.B. ’82

Dorothy Ann Warren, B.C.S. ’82

Laurie J. Carroll, A.B. ’83

Lawrence P. Coassin, J.D. ’83

David A. Trushin, B.B.A. ’83

Roger G. Owen, Ph.D. ’84

John Pittman, Ed.D. ’84

Kathryn Elizabeth Whitaker, M.B.A. ’84

Gerisue Jacobs, J.D. ’85

Terry G. Smith, M.D. ’85

Ruby Horgan, ’86

John W. Field, J.D. ’88

Charles P. Hokanson, M.B.A. ’89

Gloria C. Paul, B.B.A. ’91

Michael A. Pane, J.D. ’92

John R. Anderson, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’99

Clayton J. Joffrion, LL.M.I. ’96

Andrea Sue Muhar, M.D. ’97

Ricky David Duckett, D.M.A. ’98

Suzanne Victoria McSwain, A.B. ’01

Gary C. Rose, M.B.A. ’01

Emily DuPree Dosch, A.B. ’08

Walter G. Earnest

Gertrude E. Faillace

Clarence T. Froscher

Nancy A. Mugford

* As of September 30, 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.

DateBook

JANUARY

Through January Otto G. Richter Library Southern Suns and Sky Blue Water Alumni exhibition

23 New Member Alumni Board and Council Leadership Conference Newman Alumni Center

23 Alumni Board of Directors and Alumni Council Reception Newman Alumni Center

24 Alumni Board of Directors and Alumni Council Meeting Newman Alumni Center

ALUMNI LEADERSHIP

Board of Directors

Executive Committee

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

Dany Garcia, B.B.A. ’92, Immediate Past President

Brenda K. Yester, B.B.A. ’90, President-elect

Devang B. Desai, A.B. ’97, J.D. ’03, Vice President

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

Frank Jimenez, B.S. ’87, Vice President

Oti Roberts, B.B.A. ’03, Vice President

Linda Steckley, M.B.A. ’87, 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

Roger Saunders, A.B. ’51

Regional Directors

Guillermo de Aranzabal Agudo, M.B.A. ’84

Robert Cohen, B.B.A. ’84

Larry King, Jr., A.B. ’83, M.B.A. ’93

Robert J. Munch, A.B. ’73

Kourtney Ratliff, B.B.A. ’03

Alex C. Rodriguez, B.B.A. ’86

Erica Zohar, A.B. ’92

Directors

Taghreed Al-Saraj, B.F.A. ’99, M.S.Ed. ’01

Teresita I. Blanca, B.B.A. ’82, M.B.A. ’83

Suzanne M. Block, A.B. ’81

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

Victoria A. Colon, M.B.A. ’98

Santiago Corrada, A.B. 86,

M.S.Ed. ’91

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

24 Alumni Council Breakout

Session Newman Alumni Center

25 Men’s Basketball Syracuse vs. UM, BankUnited Center*

30 Women’s Basketball Duke vs. UM, BankUnited Center*

FEBRUARY

8 Baseball Fanfest and Alumni Game*

9 -22 Jerry Herman Ring Theatre

Floyd Collins

11 Impact of U Tour Young Alumni

Pre-Reception, Naples, Florida

11 Impact of U Tour With President Shalala, Naples, Florida

12 Student & Alumni Career Symposium Student Activities Center

12 Annual Giving Leadership Stewardship Breakfast Naples, Florida

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

John Pittaluga, B.S.M.E. ’83

Andrew F. Potter, M.B.A. ’04

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

Mari Pape

Bhumi Patel

Alumni Network

’Canes Communities

Atlanta Jane Snecinski, B.M. ’74, M.B.A. ’82, jane.snecinski@ postacuteadvisors.com

Austin Lori Luza, B.B.A. ’94, M.S.Ed. ’95, president@austincanes.com

Boston bostoncanes@miami.edu

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

Charlotte Judson Dry, B.B.A. ’07, judsondry@yahoo.com

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

Cincinnati Karin Johnson, B.S.C. ’08, karinj13@aol.com

Cleveland Diego Perilla, B.S. ’06, M.P.A. ’10, M.B.A. ’12, perilld@ccf.org

Colombia Oscar Paez, B.B.A. ’03, M.A. ’05, ospaez@gmail.com

Dallas Regan Wagh, B.B.A. ’03, reganwagh1@gmail.com

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

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

Houston Michael Williams, B.B.A.

ALUMNI EVENT INFORMATION 305-284-2872 OR 1-866-UMALUMS SPORTS

OR 1-800-GO-CANES MIAMI.EDU/ALUMNI

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

14 Parents Council Meeting and Reception Coral Gables, Florida

20 Movie Screening Chapman, Produced by President’s Council member Doug Weiser, A.B. ’78, J.D. ’82, Cosford Cinema

21 President’s Council Meeting Newman Alumni Center

21 President’s Council Reception Rosenstiel Campus

27 Student Engagement and Philanthropy Day

MARCH

5 Alumni Career Webinar Series miami.edu/alumni/career

27 Black Alumni Scholarship Reception Newman Alumni Center

APRIL

2 Alumni Career Webinar Series miami.edu/alumni/career

’01, michael.williams@aig.com

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

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

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

London Gustavo Pifano, B.B.A. ’08, g.pifano@gmail.com

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

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

Middle East Reyadh Al-Rabeah, B.S.I.E. ’87, ralrabeah@yahoo.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 Asgar Ali, B.B.A. ’05, asgaraali@gmail.com

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

Palm Beach Jared Lighter, M.B.A. ’93, jared.lighter@gmail.com

Philadelphia Richard Month, B.S. ’03, M.D. ’06, rcmonth@gmail.com

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

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

Richmond Matt Roberts, M.M. ’97, mroberts@poolemahoney.com

San Diego James Mullaly, B.S.B.E. ’07, james.mullaly@gmail.com

San Francisco Jeffrey Machlin, B.B.A. ’09, Jeffrey.machlin@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. ’04, m.mcguire@umiami.edu

Spain Daniela Martinez, B.S. ’11,

9 Impact of U Tour Young Alumni Pre-Reception, Kansas City, Kansas

9 Impact of U Tour With President Shalala, Kansas City, Kansas

10 Annual Giving Leadership Stewardship Breakfast Tampa, Florida

11 Official Ring Ceremony With President Shalala, BankUnited Center Fieldhouse

23 Senior “Get Carded” Reception Newman Alumni Center

23-26 Accelerating Ambition Tour With Provost LeBlanc, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai

30 Global Networking Day Alumni Clubs Worldwide

More at miami.edu/calendar

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

To nominate an alumnus for the UM Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, complete the online form at miami.edu/alumni/ umaa/board/nominationform.htm. 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.

d.martinez18@umiami.edu

St. Louis Nick Turner, B.B.A. ’12, n.turner1@umiami.edu

Tampa Cori Pecoraro, B.S.Ed. ’00, coriross@aol.com

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

Special Interest Groups

Black Alumni Society Vanessa Lerouge, B.S.C. ’03, v.lerouge@umiami.edu

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

Public Health Alumni Association

Vanessa Cutler, A.B. ’06, M.F.A. ’08, M.P.H. ’12, vanessajcutler@gmail.com

UM Sports Hall of Fame K.C. Jones, ’97, kc.jones@canesfish. com, and Gerard Loisel, B.S. ’76, goldensounds@hotmail.com

School and College 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, t.ali@umiami.edu School of Law Jaret L. Davis, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’99, davisj@gtlaw.com, and Patricia A. Redmond, A.B. ’75, J.D.’79,

predmond@stearnsweaver.com

Miller School of Medicine Jeffrey S. Block, M.D. ’82, docblock@bellsouth.net, and Vicky Egusquiza, A.B. ’83, M.D. ’87, mve510@aol.com School of Nursing & Health Studies Jennifer A. Lopez, B.S.N. ’09, Jalopez86@gmail.com, and Sonique Sailsman, B.S.N. ’00, s.sailsman@umiami.edu

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 33124-1514.

University Archives exhibition

Big Picture

Light Up the Night

Alumni Weekend 2013 drew more than 1,800 ’Canes from around the globe. Nick Gangemi, ’16, The Miami Hurricane’s assistant photo editor, took the opportunity to showcase the U’s newest building, the Student Activities Center, illuminated by brilliant pyrotechnics.

Welcome to the ’CanesGlobal Community

Alumni, parents, students, donors, and friends—unite with your fellow ’Canes around the world and become part of the global ’Canes Community. With over 166,000 alumni living in 154 countries, no matter where you are we stand together as one UM family with infinite possibilities. ’Canes everywhere:

Join your local ’Canes Community to connect with UM alumni and friends in your area.

Be positive and informed ambassadors of the University.

Build a stronger network by hiring our alumni and providing internships for our students and young alumni.

Give to the University of Miami. Every gift—no matter

For more information, please call the UM Alumni Association at 1-866-UMALUMS (862-5867) or email alumni@miami.edu.

University of Miami

Division of University Communications

Post Office Box 248073

Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1210

Stay ahead of the curve with the new U plate

It’s cool to be a ’Cane, so why not flash the U wherever you go! The new University of Miami license plate, now available at any Florida tag agency for just $25 above the cost of a regular plate, prides your ride while helping to fund scholarships for UM students. The only requirement is that you must be a Florida resident with a vehicle registered in the state. Get the new University of Miami license plate! www.miami.edu/alumni