Miami Magazine | Summer 2015

Global Call to Action | Haiti Special Report: 5 Years of Hope & Healing

MIAMI THE UNIVE RSITY OF MIAMI MAGAZINE | SUMME R 2015

Shalalabration!

Donna E. Shalala’s momentous 14-year legacy leaves plenty to

cheer about at the top-ranked, internationally recognized U.

VISION +

MOMENTUM

$3 BILLION The University of Miami has surpassed the $1.6 billion goal of Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami, thereby raising more than $3 billion under the visionary, dynamic leadership of President Donna E. Shalala.

Momentum: The Campaign for the University of Miami raised $1.4 billion by its 2007 close—$400 million more than its original goal. The campaigns have fueled a sweeping transformation throughout the institution—powering its emergence as a global powerhouse in teaching, research, medical care, and service and catapulting the U to a top-tier national rank.

We greatly appreciate the generosity of everyone who made these accomplishments possible— the nearly 237,000 donors who strengthen the University’s life-changing impact on people throughout its campuses and around the world.

Thank you!

Contents miami.edu/magazine

Volume 21 Number 2 | Summer 2015

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D E P A R T M E N T S Inbox

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University Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Bottom Lines

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Eye on Athletics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Faculty Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 On Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Student Spotlight

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Alumni Digest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Alumni Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

F E A T U R E S

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The Shalala Generation After a whirlwind 14 years, it’s time to celebrate and reflect on the momentous impact of UM President Donna E. Shalala.

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Action Pact Weekend The Clinton Global Initiative University returns to UM, empowering over 1,000 socially conscious students to carry out measurable Commitments to Action.

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Haiti Special Report: 5 Years of Hope & Healing

Building the Foundations for Success UM’s ongoing efforts at home and in Haiti have been marked by tragedies and triumphs.

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Haiti Special Report: 5 Years of Hope & Healing

Planting Seeds for the Future Barth Green won’t give up on establishing a critical care and trauma network in the country where he co-founded Project Medishare more than 20 years ago.

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On the cover: Illustration by C. F. Payne, whose artwork has graced the covers of Time magazine, Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review, der Spiegel, and more. miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 1

Inbox

COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

Thanks for ‘Mirror’ Jerry Lewis’s article on the 25 years of Miami magazine (“A Window and a Mirror,” Fall 2014) brought back many wonderful memories.

I worked with Jerry on the start-up of the magazine, along with David Johnson as the art director, and was lucky to be the magazine’s editor for several years before moving to California.

Throughout the rest of my career in higher education communications, I have never worked with such a multitalented team for such an excellent, award-winning publication as Miami. Nor have I ever again had the chance to search for sharks in Bimini (with a Rosenstiel School researcher), interview a NOW president (Patricia Ireland, J.D. ’75) in Washington D.C., experience and write about the effects of a major hurricane (Andrew) on UM, or direct a photographer during cutting-edge transplant surgery at UM/ Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I’m honored to have been a part of Miami magazine, and I’m thrilled to see that it is still going strong.

Congratulations!

Susan May San Francisco, California

Remembering Whitely It was great to read about Pat Whitely (“The Life of Whitely,” Spring 2014). Her first day at the University was only two weeks before mine, as a student. To pay for the cost of tuition, I

attended the our operational Police Academy berth at the at night and when U.S. submaI came back onto rine base’s Pier campus, wearBaker in Key ing my academy West, Florida, uniform under we served as my jacket, I would crew for Captain see Pat. We both Harry Tucker seemed to “patrol” and ship’s engiour respective neer Eduard areas well. I Simon Zayon, B.B.A. ’52, steers his boat in the Pacific.

Romaguerra. went on to walk Under contract Commencement with full A South Campus Vet between the U.S. Office of uniform under my cap and Naval Research and UM, we gown.

I read in the 2014 Summer four assisted various scienAs I read the article, issue of the magazine a very tists and projects spanning I began to remember her interesting article about atmospheric, oceanic, and dedication from as far back Jack Diamond, ’48 (Citizen geologic investigations in the as 30 years ago. Her active ’Cane). In the fall of 1947 Gulf Stream and its adjacent pursuit of the betterment of the U opened up a place in marine areas. campus life and her success Homestead, Florida, called Marvin was an enthusiare clearly deserving of the the South Campus, for firstastic worker and friend, and Goodnight Award. year students. We lived there our months together included Robert Seitz, A.B. ’86 and had our own dean. We many memorable conversaAnaheim, California had about 1,000 students, tions. An avid fisherman, he and most of us guys were regularly trolled for mackerel Keep on Bookin’ World War II vets. South and other fish (which often Campus was a Naval Air landed on our dinner plates I enjoyed your article about Station in World War II. We the same evening) and fished Mitchell Kaplan, M.S.Ed. were part of the very first from high above the water on ’80, (Citizen ’Cane, “Bullish growth of the U, and I was Pier Baker in his spare time. on Books in the Internet among the youngest vets back On February 20, 1953, Age”) in the Winter 2014 in 1947. I am a proud ’Cane.

Captain Tucker and I had issue of Miami. After graduMy best to all my “ole” pals driven to Coral Gables, but a ation from UM, I moved to at the U. I miss those years phone call that evening sent Martin County and opened “muchly.” us back to the submarine Valentine’s Book Shop in Simon E. Zayon, B.B.A. ’52 base. Marvin had attempted Stuart, Florida. In 1975 I Cherry Hill, New Jersey to retrieve a bathythermostarted reprinting Florida hisgraph instrument that had tory books and established Marvin’s Last fallen overboard alongside Florida Classics Library. Over Months the Physalia at her berth. the years I’ve been fortunate When Marvin failed to surenough to acquire the reprint Autumn of 1952 found face, Mr. Romaguerra yelled rights to several Florida clasMarvin Marks, B.S. ’50 for help; soon several sailsics. My most recent reprint is (Inbox, “Father’s Story ors from the bosun’s locker the collection of Stuart News Survives,” Spring 2014) and beside our slip were in the editorials by Ernest Lyons, me newly employed as sailors water, but it took too long to author of The Last Cracker and scientific aides aboard find him in the murky water.

Barrel and My Florida. the R.V. Physalia, an 83-foot I will never forget driving Val Martin, B.Ed. ’57 converted Coast Guard ship.

Marvin’s car back to Coral Port Salerno, Florida On the voyage from Miami to Gables. Later I packed it with

2 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

all of his possessions for its return trip to his home in New York. I am 85, and still these memories have a strong effect on me. It is so very similar to remembering friends I lost in World War II, and I regard this loss as nothing less than giving up one’s life for one’s country.

William E. Hess, M.S. ’54 West Lafayette, Indiana

V-12 Veteran at the U I enjoy your magazine as one of your eldest alumni.

UM was founded the year I was born. I was 18 when I was sent to U of M on July 1, 1943, a V-12 trainee in the

U.S. Navy officer training program of World War II. At that time the University consisted of one three-story building we affectionately named “the Cardboard College.” Walt Etling, A.B. ’48 (In Memoriam, Fall 2014), a friend of mine in V-12, led the marching band, and he and I also played football together in the Orange Bowl in the spring of 1944. I was president of Sigma Chi and in Iron Arrow and the Chemistry Honor Club. After I graduated with majors in chemistry and biology, the Navy V-12 enrolled me in medical school at Emory University,

where I earned my degree in 1950. I am now a retired American Board of Surgerycertified physician and Fellow, American College of Surgeons.

Z. B. Barnes, B.S. ’44 Montgomery, Alabama

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

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

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

From the Editor

Robin Shear Associate Editor

Robert C. Jones Jr. Creative Director and Art Director

Scott Fricker

Assistant Art Director

Kristian Rodriguez, B.S.C. ’04 Graphic Designer

Nicole Andujar Production Manager

Angie Villanueva, A.B. ’12 Editorial Contributors

Maya Bell Meredith Camel, M.F.A. ’12 Tim Collie Melissa Peerless Catharine Skipp, B.G.S. ’79

­

Interim President

Transformation Nation

Thomas J. LeBlanc Vice President for University Communications

We’re excited to bring you a Web extra video highlighting the legacy of the University of Miami’s fifth president, Donna E. Shalala. NBC6 anchor Jackie Nespral, A.B. ’89, recent recipient of the prestigious Silver Circle Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, was the perfect choice to interview UM’s distinguished leader during her final weeks as president.

The term “transformational leadership” is thrown around a lot. But there’s not one person who wouldn’t use that phrase to describe President Shalala’s tenure at this institution.

As she herself said recently, “My love isn’t for institutions. It’s for transforming institutions.”

At the heart of that mission: her students. With hundreds of them cheering for her on April 30, when the Student Activities Center was renamed in her honor, she rallied them to action: “You’ve got to believe that you can transform lives, that you can make the world a better place,” she urged. “I believe in you more than I believe in anything else on this earth.”

We pay tribute to Shalala’s impact with a cover story by Robert C. Jones Jr. and articles that demonstrate the depths of her global perspective—from her involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative University (and now leadership of the Clinton Foundation) to her support of the U’s intensive work in Haiti for more than two decades.

For the fifth anniversary of that nation’s devastating 2010 earthquake, Peter E. Howard, executive director for UM Communications and Marketing, produced a stunning multimedia project that sent senior editor Maya Bell and a video crew to Haiti to document the medical personnel, faculty, staff, and students who remain committed to recovery and reconstruction in Haiti. The entire project is online at haiti.miami.edu.

Even as we say farewell to President Shalala, the transformation of lives through teaching, research, and service continues here at the U with a stellar new president, Julio Frenk, who will lead this top-tier university through its next phase of growth and achievement. And for that, we can thank Shalala’s momentous 14-year legacy. As Devang Desai, A.B. ’97, J.D. ’03, of the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors, noted, “[She has] shaken up the U in a way no hurricane could.”

—Robin Shear, editor

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 ©2015, University of Miami.

An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

miami.edu/magazine

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

New President, New Era at the U Harvard dean, physician, and global citizen Julio Frenk is ready to take the reins as UM’s sixth president

ANDREW INNERARITY

The search committee made it official, much poorer economically, was much aware of the legacy and strong foundabut the clothing made him look the part. richer in tolerance. It was that decision tion she leaves at UM, which, he said, Shortly after Julio Frenk was introduced that quite probably saved their lives, should make his job a lot easier. as the University of Miami’s sixth presiand to this day Frenk has always felt a The opportunity to continue the dent at a news conference on April 13, sense of gratitude, making it his life’s momentum Shalala started, UM’s the 61-year-old Harvard University dean duty to give something back. strategic location as the gateway to donned a green jacket with Latin America, and the a split-U pin on the lapel, institution’s potential to complementing the orangespearhead positive changes and-green tie already in the 21st century were around his neck. among the key factors His start date was that attracted Frenk to the announced as September 1, position. The Miller School but in his appropriately of Medicine and UHealth colored new threads, Frenk system, along with UM’s seemed ready to step right research enterprise, only into the presidential role added to the attraction. almost immediately.

His expertise in public The Mexican-born physihealth, Frenk said, will be a cian, who has led Harvard’s tremendous benefit because T.H. Chan School of Public the essence of that field—a Health for the past six years, “be ready” approach aimed said he was “honored” at addressing issues before and “humbled” by UM’s President-elect Julio Frenk takes center stage at an April 13 news conference. they become problems— decision to tap him as its applies to many other areas. next president. He noted that during the Like Donna E. Shalala, whom he A basketball player and soccer goalie search process, he sensed the enormous succeeds, Frenk is a former secretary of in his younger days, Frenk views athletoptimism and ambition surrounding health. As Mexico’s minister of health ics as “an integral part of a comprethe University’s future, saying that the from 2000 to 2006, he reformed that hensive education.” He revealed that as a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, he became a big football fan, especially as, with each passing year, his seats in the venerable Michigan Stadium moved closer to the 50-yard line. The day of his Miami press conference he met with UM coaches.

Shalala, who introduced Frenk at his institution is on an “upward trajectory” nation’s health system, introducing comfirst UM press conference, noted that to reach greater heights. prehensive universal health insurance, the “Miami es el mundo” (Miami is the In Frenk, UM gets its first Hispanic which expanded access to health care for world) theme of her 2001 inauguration president, one with a family history that tens of millions of uninsured Mexicans. address has come true with Frenk. has surely made him a global citizen.

Frenk, who first met Shalala almost The University community welcomes Frenk’s father and his family escaped 20 years ago while he was working at Frenk, his wife, Harvard health econothe horrors of Nazi Germany in the the World Health Organization, has mist Felicia Knaul, and his children to 1930s, fleeing to a country that, while followed her career over the years and is Miami.

In Frenk, UM gets its first Hispanic president, one with a family history that has surely made him a global citizen.

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UM Surpasses $1.6 Billion Momentum2 Goal A $55 million “breakthrough” gift lifts campaign over goal—more than a year ahead of schedule JENNY ABREU

Capping off University of UM medical school Miami President Donna E. enterprise that is Shalala’s last commencement such an important ceremony on May 9, Stuart A. segment of our Miller, J.D. ’82, chair of UM’s community, to Board of Trustees and of the honor President UM Miller School of Medicine Shalala’s many Momentum2 campaign, contributions to announced a “breakthrough” the University and gift of $55 million. Greeted our community, with cheers by the medical and to recognize school graduates, faculty, the leadership of families, and friends, the gift Momentum2 camlifted the University over its paign co-chairs $1.6 billion Momentum2: The Leonard and Jayne Breakthrough Campaign for Abess, and Sergio the University of Miami goal, a Gonzalez and stunning accomplishment that Board of Trustees Chair Stuart Miller, J.D. ’82, flanked by his brother, Jeffrey Miller, his team, whose occurred more than a year A.B. ’84, UM President Donna E. Shalala, and Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, tireless efforts ahead of schedule. announces a $55 million gift from his family to support the University’s progress. have made it all The Miller family’s $55 possible. Our commillion gift will provide $50 million largest number of alumni donations in munity has a lot to be proud of. Raising to build a new state-of-the-art mediUM’s campaign history. $3 billion [during both campaigns] is an cal education building on the campus Momentum2 was launched publicly incredible feat.” of the Leonard M. Miller School of in February 2012 with a lead gift of Including their latest gift, a $100 Medicine, named in honor of Stuart $100 million from the Diabetes Research million donation to the medical school Miller’s father, the late Leonard M. Institute Foundation. Other high notes in 2004, and a lead $50 million gift in 2014 from The Lennar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Lennar Corporation, to make possible The Miller. Another $5 million will support include $202 million raised for scholLennar Foundation Medical Center, the the Phillip and Patricia Frost School arships and student support and more family’s total giving to UM represents a of Music. than $226 million raised for buildings more than $221 million investment in The total of $1,618,034,779 raised and equipment, including 28 facility higher education and health care. for Momentum2 is from a record projects that will transform the face of Leonard Miller and his wife, Sue, 137,890 donors. During the campaign, the University. UM has already seen the received honorary doctoral degrees 261 gifts of $1 million or more have impact of the campaign through current from UM. Their daughter, Leslie Miller been received. A total of 30 endowed construction of The Lennar Foundation Saiontz, is a well-known community chairs and professorships have been Medical Center on the Coral Gables philanthropist. Sons Stuart Miller and established, which will have a sigCampus; the recent openings of the Jeffrey Miller, A.B. ’84, and son-in-law nificant and enduring impact on the Donna E. Shalala Student Center, the Steven Saiontz, M.B.A. ’84, M.P.S. ’13, recruitment of outstanding faculty.

Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence, also a UM trustee, are all UM alumni.

The campaign has also generand the Patricia Louise Frost Music Sergio M. Gonzalez, senior vice presiated unprecedented levels of giving Studios; and the renovations of the dent for University advancement and from University alumni, trustees, and Toppel Career Center and the Braman external affairs, said the Miller family’s parents, with total contributions from Miller Center for Jewish Student Life. “extraordinary generosity has raised the alumni at $401 million, trustees at “Our family couldn’t be prouder of bar on philanthropic leadership in a way $302 million, and parents at over $123 our commitment to the University,” said that is deeply personal, inspiring, and million. More than 30 percent of M2’s Miller. “We felt our gift was a significant humbling. We are so grateful to all our donors are alumni, constituting the way to continue the advancement of the donors. Every gift is making a difference.”

The total of $1,618,034,779 raised for Momentum2 is from a record 137,890 donors.

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Recognizing a Distinguished Record of Care Sylvester designated a Florida Cancer Center of Excellence More than 5,000 new cancer patients each year turn to Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at UHealth– University of Miami Health System to help them fight—and win—the most important battle of their lives. Sylvester is now one of four centers in Florida and the only one in South Florida to receive the state’s Cancer Center of Excellence designation.

Florida Surgeon General and Secretary of Health John Armstrong presented the award to Sylvester on April 17, recognizing the center’s rigorous performance measures and demonstrated excellence in providing quality, comprehensive, and patient-centered coordinated care. Calling Sylvester “an elite organization,” Armstrong cited world-class research; partnerships with community health workers to expedite treatment; and collaborations with Jackson Memorial Hospital, Holtz Children’s Hospital, and the Miami VA as its standout characteristics.

“The goal of our multidisciplinary teams is to provide more treatment options, fewer side effects, faster responses, and improved outcomes—all while delivering the highest quality

care,” said Stephen D. Nimer, director of Sylvester.

“Florida has the second-highest number of cancer cases in the country, so it is vitally important that we are able to offer the very latest in research, treatment, and therapies,” said Sylvester CEO Richard Ballard. “It is equally important that we have an unmatched record of patient care and satisfaction.”

Other speakers at the event were Pascal J. Goldschmidt, senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School of Medicine and CEO

of UHealth, and Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Russell Benford, who presented a proclamation congratulating Sylvester on the award and thanking the center for all it does for the health of the entire community. The Florida Legislature created the Cancer Center of Excellence Award Program in 2013 to encourage excellence in cancer care in Florida, attract and retain the best cancer care professionals to the state, and help Florida organizations be recognized nationally as a preferred destination for quality cancer care.

Welcome to the New Miami.edu The University of Miami’s redesigned website, miami.edu, represents a huge upgrade, not just in design but navigation, display, content, and back-end technology. Whether viewed on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, the new site, launched in April, now “responds” to a device’s display screen. Content has been arranged to help users find what they are looking for more quickly, and the display features larger graphics and images.

Nearly two years in the making, the cloud-hosted site was developed by UM Web and Digital Communications and Marketing, in conjunction with Information Technology and outside consultants, after extensive surveys and testing, interviews with nearly 6 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

a dozen content management companies, and monthly meetings with Web administrators across UM’s three campuses. A comprehensive assessment of the top-tier website conducted among prospective and current students, faculty and staff, and alumni served as a baseline for the redesign.

Meetings, focus groups, and surveys conducted with these groups assessed navigation, functionality, integration with the University’s marketing/ messaging, and relevance of content.

Responsive design, streamlined navigation and “hover” menus, social media interactions on the home page, and a UM news channel with searchable stories are among the key features incorporated.

Bottom Lines

$7.5 million

“Another way to fall out of love is to make your brain bored.”

Berit Brogaard, UM philosophy professor, in a February 12 interview in The New Republic, discussing findings from her new book On Romantic Love: Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2015).

“I started out as a bar singer in Coral Gables, and now I’ve got a doctorate degree.”

Jimmy Buffett, accepting his honorary Doctor of Music degree at the May 8 commencement ceremony for School of Architecture, School of Communication, School of Education and Human Development, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Frost School of Music, and School of Nursing and Health Studies graduates.

“The guy spins so fast, sometimes he’s out of control.”

Diving Coach Randy Ableman, in The Miami Herald on April 17, talking about All-American diver Sam Dorman, B.S.M.E. ’15, whose record-breaking 3-meter springboard performance earned him an NCAA title at the Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships in March. He’s now aiming for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support the construction of a John S. and James L. Knight Recital Hall at the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music.

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Students who earned 2015 Fulbright Fellowships—UM’s strongest showing to date—headed to Argentina, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Spain, and Taiwan.

50th Birthday of Whitten University Center (also known as the UC), which has hosted noteworthy performers and speakers like Martin Luther King Jr. (to whom The Rock is dedicated), former president Richard Nixon, and Janis Joplin.

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’Canes football players picked in the 2015 NFL Draft, the most since 2011.

#45

Rank of the Miller School of Medicine in the 2016 edition of “Best Graduate Schools” published by U.S. News & World Report. In the past nine years, the school has risen 11 spots in the annual ranking of the nation’s top research medical schools.

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At the HOP The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science has added a new instrument to its advanced research arsenal, a converted Airbus Helicopter H125 that can collect critical environmental information anywhere between the Earth’s surface—land or sea—and the troposphere, the atmospheric boundary where most weather happens.

Fully fueled, the Helicopter Observation Platform, or HOP, is capable of carrying two pilots and a payload of up to 1,000 pounds internally, or 3,000 pounds externally, for four hours at a stretch at an airspeed of 65 knots—ideal for in-situ observations. Easily transported anywhere in the world and capable of operating from a research vessel at sea, the HOP has a top cruising speed of 140 knots and range of 350 nautical miles.

“No other aircraft offers the flexibility of a helicopter, in terms of payload, maneuverability, and safety,” says Rosenstiel Dean Roni Avissar. “HOP will uniquely fill an important gap in research airborne observations.”

Indeed, with a hovering capability perfect for remote sensing, the HOP can help scientists carry out physical, chemical, and biological studies. It can quantify the exchanges of gases and energy at the Earth’s surface, as well as aerosol properties that affect the

JENNY ABREU

One-of-a-kind flying laboratory gives rise to environmental research

environment, the climate system, and human health.

The flying lab also will help researchers conduct wildlife studies in remote areas, identify and rapidly assess human hazards from “red tides” to sinkholes, and investigate seasonal events, such as Saharan dust storms, which impact marine ecosystems, global climate, air quality, and hurricane formation.

“This is a major advance for UM’s recently launched Exploration Science program, whose mission is to broaden interest in field-based scientific research,” says Kenny Broad, director of the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, who with Avissar will pilot the HOP during

scientific expeditions.

Funded by the Batchelor Foundation, the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, and an anonymous donor, the new aircraft complements an array of cutting-edge resources at the Rosenstiel campus, including the R/V F.G. Walton Smith, an advanced research catamaran designed for tropical oceanography; the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS), a real-time, high-resolution satellite imagery facility; and the SUSTAIN (SUrge STructure Atmosphere INteraction) research facility, the only laboratory in the world with a wind-wave-storm surge simulator capable of generating Category 5 hurricane-force winds in a 3-D test environment.

JENNY ABREU

Helped Campus Blossom Former First Lady Foote remembered at Celebration of Life As the University of Miami’s first lady from 1981 to 2001, Roberta “Bosey” Fulbright Foote made it her mission to create a “campus in a tropical garden.”

Fittingly, a celebration of her life was held in that garden on May 29, on the lush green quad named for her husband, Edward T. “Tad” Foote II. “She was always at Tad’s side in helping to raise this University to new heights,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “She served this institution with strength and grace and was 8 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

the driving force behind turning our Coral Gables campus into the beautiful botanical garden that it is today.”

In 2001 the Women’s Commission recognized her with the May A. Brunson Award for her impact in improving the status of women at the U. She and her husband also contributed significantly to UM programs, particularly to the Edward T. and Roberta Foote Fellows and the President’s Initiative.

Bosey Foote was the daughter of the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright,

who initiated the Fulbright Scholar Program. She passed away May 5 at the age of 76 after a long battle with cancer.

She is survived by her husband; her children, Julia, William, and Thaddeus; and eight grandchildren.

Eye on Athletics

The Wizard of College Baseball’s grandchildren unveil his UM statue.

More than a hundred of Fraser’s ballplayers went on to professional baseball, and many more started successful careers. Fraser, aka the Wizard of College Baseball, was inducted into

director at UM, Fraser, who died in 2013 at age 79, is back where he belongs.

“This is his ballpark,” Remmert said. “People can now say, ‘Meet me at the Frase.’”

Honoring Mother Shalala

JC RIDLEY, ’94

Ron Fraser, the legendary University of Miami baseball coach, is back where he belongs. Standing outside Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field, bat slung over his shoulder and a twinkle in his eye, he welcomes fans to the game he helped elevate to the national stage. His likeness, immortalized in bronze by artist Zenos Frudakis, was dedicated April 24 in a ceremony attended by his family, many former players and Sugarcanes bat girls, and scores of fans.

“The Light has always been a huge part of our life,” said Fraser’s daughter, Elizabeth Fraser Kraut, speaking on behalf of the family. “We are so excited to see ‘Popie’ here at the gate greeting the fans today and all the fans to come.”

The statue was funded primarily by friends and fans of the late coach, who led the Hurricanes from 1963 to 1992. In those 30 years, he won two national championships, went to 20 straight postseasons, and never had a losing season.

But his legacy extended far beyond the scoreboard.

A father figure to a legion of young men, his mastery of promoting and marketing college baseball helped develop the sport into a major player in college athletics and Mark Light Stadium into one of South Florida’s premier family entertainment spots.

JC RIDLEY, ’94

Fraser Comes Home

the College Baseball Hall of Fame’s introductory Class of 2006.

“Coach Fraser was not only the most influential person in college baseball history, but also the most influential in my own professional career,” head baseball coach Jim Morris said. “Having a statue in front of our park, honoring all that he did, both on the field and off, is going to be something special for his family, our program, and for our fans.”

For Rick Remmert, A.B. ’77, director of athletics alumni programs and a former assistant athletic

Though she was an Ohio State Buckeye, Class of 1933, Edna C. Shalala was a staunch Miami Hurricane as well. On December 4, 2014, two days after University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala’s mother passed away at the age of 103, the women’s basketball team was playing Wisconsin at

home. Jennifer Strawley, UM’s deputy director of athletics and senior woman administrator, looked toward the seat from which “Mother Shalala,” as she was affectionately known, always rooted for the team.

Seeing the seat empty choked Strawley up.

Nine days later, Strawley was among the more than 900 people who paid tribute to the memory of this accomplished lawyer, nationally ranked amateur tennis player, and avid supporter of women’s athletics by participating in the inaugural Edna C. Shalala 5K Walk/Run. Proceeds benefited the Edna C. Shalala Fund for Women’s Athletics, established on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Miami’s ten women’s varsity sports have brought home a total of seven national championships and numerous conference titles. Currently UM has more than 200 female student-athletes.

To donate to the Edna C. Shalala Fund for Women’s Athletics, go to http://bit.ly/Shalala_Fund.

Swimming Losses The U lost two swimming legends last year. UM Sports Hall of Famer and head swimming coach Bill Diaz, who coached at UM from 1970 to 1985, died at age 89 in September 2014. Jack Nelson, B.Ed. ’60, an All-American at UM and Olympic swimmer who coached 44 Olympians, four world champions, 14 national championship teams, and 30 high school state championship teams, died in November 2014. He was 82.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 9

UniversityJournal

Expert on ‘Dying’ Languages Wins Carnegie Fellowship Caleb Everett spends a lot of time in remote locations studying indigenous groups like the Karitiana, of Brazil’s Amazonia, and Yucatec Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula.

He explores the interaction between language and experience, and how each can shape the other.

A recipient of an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Everett will receive a $200,000 award that will allow him to take two years to focus on his groundbreaking research on linguistic diversity.

The associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences is among just 32 scholars nationally who received the new fellowship, which supports in-depth research in the social sciences and humanities. His proposal, “Five dying worlds: Towards a truer understanding of linguistic diversity,” addresses the dramatic shift in our understanding of language over the past decade, and how linguistic differences affect and reflect other variations of the human experience.

Everett will create an e-manuscript that combines text, sound, and visual data to bring current knowledge on linguistic diversity to policymakers and the general public. The first section will highlight five groups facing

COURTESY CALEB EVERETT

Faculty’s research in remote regions singled out from hundreds of nominations and to better understand the role of that diversity in shaping the human experience more generally.”

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Leonidas Bachas says the award is an honor that “further validates the importance of Professor Everett’s pioneering work in anthropology, specifically the study of endangered Caleb Everett’s linguistic research takes him to remote regions. languages.”

Carnegie Corporation challenges to their linguistic and cullaunched the Andrew Carnegie tural survival, including the Karitiana, Fellowship program to provide new who have about 300 speakers left. perspectives on its overarching The second part will discuss theme for 2015: Current and Future Everett’s research, which shows that Challenges to U.S. Democracy and differences in how people speak impact International Order. It will award a how they think. Finally, using the five total of $6.4 million through the inigroups to demonstrate difficult choices tiative. Nominations were sought from speakers of endangered languages face, more than 700 universities, think Everett will outline the current rate of tanks, publishers, and nonprofit orgalanguage death. nizations for the inaugural class of “I’m thrilled to be an inaugural recipfellows. From over 300 nominations, ient of an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship,” 32 awardees were selected.

Everett says. “This award will advance Established by Andrew Carnegie in in numerous ways my ongoing research 1911, Carnegie Corporation of New York program. Through that research, I’m focuses on issues he considered of seeking to better illuminate, with many paramount importance: international colleagues, the full extent of human peace, education, and the strength of linguistic diversity in the world today, American democracy.

Welcoming a Rainbow of Diversity New resources, programs, and network support LGBTQ students Being a college student can be stressful—even more so for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) students, particularly those who struggle with self-acceptance and who might not have support from family or friends. That’s why the University is introducing new programs to ensure LGBTQ students thrive on a safe, inclusive campus that nurtures their academic and personal goals. A task force created by Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia A. Whitely, Ed.D. ’94, has worked for the past two 10 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

years to identify students’ most pressing needs and add resources to existing organizations and programs.

Advocacy is the mission of the new IBIS (I Believe In Solidarity) Ally Network, which, at its first training session in April, enlightened 17 UM employees about issues LGBTQ students face and how to be a source of trust, encouragement, and guidance to them. The LGBTQ task force and a team of students, faculty,

and staff also released guidelines for LGBTQ inclusion in University communications and are developing a website and alumni affinity group.

During commencement week, a first-ever Lavender Celebration, held at the Newman Alumni Center, recognized the accomplishments of LGBTQ graduating seniors, each of whom received a rainbow graduation cord. For information, email LGBTQ@miami.edu.

DONNA VICTOR

Faculty Files

Teaching for Tomorrow: A Life in Education They were strict with a capital S and when it came to learning the three r’s, settled for nothing short of excellence. That’s what Robert F. Moore remembers most about Mrs. Williams, Jeffries, Dixon, and Morse— the “fabulous teachers” he had growing up in the small Alabama town of Tuskegee.

After 40 years at the School of Education and Human Development, the associate professor still shares memories with his classes of being educated by those fair but stern teachers who forbade the least bit of disobedience.

Not that his students need chiding. “They’re very, very bright, and they know what they want,” says Moore, assistant provost of

undergraduate education and director of the Office of Academic Enhancement.

“They are independent learners, and they excel.”

Many have become university professors or educators. Now and then he hears from them. “‘Are you still there?’ they’ll ask.

‘I want to thank you for what you did for me.’ That makes me proud, knowing I’ve helped move students along,” says Moore.

His particular expertise is special education, and one of his key messages has been that inclusion is a pathway to success.

Through Project Include, the Department of Teaching and Learning’s five-year, $1.5 million federally funded initiative, Moore is helping

prepare tomorrow’s educators for environments in which kids with disabilities learn alongside the general population.

Separating them doesn’t work, says Moore. “The data are very clear that the learning outcomes for students with disabilities are improved when they’re rubbing shoulders and being educated with other kids.”

Moore says he sees improvement in the U.S. education system but also challenges. He cites the need to provide more robust support networks for teachers, place less emphasis on testing, and confront the issue of more and more urban schools that look like throwbacks to 1960s-era segregation.

Since coming to UM in 1975, Moore has watched the student body grow more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. He feels fortunate to have influenced students both in the classroom and as a longtime resident master of Mahoney Residential College.

He plans to retire in May 2016, but education will always be in his blood. “My mother’s mother was an elementary school principal for 36 years in Tuskegee, so the conversation at home was always about school and teaching,” Moore says.

“Along with parenting, it’s the foundation of everything else.” UM’s Robert F. Moore Scholarship Fund for books was established in 2014.

—Robert C. Jones Jr.

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UniversityJournal

Turning Microns into Mountains By his third year at the University of Miami, Sumedh Shah was conducting groundbreaking research on glioblastoma, the aggressive form of brain cancer that killed his father.

The equipment he used in the biology department’s Dauer Electron Microscopy Laboratory let him magnify objects up to 250,000 times, enabling him to see how those particular cancer cells differ from normal cells.

“The electron microscope allows us to cut a single layer of cells into segments just 60 nanometers thick,” explained Shah. Considering that a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, the technique requires extreme precision and eye-hand coordination—skills eager undergraduates such as Shah get to hone in a 500-level biology course called Techniques in Transmission Electron Microscopy.

Recently more than 40 students applied for seven available spots. “This

class is a reward for hardworking students,” said Jeffrey Prince, an associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences. Prince interviews each applicant before making his final selections.

“They have to be responsible and willing to put in the time and effort. The UM’s electron microscope can give undergrads a research edge. intent of this class and laboratory from the beginning has been to provide UM students student, though, the opportunity is an with [an experience] that allows them invaluable one. to be heads above all other applicants “This class has made my time at UM for a professional position.” worth it,” commented Shah, who is According to Prince, UM is the only in UM’s Honors Program in Medicine.

Florida research institution that welAdded Prince, who has been teaching comes undergraduates to use electron this course since 1980: “The initial microscopes, which are worth more images produced by the first-year stuthan $1 million and cost $46,000 dents and the research conducted by annually to maintain, for their own the project students are remarkable.” research projects. For both teacher and

—Melissa Peerless

A degree from the U is now at your fingertips.

Designed for the working professional, our new, fully online degree programs feature: • Flexible scheduling • Top-quality, modular courses • Access to UM’s world-class faculty • January, May, or September start dates Scholarships are available for qualified applicants. Please contact an advisor for more details.

Online Programs Now Available Master’s in Finance Master’s in Sport Administration Master’s in Professional Accounting

Coming This Fall* Master’s in Business Administration Bachelor of General Studies

800.411.2290 • miami.edu/online *All programs subject to change.

12 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

JENNY ABREU

On Course

SCOTT FRICKER

Student Spotlight Celia “CC” Schieffelin never describes her mother, Barbara Burg, as having succumbed to cancer but as a courageous woman who conquered her illness by taking action. “She encouraged everyone to rise to the occasion, to join the fight against a dreadful disease,” recalls the rising junior finance and management major.

It was her mother’s indomitable spirit that carried Schieffelin, sore ankle and all, across 26 miles of roadway in February to complete one of a series of rides for the annual Dolphins Cycling Challenge, a two-day charity event that raises funds for Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center’s lifesaving research initiatives.

But Schieffelin, 19, who tore two ligaments in her left ankle during the fall semester and was unsure she’d even be able to participate in the event, didn’t complete the marathon-length trek to focus attention on herself or her mom. “It’s always been about the cause,” she says.

It was her second DCC. In November 2013, five months before her mother died at age 50 from complications of colorectal cancer, Schieffelin cycled 13 miles from the Miami Dolphins training facility in Davie to Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, raising more than $40,000 as a member of Team Sylvester.

Wheel to Live Inspired by her mother, CC Schieffelin gears up against cancer.

For DCC V, held February 7-8, she organized her own team, rallying 34 family members and close friends—some of whom came from as far away as New York and California—to ride in the event. By the time Team Barb hit the streets wearing hot pink jerseys, they had raised $128,000.

Having crossed the finish line with her dad this year, Schieffelin says she intends to ride in the DCC as long as she is a UM student—and perhaps well after. “It’s taught me a lot about leadership and about appreciating small things,” she says. “Most importantly, it has given me the platform to make a change for a cause that made me constantly feel so helpless. Through the DCC I’ve learned that any effort, no matter how big or small, can transform into a lifechanging difference for someone else.”

Schieffelin, a New Yorker, credits UM with giving her the chance to take part in the DCC and many other activities. “I like to say that Miami chose me,” she explains. “Never in a million years did I see myself going here. Upon receiving all of my college acceptances, I visited UM as a last-minute consideration and immediately fell in love with it. UM has everything I wanted—from small class sizes, to big-time sports, to tons of opportunities to get involved and learn all sorts of new things. I love this school.”

— Robert C. Jones Jr.

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UM’s iconic fifth president inspired students from around the globe with her push for greatness and Hurricane-force wins.

THE SHALALA GENERATIO

BY ROBERT C. JONES JR. PHOTO BY JENNY ABREU

The news hit wire services and newspaper headlines early on Monday, September 8, 2014, just as another fall semester of learning and illumination had gotten underway: Donna E. Shalala, who used her trademark exuberance, savvy, and skill to transform the University of Miami into a powerhouse research institution, would step down as president at the end of the academic year. n While perhaps unexpected, the conclusion of her UM tenure was inevitable. After all, everyone eventually moves on—even the great ones like Shalala. n Michael Jordan, after winning his sixth NBA title, walked away from the Chicago Bulls. n Barbara Walters, who interviewed celebrities, dictators, presidents, and prime ministers during a storied journalism career spanning more than 50 years, signed off from her ABC daytime show for the last time with a simple “à bientôt” (French for “See you later”). n For Shalala, it was simply the right time.

14 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

N

President Shalala hits the orange carpet with best friend Sebastian the Ibis amid a throng of adoring students.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 15

From left: Donna E. Shalala delivers her presidential inauguration address on November 2, 2001, tours the medical campus on her first day on the job in June 2001, and helps announce the historic Frost gift to the music school at the Momentum campaign’s public launch in October 2003.

“A long time ago a friend advised me to always leave a job when you still love it,” she wrote in September. “That is certainly the case here.”

Indeed. Even in the last few weeks of her UM presidency, Shalala’s love for the University never wavered.

It was a passion she ignited more than 14 years ago, when, during her November 2001 inauguration address, the former Clinton cabinet member pledged that UM would achieve excellence. Excellence in its classrooms and concert halls. Excellence in its research labs. Excellence on the competitive playing field.

In the end, UM’s fifth president delivered on all those promises: a onceelusive top-50 ranking by U.S. News & World Report, new facilities and construction projects, increased research funding, a larger endowment, conference titles in multiple sports, higher and higher SAT scores from incoming freshmen classes, a University-owned and -operated hospital, two successful

THE SHALALA YEARS

record-breaking capital campaigns that raised more than $3 billion collectively, and the list goes on. As a result, UM is a different, and better, institution than the one Shalala took over in 2001.

As UM’s first woman president— born in an era when the New Deal policies and programs enacted by the Roosevelt administration changed the face of America—Shalala took the helm of Florida’s top private research university just as it was ready to set its own new course to greatness.

Shalala freely admits she didn’t come in with a vision. “Visions are not developed necessarily from your previous experience,” Shalala, a former chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of Hunter College, said during her keynote address at the 2015 Women’s Commission Awards Breakfast, her last as UM president.

“They’re developed after observing and listening to the institution, and the institution has to be listened to not just by talking to the senior members of the

administration, but to all—to the staff, to the faculty, to the students.”

And when she arrived, Shalala did plenty of listening, gathering input from every corner of the institution. In time, her roadmap emerged, and she executed it with zeal, energy, enthusiasm, and focus, spurring a university to become greater than it thought it could be.

“When I first got here, I just didn’t think anyone was ambitious enough. I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to be No. 1,” recalls Shalala. “I remember the description of the University. It was ‘One of the best universities in the southeastern part of the United States.’ I told our communications people to take that off our website. I said, ‘Who aspires to be one of the best universities in the southeastern part of the United States?’

You aspire to be No. 1. You want to compete with the Ivies, you want to compete with New York and Chicago and L.A. I think the [Greater Miami] community has also gotten more ambitious, and maybe we helped a little.”

’01

’02

’03

Taking the Oath

Rose Bowl Rout

Gift of Hope

All-Star Venue

Gift of Note

Donna E. Shalala is inaugurated as UM’s fifth president on November 2, delivering an inspiring speech that commits the University to excellence in all areas.

The Hurricanes defeat the Nebraska Cornhuskers 37-14 in the Rose Bowl on January 3, claiming the football program’s fifth national championship.

The Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute, made possible by a gift from the Norman and Irma Braman Family Foundation, is launched.

A multipurpose $48 million, 8,000-seat Convocation Center, later renamed BankUnited Center, opens on the Coral Gables campus.

Phillip and Patricia Frost donate a historic $30 million to UM’s School of Music, which is renamed in their honor.

ACC(EPTED)

Building Momentum

UM joins the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Momentum campaign kicks off with a $1 billion goal.

Collegiate Triumph 2001-2015

HIGHLIGHTS OF A MOMENTOUS PRESIDENCY

The Hurricanes defeat the Stanford Cardinal 12-1 on June 16 at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, capturing the baseball program’s fourth College World Series.

16 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Weather or Not The Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing, which evaluates meteorological and environmental phenomena, opens on UM’s Richmond campus.

UM Student Makes History Biology major Devi Sridhar, 18, becomes the youngest American ever named a Rhodes Scholar.

From left: Shalala announces in November 2003 that UM will host the first presidential debate of 2004, walks hand-in-hand with the Dalai Lama at his September 22, 2004 speech at the BankUnited Center, and announces the Miller family’s $100 million gift to the medical school in December 2004.

GREATEST HITS If there were a University Presidents Hall of Fame, Shalala would surely be a first-ballot inductee. But while her administration’s successes are a highlight reel, she doesn’t point to one seminal accomplishment but rather a series of victories, chief among them, Momentum: The Campaign for the University of Miami.

“The first Momentum campaign was a billion-dollar campaign. We far exceeded it; we raised $1.4 billion in the end, and people couldn’t believe it,” says Shalala. “Getting into the top 50 in U.S. News was important to our academic standing. Getting a more competitive student body. Becoming a national research university. Our investments in bringing world-class scientists. But the idea that any part of the community could raise a billion dollars was just unbelievable.”

Unbelievable but true. In fact, the first time in Florida it had ever happened. Many credit Shalala’s

doggedness for the campaign’s success.

UM Board of Trustees Chairman Stuart A. Miller, J.D. ’82, whose family made the signature gift of the Momentum campaign—$100 million to UM’s medical school—knows Shalala’s persistence better than anyone. He recalls one encounter in particular.

“Donna came to me to talk about a gift to the University. And Donna’s idea of a gift and my idea of a gift, they were probably the same except for a zero,” Miller laughs. “I just remember sitting in my office, and Donna in her unique way just kept pushing and pushing.

The balance of patience and pushing defined the way that she brought me to a different place and brought our family to a different place in terms of thinking about the University system. I guess it’s that balance that really defines the Donna Shalala I’ve watched operate as president for the past 14 years.”

Sergio M. Gonzalez, UM’s senior vice president for University advancement and external affairs, who worked

’04

’05

’06

’07

Debate

Musical Merger

Research Resource

Fabulous Finale

UM hosts the first presidential debate between President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry.

The new Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library and Technology Center, made possible by the philanthropic couple, unites library resources and advanced music production labs under one roof.

The 15-story, 300,000square-foot Clinical Research Building opens on the Miller School campus.

The Momentum campaign closes triumphantly with more than $1.4 billion raised for programs, students, faculty, facilities, and more.

New Name, New Era A historic $100 million donation from the family of late businessman and philanthropist Leonard M. Miller renames the medical school in his honor.

Neo-Traditional Resource The School of Architecture dedicates the Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center, named for and made possible by the UM trustee.

Ethical Quest Adrienne Arsht donates $1 million to UM Ethics Programs—at the time, the largest gift supporting ethics programs in Florida.

It Takes a Village UM opens University Village to house 800 upperclassmen and graduate students.

Genetic Leap The John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics is established at the Miller School with a $20 million gift from economist and researcher John P. Hussman.

closely with Shalala on both campaigns, describes her as having “inspired everyone” to reach for greatness. “Our donors enthusiastically and repeatedly supported her leadership as they saw the U transformed before their eyes,” he says. “Her commitment and energy was contagious, and the legacy she has left is profound.”

Shalala’s persistence guided UM to another billion-dollar-plus campaign, Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami, pushing UM’s fundraising total to $3 billion. The success of both campaigns set an example, prompting greater philanthropic deeds throughout South Florida. “I think Adrienne Arsht’s [$30 million] gift to the Arsht Center said to me that we had lifted all of the boats,” says Shalala. “I knew we could raise a billion dollars for the University, but stimulating donors to give large gifts [that benefited the region]—the Pérez [Art Museum Miami], the Frost Science Museum, and the Arsht Center—was just

Nursing’s New Home The M. Christine Schwartz Center for Nursing and Health Studies is dedicated.

Hospital Opening UM buys and transforms Cedars Medical Center, a 560-bed facility in the Miami Health District, into University of Miami Hospital.

Addressing Disparities With $7 million in national funding, UM launches El Centro, a Center of Excellence for Hispanic Health Disparities Research.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 17

From left: President Shalala serves students during one of UM’s midnight breakfasts, is tapped into Iron Arrow in Fall 2007, and hosts a conversation with her former boss President Bill Clinton at Spring Convocation 2007, one day after Clinton’s former VP Al Gore spoke on campus.

as important to us. We didn’t want to be an isolated part of the community.

We wanted to stimulate the whole community and develop a kind of philanthropy that would change Miami forever.”

create momentary chaos on a daily basis.”

But it wasn’t just fundraising. Shalala employed her toughness and tireless efforts in everything she did, starting from day one of her UM presidency when the former U.S. secretary of health and human services took the reins at a breakneck pace, touring the Coral Gables, medical, and marine campuses, having lunch with faculty, meeting with deans and vice presidents, and finishing her day with a dinner with a UM trustee.

On the morning of UM’s spring 2012 graduation, she dislocated her right shoulder in a nasty fall. But that didn’t faze her. She quickly got medical attention, making it to the BankUnited Center in time to officiate the last two ceremonies. She simply used her left

arm instead of her right to shake hands with students as they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas.

In February 2013, Shalala called out the NCAA, writing in a statement that UM had suffered from inappropriate practices by the governing body of college athletics after it admitted “missteps” and “insufficient oversight” in its investigation of alleged NCAA violations in Miami’s athletics department.

That probe proved to be one of the toughest challenges Shalala faced during her UM tenure. “But we fought our way through,” she says, “and we had tremendous community support.”

The University cooperated fully with investigators and took responsibility for its actions by proactively self-imposing severe penalties.

Such difficult times would have surely derailed others. But not Shalala, who Thomas J. LeBlanc, executive vice president and provost, says “has an amazing ability to keep her eye on the big picture, even while smaller issues

’08

’09

’10

TOUGH AND TENACIOUS

A BOSS’S PRAISE That Shalala achieved so much at UM is no surprise to President Bill Clinton, who lauds her for leading a federal department “many people thought of as a sprawling bureaucracy but she saw as a garden of creativity and potential.”

“To me, she had everything you need to succeed in Washington. She had a lot of self-confidence, a vast command of the area she was going to be dealing with, and she knew how to get things done and how to involve different kinds of people in achieving her objectives,” says Clinton, noting that, as his secretary of health and human services, Shalala directed the welfare reform process, made health insurance available to an estimated 3.3 million children through the approval of all State Children’s Health Insurance Programs, and raised child immunization rates to the highest levels in history.

Clinical Network

Brilliant Creation

Down to Business

Focus on Humanities

Helping Haiti

Alumni Magnet

The Miller School of Medicine launches its comprehensive health care network, UHealth – University of Miami Health System.

The Lowe Art Museum dedicates the new 3,500square-foot Myrna and Sheldon Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Glass and Studio Arts.

The School of Business Administration convenes UM’s inaugural Global Business Forum.

The College of Arts and Sciences establishes South Florida’s first Center for the Humanities.

Planting SEEDS

Cracking the Top Tier

UM begins comprehensive relief efforts for the people of Haiti directly after the devastating January 12 earthquake.

UM dedicates the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center, a new home away from home for loyal ’Canes.

Funded by the provost and National Science Foundation, UM creates SEEDS (Scientists and Engineers Expanding Diversity and Success) to improve career opportunities in science and engineering for women and underrepresented minorities.

UM ranks No. 50 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 edition of “America’s Best Colleges,” a 17-point rise over 2001. UM stays in the top 50 through the Shalala presidency.

Medal of Freedom Calling her a leader who has helped many Americans “live lives of purpose and dignity,” President George W. Bush awards President Shalala the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

18 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Environmental Preservation The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy launch the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program to advance marine conservation through research and education.

From left: Shalala signs the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment on Earth Day 2007, receives the Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, and takes her place at the head of the class, where she taught a popular course on U.S. health care throughout her tenure.

Clinton’s relationship with Shalala has thrived well after his presidency; he has visited UM on five occasions since leaving the Oval Office, and he relies on her as “a great reality check,” sometimes seeking her advice on the work being done by his foundation.

He calls her achievements at UM “stunning” and praises her for lifting the lives of young people at three different institutions, “each time, taking on challenges that were more complex and certainly dealing with greater diversity.”

But it is Shalala’s track record with students for which she will arguably be remembered most.

On the evening of President’s Day 2012, more than 300 students in Shalala’s class on the U.S. Health Care Crisis sat patiently in their seats, waiting for the lecture to begin. To their surprise, it wasn’t Shalala who led the class, but Bill Clinton, who entered the Storer Auditorium through a back door, still

dressed in golf shoes from a round of links at a nearby resort.

Whether convincing her ex-boss to be a surprise guest lecturer at her class, making sure students got the first crack at interviewing powerhouse speakers who came to campus, or simply riding along with a spirited group of undergraduates on a bus to Sun Life Stadium for a Hurricanes football game, Shalala always kept the University’s lifeblood— its students—at the top of her agenda.

“Not just the quick, articulate ones but the quiet, shy ones, too,” she once said at her introductory press conference on the UM campus in November 2000.

“They teach you about their world, and their world is very different from the world I grew up in,” Shalala says of UM’s student body. “They have opportunities that no one’s had, but they’re also overwhelmed. They have more information to learn. They taught me about music. Taught me a lot about life. They’re remarkable young people.

I have enormous confidence in this

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’12

STUDENT FOCUSED

Hall of Famer President Shalala is enshrined in the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, on October 1, joining Billie Holiday, Coretta Scott King, and other distinguished inductees.

Biotech Booster South Florida’s future as a biotech hub brightens when UM dedicates its new Life Science & Technology Park in Miami.

Improving Wellness

Momentum Squared

New Hope for Paralysis Patients

UM unveils its renovated and expanded Patti and Allan Herbert Wellness Center, the result of a generous gift from the philanthropists for whom the facility is named.

UM launches Momentum2 to raise $1.6 billion by 2016. The campaign’s lead gift is $100 million from the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation.

The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis receives permission from the FDA to begin a revolutionary Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the safety of transplanting human Schwann cells to treat patients with recent spinal cord injuries.

Nurturing Nanotech The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation gives $7.5 million to name the collaborative Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute at the University of Miami.

generation’s young people. I think they’re caring, much more caring than other generations. They haven’t had the opportunity to go through the great movements—the peace movement, the women’s movement, the civil rights movement. But gosh, they’re committed to their communities. Every single one of our students makes some kind of contribution to Miami.”

In turn, students of UM’s Shalala generation learned from her. During his term as student government president, Brandon Gross, B.S.C. ’09, M.S.Ed. ’13, had frequent one-on-one meetings with Shalala in her office, bringing with him a list of the student-focused projects his administration hoped to accomplish.

Gross, who is now associate director of UM’s Student Center Complex, recalls the speed and efficiency with which Shalala reviewed one of his lists.

“She took it and started going through it, checking off items and asking how we intended to get our projects done and how she could help,” he says. “She

POTUS on Campus

$6 Billion Impact

President Barack Obama visits UM in February to tout his energy policies.

Several months later, he and Republican presidential nominee then-Governor Mitt Romney visit UM for “Meet the Candidates” forums presented by Univision and Facebook.

Just prior to Election Day, both candidates hold rallies at UM.

An independent study commissioned by UM shows that the institution has a total economic impact of $6.1 billion in the region of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 19

From left: Shalala onstage with singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins at Momentum2’s public launch in February 2012, celebrating the unveiling of the U statue in October 2012, and cutting down the net after the men’s hoops team clinched the ACC regular season title in March 2013.

wanted to do all she could to connect us with the right people so that we could accomplish our goals. And that’s when I really came to realize how dedicated she was to students.”

For former Student Government President Nawara Alawa, B.S. ’13, it is a personal sit-down, not an SG-related meeting, that is indelibly etched in her memory. While Alawa always knew she wanted to go to medical school, she was never certain about what kind of physician she wanted to become. So she sought Shalala’s advice.

“She recommended that after finishing my undergraduate studies, I take a year off to explore the exciting and rapidly changing field of health care outside of medical school, and that’s exactly what I did,” recalls Alawa. She moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform—an experience, she says, that transformed “my outlook on medicine and gave me an opportunity to grow outside of Miami.”

Now a student in the Miller School’s dual M.D./Master of Public Health program, Alawa says that “without President Shalala’s advice, I may never have broadened my horizons”—or learned an important nugget of information she now carries with her in everything she does. “She [Shalala] told me that we’re all human and make mistakes. To succeed, you should remember to never make the same mistake twice.”

When UM hosted the first presidential debate of 2004, Shalala made sure students received the bulk of the tickets to the event. She regularly gave students priority access to a powerful lineup of speakers, including world leaders, lawmakers, journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs.

She also changed the way UM graduated its students, moving commencement from the Foote University Green to the BankUnited Center and splitting the ceremony into three separate undergraduate exercises. The University

’13 Global Icons President Shalala gives students priority access to on-campus events featuring Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, autism advocate Temple Grandin, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, British primatologist Jane Goodall, and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. These are just a few of the notable speakers UM has hosted between 2001 and 2015.

also added graduate-degree and midyear exercises.

A STUDENT CENTER FOR THE AGES Pat Whitely, vice president for student affairs for the past 18 years, knows of Shalala’s devotion to students better than anyone. During a walk around campus in 2002, Shalala suddenly turned to Whitely and said, “Pat, what do you think about tearing down the Rat and building a student center there?”

“We embarked on that project together,” Whitely recalls, “but it was all her vision.”

Today, the three-story, 119,000square-foot facility, home to a new Rathskeller, bears Shalala’s name—an idea proposed back in 2011, when the center had its ceremonial groundbreaking. The building was made possible by a $20 million lead gift from the Fairholme Foundation, as well as a 2006 referendum in which students voted overwhelmingly to impose a fee

’14 Hoop Dreams Fulfilled

Student Center(ed)

Hillary Talks Social Change

Transforming Jewish Life

The Miami Hurricanes defeat the North Carolina Tar Heels 87-77 on March 17 to win the men’s basketball team’s first-ever ACC Tournament title.

The 119,000-squarefoot Student Activities Center—made possible by a lead gift from the Fairholme Foundation— officially opens on August 26. It is part of the Student Center Complex, incorporating renovations to the Whitten University Center, Lakeside Patio, and more.

Appearing at the BankUnited Center on February 26, Hillary Rodham Clinton urges students to take an active role in bettering society.

Two distinguished Miami families, the Bramans and the Millers, join forces to transform Jewish student life at the U with a lead naming gift to University of Miami Hillel.

New Home for Athletic Excellence UM dedicates the new Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence to serve more than 400 student-athletes.

20 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Career Achievement UM officially dedicates its new state-of-the-art Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center on February 7, setting a new standard for helping students prepare for employment.

Robotics Edge UHealth becomes the world’s first academic medical center to use the new da Vinci Xi Surgical System, putting Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the leading edge of minimally invasive, robotic-assisted surgery for treatment of urologic cancers.

On a High Note Student applications hit 31,600—more than doubling the 14,700 applications from 2001.

From left: Shalala flashes the U with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in February 2013, dons her own pair of ibis feet, presented by Lauryn WIlliams, B.B.A. ’05, at her April 2015 send-off party; and bids farewell to students at spring commencement after more than 100 ceremonies.

on themselves to fund its construction.

Whitely recalled another unforgettable Shalala moment in June of 2001, when, ten minutes into a walking tour of the Coral Gables campus with student leaders, UM’s new president turned to her and said, “Where does everybody sit around here? Get some tables and chairs.”

Says Whitely, “It was a Monday, and by Thursday we had bought out all the green tables and chairs from Home Depot and had them around campus.”

cementing its reputation as a leading health care provider.

“The fact that anyone, no matter what their income, can get world-class care from UM doctors and nurses with partner Jackson Memorial Hospital makes all the difference in the world,” says Shalala. “As someone from New York said to me, ‘I don’t have to worry about my health care. I could live in Miami. I can’t get this kind of health care in Palm Beach, but I can get it here in Miami.’”

BROAD REACH

A NEW CHALLENGE

Shalala’s influence extended far beyond the University’s confines, reaching into Miami’s diverse communities as projects and new initiatives implemented under her watch improved the places where people live and the health care they receive. Under Shalala, UM purchased the former Cedars Medical Center—now called University of Miami Hospital—and started the UHealthUniversity of Miami Health System,

For the next year Shalala will head the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit that works with businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals to address a range of pressing problems. Eventually she plans to return to UM as a professor of political science and health policy.

Could there be another cabinet post in Shalala’s future as well? “I can’t do hypotheticals,” she says. “All I’m

going to do is go up and run the Clinton Foundation for a while, and then we’ll figure out what’s going to happen later.”

UM now forges ahead without Shalala, and the school is ready. In midApril, it introduced her successor to the community, Harvard physician and public health dean Julio Frenk.

The last 14 years have been “fun,” says Shalala.

“One of the things I said to people when I came here is, we’re not going to be Yale; we’re not going to be Harvard,” she comments. “We’re going to be Miami, and we’re going to embrace our community as part of our identity, not just because we have a name, but because by doing that, we become a very different kind of national research university. And people will be attracted because we’re not running away from where we are or who we are. The best is yet to come.”

See video clips and read more on President Shalala’s tenure at miami.edu/magazine.

’15 No. 1 Run For the 11th consecutive year, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is ranked the nation’s best in ophthalmology by U.S. News & World Report.

Medical Center Naming Gift The Lennar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Lennar Corporation, gives a lead gift of $50 million to name The Lennar Foundation Medical Center, slated to open fall 2016 on the Coral Gables campus.

Hurricane-Force Win On October 2, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science dedicates its new Marine Technology and Life Sciences Seawater Complex, which includes the Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. SUrge-STructureAtmosphere INteraction (SUSTAIN) facility and its 38,000-gallon, 75-footlong water tank for hurricane research.

Historic Meeting As U.S.-Cuba relations thaw, the Institute for Cuban and CubanAmerican Studies hosts a historic meeting with dissidents from the island who call for dialogue with Miami’s exile community.

New Sound of Music Hundreds dedicate the Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, which house state-of-the-art teaching studios and unite the Frost School of Music’s students and faculty “like never before.”

Fight for Equality

Breakthrough Gift

Gloria Steinem, the leader of the modern feminist movement, visits campus with an inspiring message to continue the fight for equality.

With a $55 million gift from the Miller family, UM exceeds its $1.6 billion Momentum2 goal.

During Shalala’s tenure, UM’s endowment more than doubled—from $427 million in 2002 to $865 million in 2014.

Shalala’s Big Send-Off Honoring the remarkable 14-year tenure of UM’s fifth president, the Student Activities Center is renamed the Donna E. Shalala Student Center on April 30.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 21

Chelsea Clinton kicks off CGI U 2015.

BY TIM COLLIE

A

s a first-year law student at the University of Miami, Tricia Nicewicz, J.D. ’13, was looking for a way to combine her passion for the environment with research opportunities that would polish her legal skills. She began contacting nonprofit environmental groups, offering pro bono help from law students in researching litigation and other issues.

Her project launched a network that today helps conservation organizations tackle a variety of issues. It also distinguished Nicewicz at the law school and drew notice from another “university” that is a growing force at UM and college Tricia Nicewicz, J.D. ’13 campuses around the world: the Clinton Global Initiative University, also known as CGI U. Each year CGI U engages student leaders to discuss and develop innovative solutions to pressing global challenges.

Created in 2007 by former President Bill Clinton, CGI U selected the U to host the third annual CGI U meeting in 2010 and returned to campus for the eighth annual meeting, from March 6 to 8, 2015. The U’s commitment to changing the world has only grown since CGI U’s first visit.

In 2011 UM launched the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, and in 2015 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching awarded UM a Community Engagement Classification.

“We’re very proud of the fact that we’re the first university to host CGI U twice,” says Gail Cole-Avent, UM’s executive director for Student Life and Assessment. “Our facilities, our location, our emphasis on international engagement—I think that’s all part of the reason they chose us again.”

The 2015 CGI U meeting drew 1,100 students from 75 nations and 300 institutions to hear from and network with experts, civically engaged celebrities, 22 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Armed with plans to tackle today’s most pressing problems, 1,100 socially conscious college students brought their A game to UM for the Clinton Global Initiative University meeting.

Action Pact and social entrepreneurs. This year’s high-profile opening event took place at the BankUnited Center, featuring former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton.

Admission to CGI U 2015, just like UM, wasn’t easy: Students had to develop “Commitments to Action”—new initiatives intended to address pressing challenges in one of five focus areas: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, and public health.

Since CGI U’s inaugural meeting in 2008, more than 5,500 Commitments to Action have been made.

“We’re really trying to expand the Commitment to Action model to college students around the world,” says Bill Wetzel, director of CGI U. “We think there’s a lot of power in developing the leadership capacity of college students and encouraging them to come to the table with a commitment, something that is unique, specific, and measurable.”

Some students pull from their own backgrounds for their Commitments to

Action. Guerdiana Thelomar, B.S.Ed. ’15, credits CGI U with helping her to launch Generation Hope Summer Camp in 2014 in her parents’ native city of Saint-Marc, Haiti. “It was what I knew I could do to make a difference in this world,” says the visual journalism and human and social development major. Fluent in French and Haitian Creole, she had often visited Saint-Marc with her parents and saw many social and vocational needs among young people there—needs severely compounded by the 2010 earthquake.

“When I got accepted to CGI U, it made everything feel more tangible, like I could really do this,” she says. “Going to the conference was really inspiring. You’re meeting students from all over the world involved in all kinds of great projects. It’s an opportunity to see what others are doing, what you can learn from them.”

This year at CGI U, Thelomar built on her Generation Hope commitment, earning $1,000 in seed funding to add a photography workshop so camp participants can gain the skills and tools to document issues in their community and share their work in an exhibition.

The funds came from UM, which

Weekend belongs to the CGI University Network, a consortium aimed at supporting and mentoring students from their respective campuses. This year—through the CGI U Network, the Resolution Project Social Venture Challenge, and other opportunities—more than $900,000 was made available to help select CGI U 2015 students turn their ideas into reality.

Thelomar’s Gade Li (“Look at this!”) project was one of 13 Commitments to Action—from providing Ugandans with affordable eyeglasses to building low-cost, energy-efficient computers for Detroit high schoolers to convincing fellow students to give up bottled water— that received a share of $10,000 in seed funding from UM this year.

Clinton Foundation ’Canes

Two other commitments from UM students—U Solar, presented by Sam Peurifoy, and Project Bridge: Belize, presented by Kelley Hammeran, Yeh Lin Lin, and Yeh Shiuan Lin—were among 23 winners of the 2015 Resolution Project Social Venture Challenge at CGI U. Another UM student, Joshua Beauplan, was on the winning CGI U Codeathon team that developed (or “hacked”) a tutoring project called MathMagic.

These are just a few of the hundreds of ’Canes who have made Commitments to Action at CGI U since 2008. CGI U’s special events, plenary sessions, and workshops are designed to nurture their plans to the next level through intensive peer networking, skill building, and even

During the opening of the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative University, former U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that UM President Donna E. Shalala was being recruited to head the Clinton Foundation. When she arrives, she’ll surely receive a warm Hurricanes welcome from UM President’s Council member Craig Minassian, B.S.C. ’92, Clinton Foundation chief communications officer; Hannah Deletto, B.B.A. ’07, Clinton Global Initiative director of membership; and Emily Young, B.S.C. ’14, assistant to Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Foundation.

PHOTOS: BARBARA KINNEY, PAUL MORSE, AND MAX ORENSTEIN/CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE

Students cement their commitment with a Day of Action in Liberty City.

partnership scouting. Past workshop leaders and panelists have ranged from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to superstar singer Pharrell Williams, who attended the 2010 event in Miami. This year’s closing panel, hosted by comedian and talk show host Larry Wilmore, included Bill Clinton, members of the Russian protest collective Pussy Riot, and Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer, Hon. ’10.

“Students interact with high-profile people at these meetings,” says Andrew Weimer, director of UM’s William R. Butler Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development, which helps coordinate student involvement in CGI U. “Those one-on-one meetings with leading activists, experts, scientists, and celebrities can be a major event in their lives.”

After two days of discussion, students carry their enthusiasm into the community for a Clinton Foundation Day of Action. This year they joined President Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, UM President Donna E. Shalala, and local professional athletes to paint murals, garden, and generally spruce up a Liberty City school and playground in partnership with the Miami Children’s Initiative.

For Nicewicz, now an attorney with the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command, the “amazing crosspollination of ideas” she experienced by attending three CGI U meetings as a student made a permanent impression.

“CGI U and UM empower us to take what we’re doing in life and make it mean something more than simply earning a salary,” she explains. “They really provide you with an opportunity to help the world move forward.” Still involved with CGI U, Nicewicz mentors students working on projects related to criminal justice. “You go to this conference and see 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids—and they’re doing these projects that are literally going to change the world. It just blows your mind!” she exclaims. “You come back and ask yourself—what more is there that I can do?” miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 23

HAITI SPECIAL REPORT

WEB EXTRA DESIGNING COMMUNITY

5 YEARS OF HOPE & HEALING

THEN

Buildings and infrastructure crumble, leaving more than 1 million people displaced and homeless.

Since late September 2012, School of Architecture faculty Sonia Chao and her team of architects, civil engineers, and planners have taken multiple trips to the region of Akayè, Haiti, meeting with government officials and engaging locals during a series of planning sessions to find out how they want to re-imagine and reshape their communities. This past November, Chao presented the team’s final report to the W.K. Kellogg and Barr foundations, her project’s two primary funding agencies.

NOW

haiti.miami.edu/designing-community.html

Louis Herns Marcelin, left, hears from residents in Cité Soleil, September 2014.

24 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR SUCCESS The groundwork for a successful future in Haiti

requires leadership, education, and research, says UM social anthropologist Louis Herns Marcelin.

BY MAYA BELL ON THIS HOT, SUNNY SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON, THERE IS NO HINT OF THE RAINS

that flood the homes on the southern edge of Cité Soleil, one of the largest and most dangerous slums in the world. n But Louis Herns Marcelin is familiar with the drainage problem a woman describes as she shows him the muddy, trash-choked trench behind her shack that is supposed to divert the water that collects on the street. n He knows all too well that the flooding is the result of another misguided effort to help some of the City of the Sun’s more than 300,000 residents. n Years ago, foreign aid contractors replaced the dirt road with brick pavers. n They surely meant to improve the lives of the people who live among the gangs fighting for control of the sprawling community in the shadow of the Haitian capital’s petroleum depot. n But by elevating the street, they redirected the rain right into the tiny, tin-roofed hovels that line it.

View “Haiti Special Report,” a UM News multimedia project, online at haiti.miami.edu.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 25

HAITI

SPECIAL REPORT

5 YEARS OF HOPE & HEALING

MATERNAL-CHILD HEALTH Curriculum strengthening at a midwifery school in Port-au-Prince led by the School of Nursing and Health Studies ends when the earthquake damages the midwifery school, killing several of its faculty and administrators.

THEN

Based on recent School of Nursing and Health Studies research funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the school has proposed a strategy to improve maternal-child health in southwest Haiti that includes the creation of the first nursemidwife program in the region.

NOW

haiti.miami.edu/improvinghealth-mothers-newborns.html

“ It’s much more than just giving a hand to Haiti. It is about investing in Haitians and about Haitians believing in themselves.”

“This is another of those quick-fix solutions that complicates life,” says Marcelin, an associate professor of anthropology in UM’s College of Arts and Sciences who in 2007 founded Haiti’s Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development, or INURED. “People have good hearts, but quick fixes do not build the capacity to help Haitians help themselves, and that is the solution for Haiti.”

To the dismay of Marcelin and his collaborators, unstudied, quick fixes remain the hallmark of aid to Haiti, a frustrating fact that INURED is working to change by grooming new leaders who can research pressing social issues and guide public policy.

Before Haiti’s devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010, the institute was succeeding in its mission of bringing a new generation of leaders from Cité Soleil’s divided neighborhoods together 26 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

to examine community problems and propose fact-based solutions to Haiti’s decision makers. The initial successes of the Cité Soleil Community Forum inspired hope for a better future: Thanks to the power of hard data and collective voices, police who had abandoned Cité Soleil to the warring gangs returned to two new police precincts. And the American Highway, the main artery circling the shantytown, finally lived up to its name and was paved.

“Before there was insecurity everywhere,” says Nereus Joliette, a member of a women’s group who gathered last fall for an impromptu meeting at the Haitian Foundation for the Family of the Future in Cité Soleil’s Avenue Soleil neighborhood. “There were no police. But now the police have returned. It shows what community involvement can do. We can change minds if we sit together.”

Changing minds—and outlooks— through civic engagement remains the goal of members of Cité Soleil’s Youth to Youth group, some of whom teamed up years ago with students from the University of Miami and other universities to conduct an unprecedented survey of living conditions there. That survey, which showed many people live without running water, electricity, and toilets, helped give rise to the community forum.

“It helped young people who didn’t see a future start to appreciate their own abilities,” Marcelin says. “They thought, ‘If students from UM and elsewhere can come here and enlist me, I have something to offer.’ Instead of manifesting their discontent in violence, they learned they could rechannel it into action and become a force for change.”

Odin Jean was one of the beneficiaries of this effort. Now a law student

PHOTOS: MAYA BELL, NERY YNCLAN, COURTESY SCHOOL OF NURSING AND HEALTH STUDIES

PHOTOS: MAYA BELL, COURTESY LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN AND GUERDIANA THELOMAR, B.S.ED. ’15

and active youth leader, he says, “They stimulated us to look at our community and change the mentality. Our dream is to have our community see itself differently—and it starts with individuals seeing they can have a better future, a better tomorrow.”

But that dream was disrupted by the aid and short-term projects that flooded Haiti after the deadly earthquake destroyed its capital. On the day of the earthquake, three of Marcelin’s UM students—Kristina Rosales, Austin Webbert, and Arielle Duperval—took part in a meeting aimed at recruiting young people from all of Cité Soleil’s diverse sectors to the youth group. Happy with their progress, the UM students left the meeting and headed to the city center to enjoy the sights and a bite to eat.

STUDENT SPIRIT An estimated 6,000 college students perish in the earthquake.

THEN

UM student Guerdiana Thelomar, B.S.Ed. ’15, launches a summer camp for teens in Haiti called Generation Hope.

NOW

From left, Austin Webbert, A.B. ’10, Louis Herns Marcelin, and Kristina Rosales, A.B. ’10, survived the 2010 quake.

At 4:53 p.m., when the earth rumbled and Haiti ruptured, all three students were unscathed but deeply shaken. They couldn’t reach Marcelin, who spent “three hours in living hell,” unaware of their fate and that of his homeland.

When Webbert finally made it to INURED headquarters, Marcelin’s joy was shattered by the video Webbert had captured on his cell phone. It showed Haiti’s National Palace crumbling.

“It was then I realized the magnitude of the disaster and how much trouble we were in,” Marcelin says. “The earthquake undid and redefined everything.

The international community began pouring so much money into cashforward or short-term projects that they absorbed all the leaders we had been training for their initiatives, which is good in one way. But it was not good for Cité Soleil. The earthquake and the flood of aid led to a demobilization of

haiti.miami.edu/fuelingdreams-and-hope.html

the leadership, and we need leadership so people can walk away from marginalization and exclusion.”

The earthquake also decimated Haiti’s higher education system, killing an estimated 6,000 students and 200 professors, and destroying or damaging more than 85 percent of its buildings— findings INURED reported two months after the temblor. But the disaster mobilized many Haitian-Americans to return to their homeland. Among them was Columbia University’s Toni Cela, who had sent her grandmother home on the last plane to land at Port-au-Prince’s airport before disaster struck. Cela would soon follow, embracing INURED’s mission to create a new research workforce. She is now INURED’s country coordinator.

“Most education institutions focus on access to lower education, but we focus on higher education because if you don’t

have a culture of research or scientific inquiry, how can you solve problems?”

Cela asks.

To date, INURED has trained more than 300 young people to conduct research on a variety of issues, including violence, health, agriculture, education, environment, migration, food security, and development. With the support of a small group of dedicated philanthropists, INURED also has sent ten students from Cité Soleil to complete their university degrees in Brazil. The students are due to return to their homeland next year as agronomists, environmental specialists, dentists, and engineers.

“If we invest in leadership, education, and research, we will develop a new type of people who can take charge of the country,” Marcelin says. “It’s much more than just giving a hand to Haiti. It is about investing in Haitians and about Haitians believing in themselves.” miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 27

HAITI

SPECIAL REPORT

5 YEARS OF HOPE & HEALING

PLANTING SEEDS FOR THE FUTURE The University of Miami and Project Medishare are

providing much-needed medical services to Haiti and helping the country’s health care workforce to grow.

BY MAYA BELL WHEN STROLLING THE STREETS OF PORT-AU-PRINCE, WILFRID MACENA LIKES TO WEAR SHORTS

to show off his right leg. n With its hydraulic knee, shock absorbers, and titanium rod, he nimbly strides over potholes, dodges motorcycles, and sidesteps a sea of vendors carrying everything from eggs to plants on their heads. n “I want people to see disability doesn’t stop me,” says the former welder who received his first prosthesis at the University of Miami/Project Medishare tent hospital that rose like a beacon of hope in the sea of misery left by the January 2010 earthquake. n Five years after that apocalyptic disaster, Macena, empowering Haitians to care for their own. n Now working as a prosthetics technician at Hospital Bernard Mevs Project Medishare, Macena is part of the fledgling Haitian health care workforce destined to carry out the vision of the Miller School of Medicine’s Barth A. Green. n The chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery and co-founder of Project Medishare who launched UM’s unprecedented emergency response in Haiti five years ago is closing in on his dream of establishing a critical care and trauma network in a country that didn’t even have an ambulance service before the earthquake.

View “Haiti Special Report,” a UM News multimedia project, online at haiti.miami.edu.

28 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

PHOTOS: MAYA BELL, TRAVIS HORN, BYRON MALDONADO, NERY YNCLAN

whose leg was crushed by a tumbling wall, stands as a symbol of UM’s commitment to

WEB EXTRA TREATMENT AND HEALING Read about the wound healing, vision care, and mobile medical resources UM helped launch in Haiti.

miami.edu/treatment-and-healing.html

Wilfrid Macena, above, lost his leg in the earthquake and helped start an amputee soccer team in Haiti. He is also a prosthetics technician at Hospital Bernard Mevs Project Medishare.

29 MIAMI Spring 2015 miami.edu/magazine

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 29

HAITI

SPECIAL REPORT

5 YEARS OF HOPE & HEALING

Haiti has committed $5 million to build a national trauma, critical care, and rehabilitation center, shown in this rendering.

Still on the drawing board but approaching reality is a national critical care, trauma, and education and training center Green envisions for donated land near the Port-au-Prince airport—not far from where 5,000 volunteers at UM/Project Medishare’s field hospital treated more than 30,000 earthquake survivors under four large, white tents.

In October 2014, the Haitian government committed $5 million to the center that will be designed to rival UM/Jackson’s Ryder Trauma Center in Miami. Now, Green is counting on the seed money and donated land to attract matching funds from private and international donors, whose financial help is vital for empowering Haitians to take charge of their own future, and that of their nation.

That is where UM continues to shine.

Rather than “just stirring up the dust without planting any seeds,” as Green notes many nongovernment organizations did in Haiti after the earthquake, UM faculty, staff, alumni, and students continue to help Haitians build the infrastructure and create the capacity to take care of themselves—the very reason Green and Arthur Fournier, the now-retired vice chair of the Miller School’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, founded Project Medishare for Haiti more than 20 years ago.

On Haiti’s northern coast, in historic Cap-Haïtien, the department’s Michel Dodard and André Vulcain continue to 30 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

supervise and raise funds to train family medicine physicians, a specialty that didn’t exist in Haiti when they launched their Haiti Project in 1999. Fifteen years later, the Haiti Project has graduated more than 50 family medicine residents and generated other training programs and clinical services. Among them: the Family Practice Center, which provides a medical home to more than 30,000 patients, and an extensive HIV/AIDS service that cares for more than 3,500.

On Haiti’s rural Central Plateau, Project Medishare-trained health care advocates and volunteers from UM and beyond continue to provide comprehensive birth-to-death health care to more than 100,000 of the poorest of Haiti’s poor. Their successes are noteworthy: Infant immunization rates have climbed from less than 10 percent to 86 percent, and pregnant women now average three prenatal health care visits before giving birth. They once had none.

Yet, with inadequate water, sanitation, and nutrition a fact of life in Haiti, too many children still die young, and hundreds are born each year with hydrocephalous, an excessive accumulation of fluid around the brain. The luckiest of them undergo surgery at Bernard Mevs, the small community hospital that transitioned into Haiti’s first critical care, trauma, and rehabilitation center when UM/Project Medishare’s field hospital closed six months after the quake.

Bernard Mevs began partnering with Project Medishare 20 years ago, providing a place for UM and other volunteer surgeons to operate on children with hydrocephalus and cleft palates.

Initially run by foreign health care volunteers, Bernard Mevs is now staffed almost entirely by Haitians—the pioneers of Haiti’s trauma, critical care, and rehabilitation workforce. They are mentored by UM faculty and staff who continue to guide and grapple for support for the pediatrics, rehabilitation, wound care, ophthalmology, pathology, and other programs they helped launch at Bernard Mevs–programs like Bascom Palmer Eye Institute’s clinic, where dozens of patients line up weekly for the kind of care that wasn’t available to them before the earthquake.

In all, Bernard Mevs’ staff treats about 100,000 trauma, critical care, and rehabilitation patients a year. Add to that number those served with unprecedented health care in the Central Plateau and Cap-Haïtien, and UM/ Project Medishare’s impact is widespread and incalculable. But it is a mere drop in the proverbial bucket of a nation of 10 million people with so much need because, as Green notes, it takes time, perseverance, and long-term, unwavering commitment to build capacity and create sustainable health care infrastructure in Haiti.

“We were there 20 years before

the earthquake, and we will be there 20 years after,” Green says. “I am very proud of what we and our partners have accomplished, but it truly represents only the beginning. All that Haiti needs and wants is opportunity.”

PHOTOS: COURTESY UM/PROJECT MEDISHARE

STEPPING INTO A POSITIVE FUTURE Nine-year-old Christlande Mattieu stands up from a chair and takes her first uncertain steps on a shiny new red, blue, and yellow artificial leg. Slowly crossing the cavernous prosthetics and orthotics laboratory at Hospital Bernard Mevs Project Medishare in downtown Port-au-Prince, she falters and then steadies herself as she turns to make her way back to the chair.

“Put the weight on the prosthetic, and then you can turn,” counsels Wilfrid Macena, a member of the hospital’s four-person rehabilitation team, which helps thousands of Haitians get back on their feet every year.

Over and over, the little girl retraces her steps, still leaning on one of the crutches she began using when doctors amputated her left leg above the knee in

April 2014. They had no choice—an infection on the leg had invaded the bone.

Yet, in less than three hours of determined practice, Mattieu sheds the crutch, striding, pivoting, and beaming with newfound confidence.

She is already beating the odds.

Above-knee amputees typically require weeks of intensive therapy to learn to walk on a prosthesis without aid. But Mattieu has an advantage: Macena not only knows exactly how it feels to lose a leg and adapt to an artificial one, he customized and fabricated the plastic socket that holds her prosthesis snuggly in place in Bernard Mevs’ Ossur International Prosthetics and Orthotics Laboratory.

He demonstrates with his own, more advanced artificial leg. Now 30, Macena has far more than technical skill. To the hesitant child and to the University of Miami’s Robert Gailey, B.S.Ed. ’82, M.S.Ed. ’82, a professor of physical therapy who helped Macena and two of his fellow rehabilitation technicians find new purpose after Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake, he is an ideal role model, a living example of the unbreakable spirit of the Haitian people.

When the earth shook in January

UM/Project Medishare’s Barth Green, below in 2010, is working to build Haiti’s trauma network.

GROWING HEALTH CARE IN HAITI Barth Green, a UM neurosurgeon and co-founder of Project Medishare, talks about ongoing health care projects in Haiti, and the impact they are having on the country.

haiti.miami.edu/plantingseeds-for-the-future.html

2010 and the wall crushed Macena’s right leg, he spent eight days seeking medical help. He finally reached a hospital in neighboring Dominican Republic, where doctors amputated above the knee. Instead of cursing his fate, Macena became a model patient, even learning to kick a soccer ball on crutches. When Macena returned to Haiti, Gailey and his team fitted him with the first above-knee prosthesis issued at the tent hospital UM and Project Medishare opened at the Port-au-Prince airport nine days after the quake.

That temblor left approximately 1,500 survivors like Macena with missing limbs. Gailey, who had never been to Haiti before, was determined to help them resume their lives with dignity and mobility, just as he’s done for countless U.S. soldiers who lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Joining forces with the Knights of Columbus, which is providing prostheses to every Haitian child who needs one, Gailey set out to dispel the stigma that amputees somehow deserve their fate and have no place, value, or future in Haiti.

Macena wasted no time conveying that message. Within five minutes of being fitted with his first artificial leg, he was walking. Within 30 minutes, he was running. A few months later, he and Cedieu Fortilus, one of the Haitian translators at the tent hospital who helped Macena navigate and eventually learn English, founded Haiti’s first amputee soccer team. Captained by Macena, the team inspired a grieving nation. Today, Team Zaryen—the Creole word for tarantula, a fearsome spider that grows even more determined when missing a leg—continues to change the country’s view of amputees.

And Macena, Fortilus, and Emmanuel Kernand, a second Haitian translator who worked at the tent hospital, proved the value of rehabilitation programs in a country with so few of them. They never imagined such a calling could be theirs. But with Gailey’s ongoing fundraising support and the steady guidance of Thomas Iwalla, a former Jesuit priest and an internationally certified prosthetist and orthotist from Kenya, miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 31

HAITI

SPECIAL REPORT

5 YEARS OF HOPE & HEALING

MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES Associate professor Marie Guerda Nicolas suffers the loss of several family members in the earthquake.

THEN

Nicolas, a clinical psychologist at the School of Education and Human Development, creates a “culturally adapted” mental health program and joins forces with the School of Nursing and Health Studies in obtaining a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to implement the program, which educates Haitian health professionals on how to identify mental health issues and trauma.

This same training program now continues in Akayé, about 70 miles north of Port-au-Prince.

NOW

haiti.miami.edu/addressingmental-health-issues.html

Fortilus and Kernand helped scores of patients recovering from surgery, injury, or disease regain function and mobility through proper physical therapy.

“One of the best things for me, and for my colleagues, is we are useful persons in Haiti,” says Fortilus, who like Kernand, graduated from a rehabilitation technician program operated in Haiti by Loma Linda University. “We help people who are really in need. We see a lot of stroke patients who have limitation on one side of their body, so we work with them day to day, and they recover function. It is like a miracle.”

Nodding in agreement, Macena explains his perpetual smile and sunny disposition. “I can tell you I feel always happy, always smiling, because I see my people get back life. When you see me, you see my country.”

Macena spends his time at Bernard Mevs learning his new craft from Iwalla, who also supervises a pilot project aimed at training Haiti’s future rehabilitation pioneers through distance learning. Together, they refit young earthquake survivors who have outgrown their prostheses or patients who have recently lost a limb with the custom-fitted plastic sockets that will hold the replacement in place.

32 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Working in a noisy metal laboratory without air conditioning, they make molds for the plastic sockets by taking a plaster cast of each patient’s residual limb. Later, the molds are encased in plastic melted in a 482-degree oven.

Once the plastic cools, they remove it from the mold, and assemble the prostheses from components donated

by U.S. companies or purchased through Knights of Columbus funding.

The work is hot, painstaking, and vital. If the socket does not fit perfectly and comfortably, the patient will be unsteady and have a difficult time gaining the confidence to use it, as Mattieu could attest. When the 9-year-old begins crossing the workshop, Iwalla has to adjust the length of her new leg a few times. But as her walk steadies and her confidence and smile grow, he and Macena know the socket is a good fit. “I am so happy,” she says in Creole.

“I can’t wait to show my friends my new leg.”

Gailey isn’t there to watch the child take Macena’s hand and walk slowly down the stairs and into a more promising future. He rarely visits Haiti these days, preferring to save the money he would spend on a trip to help pay the salaries of the Bernard Mevs rehab team.

“I am proud of all we have accomplished in Haiti,” Gailey says, “but I am most proud of what our Haitian technicians have been able to do. They’ve gone to school and they come to work every day to take care of their countrymen, and they do it not just for a paycheck but because they can make a difference.”

FILLING THE GAP FOR CHILDREN On a September morning in 2014, Miller School of Medicine faculty Antonia “Toni” Eyssallenne pays an unexpected visit to Bernard Mevs’ pediatric intensive care unit and is elated by what she sees. Gathered around a baby girl born with hydrocephalus, a second-year resident is briefing the infant’s mother and two attending physicians on the baby’s recovery from surgery to relieve the buildup of fluid on the brain that dooms too many Haitian newborns to death or a lifetime of disability. The physicians make their way around the four-bed ICU, stopping at the beds of two sick boys to talk with their worried moms.

They never consult Eyssallenne, who established the pediatric residency program just over a year ago while serving

PHOTOS: MAYA BELL, TRAVIS HORN, NERY YNCLAN

Toni Eyssallenne, left, talks with an attending physician at Bernard Mevs.

as Bernard Mevs’ chief medical officer.

But she is not offended; she is beaming with pride.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” says the first-generation HaitianAmerican who was among UM’s initial responders to the earthquake. “They are rounding with the mom. They are including her in the discussion. Engaging families is critical to improving care.”

Such scenes would be routine at UM/Jackson Memorial Hospital, where Eyssallenne completed her internal medicine and pediatrics training and now serves as associate program director of the UM/Jackson Internal MedicinePediatrics Residency Program at Holtz Children’s Hospital. But like the pediatrics residency program, family-centered rounding is a new concept at Bernard Mevs. Today, the 50-bed hospital and outpatient center is staffed almost entirely by Haitians who make the most of the training and unprecedented but limited resources Project Medishare and other donors provide.

That wasn’t the case when Eyssallenne, fresh from completing her residency at Jackson, became Bernard Mevs’ chief medical officer in September 2010. The staff consisted almost entirely of volunteer doctors and nurses from Miami and beyond.

“We didn’t have many local human resources, and the volunteers changed on a weekly basis. It was chaotic, and very difficult to manage,” she recalls.

Particularly challenging was the shortage of pediatricians who could care for the newborns, babies, and children who arrived in need of trauma, emergency, and critical care. It fell to Eyssallenne

to staff the pediatrics wards, which included the country’s first pediatric and neonatal intensive care units.

It didn’t take long for her to feel the weight of Haiti’s critical physician shortage and lack of training programs on her slim shoulders. There are only 2.6 physicians for every 10,000 people in Haiti and just 400 pediatricians in a nation of 4 million children. Yet in the entire nation, there were only three pediatric residency programs with a total of 27 positions. So Eyssallenne took on another daunting challenge.

Adapting the curriculum from UM/ Jackson’s residency program and partnering with the medical school at Haiti’s Notre Dame University, she sought and won government approval to establish a joint residency program at Bernard Mevs and Hospital St. Damian, Haiti’s only freestanding comprehensive pediatric hospital. Currently there are 14 doctors in the training program.

“Having 2.6 doctors for every 10,000 Haitians is a ridiculous number,” she says, “and adding 14 pediatricians in a nation of 4 million children is hardly enough. But we are doing what we can to fill the gap.”

Today, the Haitian medical school graduates rotate between the two hospitals, learning to care for children with cancer, sickle cell, tuberculosis, kidney

diseases, AIDS, and other infectious and chronic diseases at St. Damian and children in need of critical and emergency care at Bernard Mevs.

Once a week, the Miller School’s Ilene Sosenko, the director of the neonatology fellowship program at Jackson, consults

by Skype or phone with Bernard Mevs’ staff pediatricians about difficult cases in the neonatology ICU. She says she always hangs up from the calls impressed with how much they do without the diagnostic tools and other resources taken for granted in the United States.

“Even something as simple as blood tests that we order every day, or even twice a day, they can order maybe once a week,” Sosenko says. “The level of care they and their residents manage under difficult limitations is very impressive.”

The hours are long and the work is stressful, but second-year resident Christmen Clerveaux is grateful for the opportunity to realize her lifelong dream of becoming a pediatrician in Haiti.

“It was a tradition in our family. My mother’s kitchen was always open and our home was always welcoming to any child who needed help, so I always wanted to be a pediatrician,” she says.

“We are a poor country, so we don’t have the same resources, but we have the same training as residents in Miami, and I am very proud to be part of that.”

HOLISTIC WOUND HEALING At UM’s tent hospital, 80 percent of patients have open wounds. Ulcers from poor circulation and diabetes are also epidemic in Haiti, which has no wound care specialists prior to the earthquake.

THEN

John Macdonald, above, started a holistic wound care program in Haiti.

Supported by the Miller School’s Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, Professor John Macdonald guides the Caribbean’s only holistic wound care program at Hospital Bernard Mevs, where a surgeon and five technicians treat as many as 80 wound patients a day.

NOW

haiti.miami.edu/healingwounds-and-themselves.html

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 33

Alumni Digest

Alumni Digest

NEWS AND EVENTS OF INTEREST TO UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI

Singing UM’s Praises in Asia Connecting U Worldwide receptions take place in China and Hong Kong The first time Shanghai native Natalie Yaonan Song, B.S.C. ’12, saw the University of Miami was when she arrived as a freshman in 2007. Her mother learned of UM through a family friend whose son was a sophomore.

Today, Song, who majored in public relations, is an assistant director of international alumni engagement for UM’s Office of Alumni Relations. The decision she and her family made eight years ago turned out better than she could have imagined. “UM is like my

JENNY ABREU

The popular and elaborate Lunar New Year celebrations at UM began in 2012.

home in the U.S.,” says Song. “I love this University. I don’t want to leave.”

So far she hasn’t. Before being hired

by Alumni Relations, Song was hired as a marketing coordinator for UM’s Intensive English Program, from which she had also graduated. Even as a student, Song was an active ambassador for the U and her native country. In 2010 she founded the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, serving as its inaugural president.

Last year Song volunteered as a translator when Thomas J. LeBlanc, UM’s executive vice president and provost, took the Accelerating Ambition 34 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

tour to Asia for the first time. “I wanted to be able to show the best of China to the provost,” recalls Song, who speaks Mandarin Chinese. “There were more alumni than we realized in Beijing and Shanghai. They spoke highly of the University and miss their time here.”

Song recalls one alumnus at the Shanghai event who brought a framed photo of his commencement from two decades earlier.

Last May’s trip enabled Provost LeBlanc to share UM’s advances as a global research institution and sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Beijing’s Henan University to create a

program for exchange and collaboration.

It was a first visit to engage alumni, parents, and prospective students in a region of the world where UM enrollment is skyrocketing.

Students from China have comprised UM’s largest international group for several Natalie Song, years. Currently 980 B.S.C. ’12 above students are enrolled left, shares her at UM from mainland Hurricane pride China, Taiwan, and with fellow ’Canes Hong Kong—a leap in Hong Kong. from 384 Chinese students in fall 2009.

“UM is getting a lot of notice in China,” says Song, “because it is ranked in the top 50 [U.S. News & World Report] and is in a great location.”

This year’s Connecting U Worldwide receptions took place from April 21 to 25 in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai.

But Song says her job entails outreach throughout Asia, including in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

In addition to welcoming new students and rekindling bonds with alumni, the recent tour gave current UM parents a chance to feel more connected to an institution they may never see firsthand.

It also gave Song a chance to visit her parents after a long time in the States.

“They miss me dearly,” admits Song, who is now a graduate student at the School of Communication. “But they think work experience in the U.S. is definitely a plus.

It’s a step forward. My parents are very proud. They see that I was happy here and that doing things I liked helped me grow as a whole person.”

–Robin Shear

Rolling Out the Red Carpet for UM Superstars Stallone receives Foote Alumnus of Distinction Award Stallone received the Edward T. Foote Alumnus of Distinction Award for his outstanding professional career, which includes, among many other projects, Rambo and The Expendables franchise.

Sharing the Henry King Stanford Alumnus of the Year Award were

alumni engagement in the Los Angeles area. “I owe a lot of what I know and feel to U Miami,” said Wolf, president of Jeanne Wolf’s Hollywood. “To be honored for ‘giving back’ is a wonderful source of personal pride to me. I’ve met so many ’Canes who have shared their time and resources.

I’m excited that we’re coming together as a Hurricane family!”

Schulze, cofounder and president of the Los Angeles-based CPA and consulting firm Schulze Haynes & Co., has been a supporter of his alma mater for nearly 40 years. “Humbling and motivating” is how he Austen Everett, A.B. ’11 Jeanne Hart Wolf, A.B. ’61, M.A. ’66 Karl J. Schulze, B.B.A. ’74 described this award. A primary benefactor and possible.” In 2008, Everett was one of President’s Council members Karl J. speaker for the UM Ethics Programs, the nation’s best goalies and a member Schulze, B.B.A. ’74, and Jeanne Hart Schulze established the UM Ethics of the Hurricanes soccer team when Wolf, A.B. ’61, M.A. ’66.

Bowl in 2004. The team has since she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Wolf, a longtime celebrity reporter won the National Intercollegiate lymphoma. Already a powerhouse, and media strategist, said she feels Ethics Bowl, among other national Everett only grew more determined. inspired by her connection to UM, and regional honors. “Most heartening While fighting to conquer her own “a place where learning is cherished.” has been the opportunity to have a disease, she returned to team practice She established the Jeanne Wolf positive influence on students as they and established the Austen Everett Scholarship to benefit students at the embark on their careers, taking with Foundation to inspire and empower School of Communication, serves as a them the ethical principles they have kids in their fight with cancer by pairhost committee member for the annual studied at UM,” said Schulze. He and ing them with college and pro athletes ’Canes Film Showcase, and is active in his wife, Teresa, also made a $1.125 around the nation. Though Everett million bequest to the Miller School passed away in 2012 at age 25, her of Medicine for research and programs family—including her fiancé, retired related to Alzheimer’s disease in pro soccer player Matt Luzunaris— memory of his mother. “I look forward carries on her foundation’s work. to many more years of giving back to Leahy accepted Everett’s award the University,” he said. on June 5 at the University of Miami The celebratory weekend also Alumni Association’s inaugural included the ’Canes Film Showcase at Regional Alumni Awards ceremony in the Directors Guild of America, featurLos Angeles, California. “This award is ing top student films from the School a tremendous recognition of Austen’s of Communication’s Motion Pictures dream turned reality,” she said. “Our Program. family is incredibly proud.”

The UM Alumni Association says Another very special honoree, it plans to do more regional programfilmmaker, writer, and actor Sylvester ming in response to feedback from its Stallone, B.F.A. ’98, was only in his latest alumni survey.

20s when he wrote and starred in the Academy Award-winning movie For more information, visit miami.edu/ Rocky. An action hero for the ages, Sly Sylvester Stallone, B.F.A. ’98 alumni/umaa/awards.

JON KOPALOFF/GETTY IMAGES

Learning that her late daughter, Austen Everett, A.B. ’11, had been selected for the William R. Butler Community Service Award “absolutely took my breath away,” said June Leahy, of Seattle. “It was a moment of such pride that fighting back the tears became im-

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 35

Alumni Digest

CaneFunder Campaigns Take Off Black Alumni Society surpasses scholarship goal by 227 percent

UM_AlumniCtr_8.5x5.5.indd 1

36 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

have sufficient funds to complete their education. BAS scholars have gone on to become physicians, lawyers, engineers, educators, industry leaders, and more—

pursuits that have impacted countless lives through their work and service.

Shelby Mays, a criminology and psychology major from Atlanta, is a 2015 scholarship winner. The 18-year-old wants to be a counselor for at-risk teens and recently participated in an alternative spring break program in Indiana, working with children who have experienced domestic violence. “They are victims who end up falling behind,” she

PHOTOS: ROBERT STOLPE

CaneFunder.com has become a popular way to support worthy initiatives at the University of Miami—from a surf camp for kids with autism to marine conservation efforts to the Frost Band of the Hour.

This year the UM Black Alumni Society (BAS) took to the site with the goal of raising $15,000 for scholarships by the end of Black History Month. The campaign was a great success, raising more than $34,000 from 209 donors for the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund—well over double its initial goal.

At the BAS and Woodson Williams Marshall Association Scholarship Reception on March 19, a total of $64,500 was awarded to 18 students majoring in fields as diverse as biomedical engineering, art history, and microbiology and immunology.

BAS was founded in 1989 to serve and unite alumni from the African Diaspora.

It launched its scholarship fund in 1996 to help deserving students who might not

Vanessa Lerouge, B.S.C. ’03, president of the Black Alumni Society, congratulates scholarship recipient Shelby Mays, right.

says, “but many of them have a strong desire to succeed. Now I’m more determined than ever to help them.”

Visit http://canefunder.com/bas or miami.edu/alumni/groups/bas.

3/11/14 10:50 PM

Does Rubio Have GOP’s Golden Ticket for 2016?

Alumnus a UM first to run for nation’s highest office

JENNY ABREU

With pundits calling him the GOP’s “most naturally talented” candidate and the 2016 nomination “his for the taking,” Marco Rubio, J.D. ’96, the junior U.S. senator from Florida, announced his bid for his party’s presidential nomination on April 13 at Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower, where political asylum claims were processed at the height of the Cuban exodus.

Marco Rubio, J.D. ’96, introduced Mitt Romney at a 2012 campaign rally at the BankUnited Center.

Join us as we jazz up Alumni Weekend and Homecoming 2015 with a Mardi Gras mentality— pure indulgence in great music, flavorful food, and a happy heart.

Rubio, who graduated cum laude, is the first University of Miami alumnus to vie for the nation’s highest office. He was the third Republican and second CubanAmerican to enter the race.

He told supporters, as the son of immigrants, he is “uniquely qualified” to understand the needs of all Americans, but especially those with the hope of providing a better life for their children.

“Too many of our leaders and our ideas are stuck in the 20th century,” said the 44-year-old first generation Cuban-American. “Yesterday is over and we are never going back. I live in an exceptional country where the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”

In the flag-decorated Freedom Tower’s main hall, supporters cheered the candidate and held campaign posters reading marcorubio, A New American Century.

“It is a unique honor for the law school

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5

Class of 1965—50th Reunion Celebration

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Audrey R. Finkelstein UM Experience Campus Walking Tours Class of 2005—10th Reunion Celebration Alumni Avenue PMS 219C Traditions Homecoming Affinity Group Reunions Legacy Admission Information Session

Alumni Weekend and Homecoming 2015 is presented

by Hialeah Park Racing & Casino, owned and operated by John J. Brunetti, Sr., B.B.A. ’52.

to have an alumnus running for president of the United States,” said Edgardo Rotman, who teaches international and comparative law at UM and was the International Moot Court Program’s faculty advisor during Rubio’s law school years. “It is not surprising that it is Mr. Rubio. He was quite taken with politics, as I recall, and a leader in many aspects of student life.”

Rubio, author of An American Son and American Dreams, belonged to the Hispanic Law Student Association, Litigation Skills Program, Mock Trial Team, and International Moot Court.

His political career took him from West Miami city commissioner to the Florida House of Representatives, becoming the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House in 2007. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2011.

Rubio lives with his wife and four children in West Miami, where his parents settled after arriving from Cuba in 1956.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7

UM Alumni Association Homecoming Pregame Celebration Homecoming Game: University of Virginia Cavaliers vs.

KNOW YOUR BENEFITS University of Miami Hurricanes

Did you know that being a card-carrying

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8

39th Annual Golden Ibis Society Celebration Brunch (Classes of 1926-1965), hosted by Hialeah Park Racing & Casino

For information, contact the UM Alumni Association toll free at 866-UMALUMS (862-5867), 305-284-2872, or alumniweekend@miami.edu. Visit our website at miami.edu/alumniweekend.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 37

Alumni Digest

Inspire.

Engage.

Transform.

We do it every day, in many ways.

HERE AT UM, OUR FACULTY AND STAFF ARE STRONG SUPPORTERS of the University’s commitment to provide world-class education, innovative research and patient care, and transformational community and public service.

We take great pride in our work, and we know the importance of making a difference in the lives of others by giving our time, talents, and funds. Faculty and staff like the ones pictured here have shown their support by making planned gifts to the U. Planned giving can be a great way to give back while realizing potentially significant tax or other benefits for you, your heirs, and/or your estate. And those making a planned gift are inducted into the prestigious Heritage Society, which celebrates these legacy gifts.

You don’t have to be wealthy to leave a legacy—any size gift can make an impact for generations to come.

To learn about ways you can make a planned gift, please contact Cynthia Beamish, Executive Director, Office of Estate and Gift Planning, at 305-284-2914 or um.plannedgiving@miami.edu. Or visit our website at miami.edu/plannedgiving.

It’s Easy to Leave a Legacy Join us in making a commitment to support the U’s future

38 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Class Notes 1950s

Jerrold E. Shaffner, J.D. ’54, is a World War II veteran and a retired attorney. After spending five years sailing 30,000 miles around the world, he now splits his time between Bar Harbor, Maine, in the summer and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the winter.

Bruce S. Reznick, A.B. ’57, J.D. ’60, and Judith L. Reznick, B.Ed. ’57, better known as Mr. and Mrs. Whammy of the Brooklyn Nets NBA Basketball team, were invited by the Brooklyn Nets and the NBA to attend two preseason games with the team in Shanghai and Beijing, China. Mr. Whammy was also a finalist in the ESPN Fan Hall of Fame representing the Nets.

Ed Frierson, M.Ed. ’59, has written and published his first book, Flutter! Wisdom for Living, Loving, Dying (The Bookcomber, 2014).

Carl Schuster, B.B.A. ’59, J.D. ’63, was elected to a two-year term as chair of the board of directors of the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Memorial Foundation.

1960s

Oscar Ozete, B.Ed. ’60, self-published ¡Ánimo! Living in Different Worlds. His memoir recounts moments of ánimo (courage)— from his childhood as a Cuban immigrant in Bronx, New York, to formative years at the University of Miami to grandparenthood.

A retired secondary school and college instructor, he lives in Indiana with his wife and their children and grandchildren.

Leon J. Hoffman, A.B. ’61, in addition to his practice of psychology in Chicago, has been an active writer of commentary in profes-

sional and lay publications (such as the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times). He seeks to blend psychological concepts with contemporary, local, national, and international issues that affect and interest diverse populations. He eagerly encourages comments from classmates and others.

Ellen Wacher, B.Ed. ’63, is the founder and creative director of the theatrical production company Pigs Do Fly, which showcases plays about life over 50 with actors over 50.

Martin E. Segal, J.D. ’64, a fulltime lecturer in the UM School of Business Administration, has written the 2014-15 revised edition of Preventative Law for Business Professionals (New Age Publishing).

Herbert I. Deutsch, A.B. ’65, is of counsel in the New York City office of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A. Fred Blitstein, A.B. ’66, ownerCEO of JFB Consulting Inc., is a member of the development team for a planned 1,000-foot observation tower called SkyRise Miami.

James C. Staubach, A.B. ’67, a graduate of UM’s Army ROTC program, is a U.S. Army colonel retired after 39 years of commissioned service. A native Miamian, he recently selfpublished Magic City: Captured

by Miami Vice, Scarface, Movies, and Burn Notice, a Guide to 80s Locations and Culture. Colonel Staubach is interested in hearing from classmates.

Cole Broderick, B.M. ’69, is a composer-pianist based in Saratoga Springs, New York. He has led the Cole Broderick Quartet since 1992 and has a number of recordings and live performances to his credit, including the Newport Jazz Festival.

Citizen ’Cane Cauce and Effect When Ana Mari Cauce, A.B. ’77, Hon. ’15, was named provost and executive VP of the University of Washington in 2012, she made a concession to her promotion, upgrading from everyday sneakers to more formal leather sneakers.

Active footwear couldn’t have hurt when the clinical psychologist took her next career leap, in March 2015, to become the UW’s interim president.

The UW Board of Regents cited her “straightforward and accessible leadership, extraordinary intellect, plainspoken common sense, honesty, sense of justice, and deep dedication.”

Born in Havana, Cuba, Cauce (pronounced COW-say) came to Miami in 1959 at the age of 3. Prior to the Communist takeover, her father had served as Cuba’s minister of education, but as immigrants her parents worked in shoe factories to put food on the table for her and her brother, Cesar. “I grew up in a very educated family, but with very limited resources,” Cauce said. Despite economic limitations, college was an assumed path.

It was at the University of Miami where Cauce’s enduring passion for psychology and research was sparked. The scholarship winner graduated summa cum laude with general and departmental honors before earning her Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University.

Access to higher education for all is an issue close to Cauce’s heart. In 2007, as executive vice provost, she helped launch the UW’s Husky Promise, which covers tuition for all students from Washington who are accepted to the UW but can’t afford to attend.

Cauce started as an assistant professor of psychology at the UW in 1986. A gifted educator who earned the UW Distinguished Teaching Award, she now holds professorships in the departments of psychology and American ethnic studies, with secondary appointments in gender, women, and sexuality studies and the College of Education.

Her need to teach dates back to the days when she would line up her stuffed animals and lecture at them. “My students have gotten a lot better since then,” she quipped. “So has my teaching style.”

A recipient of the American Psychological Association’s James M. Jones Lifetime Achievement Award, Cauce researches adolescent development and at-risk youth in particular. She said her own experiences “figuring out my Latino-ness and my immigrant-ness” and those of her family shaped her intellectual curiosity and commitment to justice. Her brother, also a gifted scholar, was killed in 1979 while taking part in an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro, North Carolina. “My commitment to social justice and access—I’m not just saying it,” Cauce told a newspaper in 2011. “It runs deep.”

Cauce was honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, during UM’s spring commencement.

—Robin Shear miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 39

Class Notes James Kushlan, B.S. ’69, M.S. ’72, Ph.D. ’74, is the author, with his wife, Kirsten Hines, of Attracting Birds to South Florida Gardens (University Press of Florida, 2014).

Glenn Ogden, B.Ed. ’69, recently wrote his first novel, Altamaha Sunset. The Civil War-era tome is available online.

Annette Rawlings, A.B. ’69, a painter based in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, has published a memoir of her artistic journey Upside Down & Backwards. Each book is signed and includes two prints for framing.

Irwin Redlener, M.D. ’69, received the 2014 Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and was keynote speaker at the 2014 Schweitzer Leadership Conference. He is president and co-founder of Children’s Health Fund, which operates 50 mobile pediatric clinics serving the poorest areas in 22 states and advocates nationally on pediatric public health policy issues. He directs the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and the Earth Institute Program on Child Well-Being and Resilience at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where he is also a professor of health policy management and pediatrics.

1970s

Dianne Collins, A.B. ’70, creator of QuantumThink, blogs at The Huffington Post.

Gary Siegel, A.B. ’71, received the Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award, 18th Circuit.

Cathy Ellis, B.M. ’73, M.M. ’84, wrote and directed the film Abraham & Sarah: The Musical, produced by her Miami-based company, EFM Productions.

Robert Pellenbarg, M.S. ’74, is an oceanography professor at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. He served for more than 25 years with the U.S. Navy.

Kim Hoyo Striker, A.B. ’74, writing as Kait Carson, released

Murder in the Multiples, second in the Catherine Swope series, and has a three-book contract with Henery Press for a scubadiving mystery series set in the Florida Keys.

Ted Fass, A.B. ’75, is founder and president of the professional booking company Entertainment Unlimited. He is also executive director of the Long Island Bombers, a visually impaired beep baseball team, and an avid golfer.

He and his wife, Gail Abbott Fass, A.B. ’74, have two married daughters and two grandsons, all living on Long Island, New York.

Bob Vartanian, B.B.A. ’75, and his wife live in Connecticut. They have three daughters who have graduated from college.

J. Denise Clement, B.S. ’76, received the Medical Leadership award at the 2014 Black Engineer of the Year Awards STEM Conference in Washington, D.C. Terry Rosenberg, B.F.A. ’76, a New York City-based contemporary artist, had an exhibition at Estación Coyoacán in Mexico City.

Annette M. Browning, B.S.N. ’77, is an associate professor of nursing and the director and founder of patient simulation education at Biola University in California. She has published many studies in her area of expertise, end-of-life care.

Alexandra Villoch, A.B. ’77, M.B.A. ’79, is publisher of the Miami Herald Media Co. She is the first woman in that role in the daily paper’s 100-plus-year history.

Cindy Lederman, J.D. ’79, a Miami-Dade Juvenile Court Judge, was named 2014 Judge of the Year by the National CASA Association, a network of programs that recruit, train, and support volunteers to represent the best interests of abused and neglected children.

Clifford M. Scholz, B.Arch. ’79, celebrated the 21st anniversary of Clifford M. Scholz Architects. His staff includes vice president Sabrina C. Stanley, B.Arch. ’06, and project manager Krista J. Lamondin, A.B. ’01, M.Arch.

40 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Mixed Media Chasing the Sun A suspenseful debut novel by Natalia Sylvester, A.B. ’06, Chasing the Sun (Lake Union/New Harvest, 2014) is partially inspired by family events, including the kidnapping of Sylvester’s grandfather in Peru during the political upheaval of that country in 1992.

The New ‘I Do’ Welcome to wedding season. In The New ‘I Do’: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists, and Rebels (Seal Press, 2014), journalist Vicki Larson, A.B. ’84, and therapist Susan Pease Gadoua explore the modern landscape of marriage in its most creative and alternative forms.

Deep City Chad Tingle, B.S.C. ’98, Dennis Scholl, J.D. ’81, and Marlon Johnson, B.S.C. ’99, co-produced and codirected the award-winning documentary Deep City: The Birth of the Miami Sound (WLRN-TV, 2014) about Florida’s first black-owned record label. Founded in the 1960s as the brainchild of Willie Clarke and Johnny Pearsall, Deep City Records helped launch Miami’s notable soul music explosion with artists such as Betty Wright and Clarence “Blowfly” Reid.

Escape With 200 vivid archival photos, architect and designer Hermes Mallea, B.Arch. ’78, opens a window into the fashionable world of beach parties and balls set amid early 20th century tropical resorts and estates. Escape: The Heyday of Caribbean Glamour (Rizzoli, 2014) also chronicles how these legendary warm weather destinations were transformed from fantasy to reality, initially only for the most wealthy. Providing historical context, Mallea offers insights on how perspectives on paradise have evolved through the decades.

1980s

W. David Bunce, B.B.A. ’81, M.B.A. ’84, was named head of Bessemer Trust’s Central and Southern region. He is based in Dallas, Texas.

Barbara Levenson, J.D. ’81, judge and mystery writer, has self-published her fourth book, Neurotic November: A Mary Magruder Katz Mystery.

Grisel Alonso, A.B. ’82, J.D. ’87, retired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida after 26 years. She is a director of the firm Michael Moecker & Associates, Inc. Jeremy Lang, A.B. ’82, an assistant news editor for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, was on the editing team for “Speeding Cops: Above the Law,” an investigative series that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service.

Dawnn Lewis, B.M. ’82, appeared in the Hallmark Channel movie A Lesson in Romance, plus the TV series Major Crimes and Better Call Saul, among others.

Mitchel Richman, B.B.A. ’82, is director of national accounts for Tampa Maid Foods.

Janet (Connaughton) Roy, B.F.A. ’82, started a publishing business in 2014 with her husband, David Roy. They have four lifestyle magazines in the Palm Beach Gardens area. She has a grown son and daughter, a stepdaughter, and one grandson.

Jorge Sarmiento, D.A. ’82, is a professor of mathematics at County College of Morris in Randolph, New Jersey, where he has been on faculty since 1990. He was the recipient of a Princeton University Mid-Career Fellowship.

Robert Seitz, A.B. ’82, is owner of the information technology company My Support Services Group.

Jose “Joe” Sainz, B.C.S. ’83,

M.S.Ed. ’88, professor of business computer applications at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Connecticut, selfpublished a book titled Poems for People Who Don’t Read Poems.

His academic work has been in various print and electronic publications.

Steve Boyer, A.B. ’84, became a full-time U.S. Professional Tennis Association-certified tennis instructor after a 30-year career in local TV news. He plays on several U.S. Tennis Association teams and, with his brother, won a city of Palm Beach Gardens Men’s Doubles Championship.

David R. Heffernan, A.B. ’84, J.D. ’91, joined with Mark Kaire, J.D. ’91, to form the personal injury firm Kaire & Heffernan, LLC in Miami.

Roy S. Kobert, A.B. ’84, J.D. ’88, joined GrayRobinson’s bankruptcy practice in Orlando, Florida, and was on the 2015 Best Lawyers in America list.

Scott F. Kotler, B.B.A. ’84, of Coral Gables, has been practicing criminal defense law for 24 years.

He and his wife, Anna, have a toddler, Jordan James. Kotler also has a son, Joshua, in college and a daughter, Sofia, in high school.

Michael W. Throne, B.S.C.E. ’84, B.S.A.E. ’84, was appointed director of public works for the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Anthony Atala, A.B. ’85, is director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and W.H. Boyce Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest University. He is a practicing surgeon and researcher focused on growing new human cells, tissues, and organs.

Richard Solik, B.B.A. ’85, senior director for Cushman and Wakefield, was instrumental in the creation of the Verizon Finance Center in Lake Mary, Florida.

Patricia Menéndez-Cambó, B.B.A. ’86, received the “Outstanding Contribution to Gender Diversity” at the Chambers USA Women in Law Awards in 2014 at The

Citizen ’Cane Sound Advice for Scholarship Recipients Alice Vilma, B.B.A. ’99, can still recall the experience as if it were yesterday. Representatives from Morgan Stanley were coming to the University of Miami campus to meet with students about summer internship opportunities, and Vilma, who was a freshman majoring in finance, knew that attending the session could help boost her career.

On the day of the meeting, Vilma arrived 45 minutes late, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. When she saw that other students were dressed to the nines, she decided to leave, only to have her hasty exit prevented by a Morgan Stanley analyst who convinced her to stay.

For Vilma, that turned out to be a “a life-changing moment,” she said during her keynote address at the UM Black Alumni Society and Woodson Williams Marshall Association Scholarship Reception, which honored and awarded funds to students for academic excellence. “I realized I had a little bit more to learn about the real world,” Vilma said.

Obviously a quick study, she earned her degree in finance from UM and eventually an M.B.A. from Harvard. Today, she is executive director in Morgan Stanley’s Global Capital Markets Division, where she works with companies in the industrials, transportation, and power and utilities sectors.

Vilma, who is the sister of former Hurricanes linebacker and three-time NFL Pro Bowler Jonathan Vilma, B.B.A. ’04, told students she never envisioned she would achieve such success when she was “sitting where you are today.”

But that doesn’t mean she’s stopped setting new goals.

“Continue to push the bar higher,” she said. “Your time at UM will put you in a prime position to succeed.”

Vilma also told students to grow their networks, use all the resources available to them, and “run with a faster group,” the latter advice a pun on the fact that Vilma has been training regularly with a group of elite marathoners to improve her running times.

Scholarship recipient Alexis McDonald, a sophomore majoring in electronic media, took Vilma’s advice to heart. “It makes me want to invest in the students who will come after me,” she said.

A total of $64,500 in scholarships was awarded at the ceremony to 18 students majoring in fields as diverse as biology, biomedical engineering, art history, and microbiology and immunology. Vilma attended UM on a Ronald A. Hammond Golden Drum Scholarship.

—Robert C. Jones Jr. miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 41

ROBERT STOLPE

’06. His Sarasota, Florida-based firm won HOUZZ’s 2014 Home of the Year Award in the Design category.

Class Notes Harvard Club of New York. She is a shareholder, vice president, and secretary at Greenberg Traurig in Miami, where she also chairs its global practice and co-chairs its global energy and infrastructure practice.

Karen Nagy, M.M. ’86, wrote Girlfriend of Bill: 12 Things You Need to Know about Dating Someone in Recovery (Hazelden Publishing, 2014). She is a college professor, actor, and songwriter.

Yvette Ostolaza, A.B. ’86, J.D. ’92, was elected a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, an invitation received by just one-third of one percent of Texas Bar members annually. She is managing partner of Sidley Austin LLP’s Dallas office and co-global coordinator of its complex commercial litigation practice.

Michael Bakst, B.M. ’87, J.D. ’90, a GreenspoonMarder shareholder and 2014 Super Lawyer, won a precedent-setting victory in a Homestead bankruptcy case.

William A. Dilibero, M.U.R.P. ’87, was appointed city manager for the city of South Padre Island, Texas.

Jorge Luis Lopez, J.D. ’87, founder of the Jorge Luis Lopez Law Firm, was named a 2014 Father of the Year by the American Diabetes Association and is on the board of directors for the American Cancer Society.

Molly Lutcavage, Ph.D. ’87, delivered the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science’s latest Distinguished Alumni Lecture. She is a research professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation and director of the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Beth F. Bloom, J.D. ’88, was nominated by President Barack Obama for a federal judicial opening in the Southern District of Florida.

Mike Fiore, B.B.A. ’88, was named to the 2014 class of the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sheryl S. Natelson, J.D. ’88, was elected chair of the Planning and Zoning Board for Hallandale Beach, Florida. She is a partner with Lydecker Diaz.

Roland Sanchez-Medina, B.B.A. ’88, was elected to serve on the

JENNY ABREU

’C A N E I N T H E AC T

Led by Alumni Ambassador Jesi Price (left), Sebastian the Ibis, and senior Ashley Dudek, some 400 members of the UM Class of 2015 got into the spirit, dancing the night away at the UM Alumni Association’s Get Carded reception just two weeks before spring commencement. Pick up your lifetime membership ’Cane card at the Newman Alumni Center weekdays, or call 305-284-2872 or 866-UMALUMS (862-5867).

Email a high-resolution photo that shows you living your passion to miami.editor@miami.edu, subject line: ’Cane in the Act.

42 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Florida Bar’s Board of Governors, 11th Circuit, Seat 1 through 2016. He is a partner in the firm of Sanchez-Medina, Gonzalez, Quesada, Lage, Crespo, Gomez, Machado & Preira LLP. Al Monserrat, B.S. ’89, is Citrix’s senior vice president of worldwide sales and services.

1990s

Dan LeBatard, B.S.C. ’90, won a first place Green Eyeshade award for Sports Commentary–All Dailies for his work as a sports columnist at The Miami Herald.

Gail Shivel, B.S.C. ’90, Ph.D. ’04, was elected the president/local secretary of Mensa International’s Miami chapter.

Alan Knitowski, B.S.I.E. ’91, UM President’s Council member, announced that his mobile technology company Phunware acquired Austin-based Digby and Miami-based Simplikate, more than tripling its workforce. Phunware was on Inc. 500’s FastestGrowing Private Companies in America and Forbes’ America’s Most Promising Companies lists.

Sherrie McCandless, B.S. ’91, is a colonel in command of the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing. She is the first female wing commander of Idaho’s Air National Guard and leads its largest unit.

Suzanne “Suzy” Trutie, B.S.C. ’91, was named marketing and public affairs director for Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami.

Tom Patterson, B.B.A. ’93, M.S.Tx. ’95, is the chief financial officer for California-headquartered Kareo Inc., which provides cloud-based medical office software and services.

Laura Templer, J.D. ’93, is an attorney in the Fort Lauderdale office of Sirote & Permutt.

Linda Van Drie-Andrzjewski, A.B. ’93, M.S.Ed. ’95, is director of athletics and assistant professor at Wilmington University in Delaware. She is also its deputy

Title IX coordinator.

Mara S. Bloom, J.D. ’94, is secretary of the board of directors for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which presented her with its 2014 distinguished service award. She has been executive director of the Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital since 2009 and was among last year’s MGH 100, which recognizes 100 people across the country who make significant contributions to cancer care, treatment, prevention, research, and philanthropy.

Greg Dehnert, B.S.C.E. ’94, also known as DJ G-Spot, has been a DJ at two radio stations in Hawaii for 20 years. He received the 25th Anniversary of House Award by Jesse Saunders for Outstanding Achievement in the Promotion of Electronic Music.

Eric Iverson, B.Arch. ’94, was promoted to director of real estate at Oregon-headquartered Lithia Motors, Inc. Laura Corcoran Moore, B.S.C. ’94, was promoted to assistant news director for WJBK Fox 2 Detroit, where she began as a producer in 1998. Her professional awards include two Edward R. Murrow Awards for documentary excellence and five regional Emmys.

David Hugglestone, B.B.A. ’95, immediate past president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, is a state director for AIA Florida and president at SHiFT Architecture.

Bernie Navarro, B.B.A. ’95, a past president of the Latin Builders Association and president of Benworth Capital Partners LLC, was appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to the Miami Dade College District Board of Trustees through May 31, 2016.

Frank Sancho, M.B.A. ’95, was promoted to director of cloud and datacenter ecosystem for the technology services business unit at Hewlett-Packard.

Kimmi Cortez-Riggio, A.B. ’96, earned her Ph.D. in literacy

studies, welcomed son Bodhi Rainn, and has relocated from New York to Del Mar, California.

Adam Horowitz, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’00, is an attorney in the nationwide crime victims’ rights and sexual abuse practice group of Farmer, Jaffe, Weissing, Edwards, Fistos & Lehrman, P.L., in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Katherine Amador, J.D. ’97, was named to the board of directors of the Latin Builders Association.

Danielle N. Garno, A.B. ’97, a shareholder in the Miami office of Greenberg Traurig, chairs the Southeastern board of directors for Children’s Home Society of Florida, serving Miami-Dade County.

Jason K. Jolliff, B.S. ’97, is an oceanographer with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, where he is focused on developing models of the ocean environment to help the naval warfighter. He also has been instrumental in developing tools that can forecast oil dispersion patterns following a major spill like the Deepwater Horizon.

Robin Korth, B.S.N. ’97, M.S.N. ’99, wrote Soul on the Run (Balboa Press, 2014), which explores her personal struggles with addiction and eating disorders.

Brett M. Amron, J.D. ’98, was selected as a fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, a trial lawyer honorary society.

Jarett Berman, B.S.C. ’98, a sports producer, and Kimberly Kanoff Berman, J.D. ’05, an attorney, celebrated their first wedding anniversary in March.

Ryan Greenblatt, B.B.A. ’98, a Realtor with Lang Realty in Boca Raton/Delray Beach, won the company’s award for top sales agent.

Maribel (Mora) Harder, B.S.Ed. ’98, M.S.Ed. ’00, Ph.D. ’09, and her husband, Josh Harder, welcomed their first child, Justin Scott, in 2013.

Carlos Segrera, B.B.A. ’98, president and CEO of Segrera Associates, received the YMCA

of Greater Miami’s inaugural Segrera-Rubin Award. Named after Segrera, the award honors young professionals who give selflessly of their time and talent to advance the mission of the Y and leave a lasting impression on the children and families the organization serves.

Brian Lerner, J.D. ’99, was named to the board of directors for Legal Aid Service of Broward County, Inc., and Coast to Coast Legal Aid of South Florida, Inc. Marcie Voce, A.B. ’99, a financial advisor with Edward Jones in Hollywood, Florida, was a South Florida Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree for 2014.

2000s

Martha R. Mora, A.B. ’00, a partner in the litigation department of Avila Rodriguez Hernandez Mena & Ferri LLP, was appointed to a one-year term as commissioner of the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Latina Commission.

Brad Schirmer, B.A.M. ’00, is a production sound recordist and post-production sound mixer for the television and film industry. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and founded White House Recording, Inc. in 2007.

Alan Chan, B.M. ’01, received a residency at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Scotland, where he created new music for a concert by the Alan Chan Jazz Orchestra (ACJO) that explored the sounds of big band and Chinese music. ACJO’s album Shrimp Tale was released in 2014

by Crown Heights Audio Network.

Andy Goldenberg, B.F.A. ’01, also known on YouTube as Goldentusk, created and stars in the zombie Web series Bad Timing.

James P. Gueits, B.S.C. ’01, is a partner in the Miami law firm of Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider + Grossman LLP. Kanika Jelks-Tomalin, M.B.A. ’01, is deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Citizen ’Cane A Ham with a Plan When the January 12, 2010 earthquake decimated Haiti, communications crumbled along with other basic necessities, striking a devastating blow to cellular, Internet, and satellite service. There in a flash to establish a lifeline amid the disaster was Julio Ripoll, B.Arch. ’81, who takes pride in being an expert in the world’s oldest, and still most dependable, wireless technology—ham radio.

Ham radios communicate over thousands of miles by bouncing radio signals off the upper atmosphere, “similar to reflecting light on a mirror,” explains Ripoll, who established the National Hurricane Center ham station, WX4NHC/HH2, back in 1980, while still an architecture student at UM. In January 2010, Ripoll oversaw the building of two ham radio stations in two days. Batteries and wire antenna forged the critical link between UM’s impromptu tent hospital at the Port-auPrince airport and the Global Institute/Project Medishare Haiti Relief Task Force on the Miller School of Medicine campus. The setup enabled volunteers to coordinate dozens of patient transfers to the U.S. Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort, connect doctors at remote clinics with University specialists for emergency consults, convey landing coordinates to helicopter pilots conducting medical evacuations, and locate urgently needed supplies and equipment such as incubators and food for babies and children.

Later on, Ripoll was able to use the equipment to help establish a permanent station on the Miller School campus. The aptly named K4UMH (University of Miami Hospital) began operating in early 2014 with local and international capabilities.

At the National Hurricane Center, Ripoll has been coordinating ham radio operations for the past 35 years. “The Haiti amateur radio mission for UM/Medishare was the pinnacle of my ham radio career,” says Ripoll, a Miami architect specializing in designing medical facilities. “It used everything I had learned over the previous three decades about volunteer organization, radio equipment and antennas, emergency communications, radio island expedition skills, and even governmental diplomacy. All the volunteers with our group took time away from work and family, took personal risks, and made many sacrifices for this mission. Our reward was knowing that what we did helped the UM medical team save lives.”

Five years later, adds Ripoll, UM’s connection with Haiti remains loud and clear. “There are several active ham radio operators we maintain contact with frequently in Haiti.”

—Robin Shear miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 43

Class Notes Ryan D. Bailine, J.D. ’02, M.B.A. ’04, is a shareholder in the land development practice of Greenberg Traurig’s Miami office.

Raniero J. Gimeno, B.A.I.S. ’02, M.B.A. ’04, is senior vice president, national director of defined contribution sales, and executive team member for Eagle Asset Management, a subsidiary of Raymond James Financial. He lives in Pinecrest, Florida, with his husband and son.

Patrick L. Tracy, M.A. ’02, is founder and president of San Antonio, Texas-based Pantex Inc., which provides mineral research and brokerage services for the energy sector.

Stephen Hunter Johnson, J.D. ’03, a partner at Lydecker Diaz, was elected chair of the Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board.

Valerie Waters, M.F.A. ’03, selfpublished her first children’s ebook, Cookie and the Frowny Face Day. Anthony Biase, B.S.C. ’04, and Will Manso, B.S.C. ’05, work at FOX Sports Florida, where Biase produces and Manso anchors pre-game and post-game road shows for the Miami Heat.

Elizabeth A. Garcia, A.B. ’04, M.B.A. ’11, is the co-founder and head of school for Discovery Day Academy, an early education school with three Florida locations. She was invited to the P21 Summit for 21st Century Learning and is a 2014-16 America Achieves Fellow.

Carolina Garcia Jayaram, J.D. ’04, was named president and CEO of United States Artists, which awards $50,000 fellowships to the nation’s most accomplished artists.

Sheena Wester, B.Arch. ’04, a LEED-accredited professional, is a project architect with Bowie Gridley Architects in Washington, D.C. Kevin Jaeger, B.S.C. ’05, a television news photojournalist in Washington, D.C., won a White House news photographer’s award for best general news story and was invited to meet

President Barack Obama at the White House.

Jeremy S. Korch, J.D. ’05, a Florida Super Lawyers Rising Star 2012-14, is an associate with Miami law firm Bast Amron LLP. Matthew P. Leto, J.D. ’05, is a partner with the Miami firm Hall, Lamb and Hall, P.A., and Florida Super Lawyers Rising Star.

Eldonie S. Mason, J.D. ’05, founding member of New Jerseybased Mason Firm, was a 2014 American Arbitration Association Higginbotham Fellow.

Alejandra Bustillo, B.A.I.S. ’06, earned her M.D. degree from the University of South Florida and is doing an internal medicine residency at Emory University.

Ben Everard, A.B. ’06, produced the television premiere of Hang Men and is co-executive producer of the 2015 movie Walt Before Mickey.

Ashley Noel Ketko, B.S.C. ’06, appeared in the movie Call Me King and the daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful. Her short film History Is Myth won Best Short Film at the Other Venice Film Festival in 2013, and in 2014 she built houses in Malawi with Habitat for Humanity.

Andrew Maiorano, B.S.C. ’06, is part of Your Perfect Adventure, LLC, a team of filmmakers, actors, and game designers creating interactive, live-action movie games. Their first app, now in the Apple store, is called Your Pizza Adventure.

Lisa Cossrow, A.B. ’07, is a location coordinator whose recent projects have included the HBO shows The Leftovers and Show Me a Hero and the Liam Neeson movie Run All Night.

Ashley Fee, B.S.Ed. ’07, married Conor E. Reeves (of Garden City, New York) in August 2014.

Emily Huggins, B.S.Ed. ’07, earned a Master of Education in educational leadership at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and is primary school director at Uplift Grand Preparatory in Grand Prairie, Texas.

She lives in Dallas and enjoys

44 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

playing with her dogs, Addison and Allie; watching the Cubs and Miami Hurricanes; traveling; and spending time with friends and family.

Patricia Mazzei, A.B. ’07, B.B.A. ’07, a Miami Herald political reporter, won a first-place Green Eyeshade award for Politics Reporting–All Dailies for “The case of the phantom ballots.”

Joe N. Tolliver, B.L.A. ’07, is CEO of Dooling Enterprises, LLC, a multi-company partnership with NBA player and motivational speaker Keyon Dooling.

Andrea L. “Andi” DeField, B.S.C. ’08, a South Florida trial attorney, was crowned Miss Atlantic States International 2014. She is an advocate and mentor for Learning Ally, a national nonprofit organization for people with visual, learning, and reading disabilities.

Joele Theagene, A.B. ’08, is an analyst with the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Office of Private Sector Exchanges. She has a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

David Zambrana, D.N.P. ’09, is chief executive officer of University of Miami Hospital.

2010s

Jason L. Baptiste, B.B.A. ’10, author of The Ultralight Startup, has been featured in Fortune and Forbes for his mobile publishing company, Onswipe, which was acquired by Beanstock Media in 2014.

Angelica Sogor, A.B. ’10, M.S. ’11, of Baltimore, Maryland, received the 2014 American Society for Training and Development John Coné Student Scholarship.

Gabriel Trieger, B.L.A. ’10, was promoted to regional director of Annual Giving at the University of Miami.

Justin Drazin, B.S.C. ’11, is the author of the award-winning Albert and the Amazing Pillow Monsters (Gorham Publishing, 2013) and the self-published 2014 children’s

books, It’s Raining Paint and Grandma and the Groundhog.

Stephanie Santoro, B.S.C. ’11, and Spencer Acker, B.B.A. ’12, were engaged to be married on May 30, 2015, in New York City.

Victoria “Tori” Tullier, B.M. ’11, was a finalist for the Country Music TV Listeners Choice Awards for her song “Your Nicotine.”

Benjamin R. Wang, M.D. ’11, founded Nevap Inc., which won the $10,000 grand prize at the University of California Davis Big Bang! Business Competition, plus a follow-up $5,000 prize for legal services with DLA Piper. His startup developed a medical device to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Arthur Baker, J.D. ’12, was on the March Madness Events Committee for the 2014 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.

Michael Matthiesen, A.B. ’12, received a $30,000 Rotary Global Grant scholarship to study at the University College London for a year.

He previously served with AmeriCorps VISTA, helping to make sure Miami Dade College students living at or below the poverty level had the necessary resources to graduate.

Past awards include the President’s Call to Service Award as well as the President’s Volunteer Service Award Gold Level.

Mary Benevente, M.Acc. ’13, is senior vice president and chief financial officer at Professional Bank in Miami.

Lucy Calamari, B.B.A. ’13, won the grand prize and $10,000 in the University of Miami’s Business Plan Competition, hosted by the School of Business Administration, for Lucky Lucy Chocolates, candies inspired by South Florida’s colorful flavors and cultures.

Alounso Gilzene, A.B. ’13, served in the City Year Miami program, working with students at risk of dropping out of high school. He is studying education policy at the University of Pennsylvania and was a winner of the 2014 Philadelphia Public Policy Case Competition hosted by the City of Philadelphia.

In Memoriam* Anna K. Le Mire, B.M. ’34 Sarah K. Brooks, A.B. ’37 Catherine H. Rice, A.B. ’41 Malvin Englander, J.D. ’42 Lucille S. Mitchell, J.D. ’47 Mary G. Esachenko, B.B.A. ’48 Rex J. Faust, B.B.A. ’48 Leo Greenfield, J.D. ’48 Jantje K. Janes, B.M. ’48 Eilleen P. Joselow, A.B. ’48 Alexander J. Marasco, B.B.A. ’48 Clarence P. Price, A.B. ’48 William T. Donath, B.Ed. ’49 Lester Fisher, B.S.C.E. ’49 Gregg L. Fox, B.B.A. ’49 Mary I. Hunt, B.Ed. ’49 Robert H. Kobrin, B.B.A. ’49 Franklin J. Nankin, B.B.A. ’49 Herschel Rosenthal, B.B.A. ’49 Nancy M. Rowell, A.B. ’49 Anne F. Bellenger, B.Ed. ’50, M.Ed. ’64 Anita S. Coan, A.B. ’50 Carner W. Dowling, B.S.E.E. ’50 Charles A. Gould, J.D. ’50 Rolf Hastings, J.D. ’50 Harris L. Klein, B.B.A. ’50 Sophie A. Koster, B.Ed. ’50 Donald K. McCubbin, B.Ed. ’50 James G. Palma, B.B.A. ’50 Morton L. Perry, J.D. ’50 Nettie B. Robinson, A.B. ’50 Milton L. Shuch, B.S. ’50

TV’s Beloved Band Manager Dave Madden, A.B. ’59, who played band manager Reuben Kincaid on The Partridge Family, died January 2014 of congestive heart and kidney failure at the age of 82. A stand-up comedian, Madden’s television break came on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In in 1968. He had guest roles on numerous shows from Alice and Fantasy Island to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Boy Meets World. His 2007 memoir, Reuben on Wry, includes antics from his University of Miami days. He was married to Sandra M. Madden, A.B. ’61.

Kenneth J. Stoudt, B.M. ’50 Charles L. Vocelle, J.D. ’50 George E. Balbi, A.B. ’51 Adam P. Caputo, A.B. ’51 John F. Curran, B.B.A. ’51 Daniel W. Engel, B.B.A. ’51, J.D. ’53 Phyllis E. Gavelek, A.B. ’51 John M. Goodman, J.D. ’51 Ritta K. Hogan, A.B. ’51, J.D. ’53 Roswell C. Matthews, B.B.A. ’51 David E. Maydwell, B.B.A. ’51 Iris W. Mintus, B.B.A. ’51 Yale Ogron, B.S.I.E. ’51 Allan K. Orler, B.B.A. ’51 Joy M. Steinberg, B.B.A. ’51 Daniel P. Tunick, J.D. ’51 James H. Wilson, B.B.A. ’51 Katie H. Johnson, B.Ed. ’52 Joseph Macey, B.B.A. ’52

Robert H. McCabe, B.Ed. ’52 Alfred W. Sanders, B.S.E.E. ’52 Frank R. Cerillo, B.Ed. ’53 Sonja D. Falck, A.B. ’53 Ellsworth A. Hunt, A.B. ’53 Peter C. Ray, B.S.E.E. ’53, J.D. ’70 Eugene B. Rimes, B.B.A. ’53 Adam W. Fischer, B.M. ’54, M.M. ’61 Ira Hader, B.S. ’54 Del E. Klingensmith, B.B.A. ’54, M.A. ’61 Marvin S. Pehr, B.B.A. ’54 Gerard J. Schainuck, B.B.A. ’54 Barbara B. Schlesinger, A.B. ’54 Nancy L. Arcamonte, A.B. ’55 Cecil D. Bickford, B.B.A. ’55 Daniel Downey, J.D. ’55 Bobby S. Friedman, B.Ed. ’55 Morton D. Last, B.B.A. ’55,

Influential Psychology Chair Albert Rodney “Rod” Wellens, A.B. ’68, professor and longtime chair of the Department of Psychology who left an indelible mark on the University, the community, and the people he mentored, died on December 17, 2014, due to complications from a brain tumor. He was 68. Joining the U in 1972, Wellens chaired the psychology department with distinction from 1992 until 2014, the year he received the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) Leadership Award. As chair he grew the department into the College of Arts and Sciences’ largest undergraduate major and UM’s largest departmental Ph.D. program. He increased extramural grant dollars from $1.1 million to a peak of $17.2 million per year, which ranked in the top group of U.S. psychology departments for research funding. He was instrumental in developing community outreach initiatives, including CARD, the Linda Ray Intervention Center, and the Psychological Services Center. His family—wife Lynda E. Wellens, A.B. ’77, M.S.Ed. ’91, and children Marci Wellens, B.S.C. ’99, and Michael A. Wellens, M.S. ’06—asked that any donations in his memory be made to the UM Brain Tumor Initiative or the Rod Wellens Outstanding Service Award, created by the Department of Psychology in 2014.

B.S.I.E. ’57 Eugene Parker, B.B.A. ’55, J.D. ’55 Lloyd L. Ruskin, J.D. ’55 Charles S. Salem, J.D. ’55 Blaine T. Sickles, J.D. ’55 Albert F. Storms, B.B.A. ’55 Robert L. Winter, B.B.A. ’55, J.D. ’57 Andrew P. Crouch, B.S.E.S. ’56 Harold P. Gundersdorf, A.B. ’56 Arthur N. Hyman, A.B. ’56 William A. Margetich, J.D. ’56 Howard J. Delahanty, B.B.A. ’57 Ronald K. Freeman, B.B.A. ’57 Richard H. Kees, B.B.A. ’57 Jack A. Lasry, B.Ed. ’57 Eve L. McNanamy, B.Ed. ’57, M.Ed. ’58, Ph.D. ’66 Robert E. Rogers, M.D. ’57 Arthur B. Seibold, A.B. ’57 Barbara P. Weiner, B.Ed. ’57 George R. Bray, B.B.A. ’58 George F. Hero, J.D. ’58 Harvey I. Reiseman, J.D. ’58 Phyllis W. Shuch, B.Ed. ’58 Charles R. Aho, B.S.M.E. ’59 Abbott W. Dressler, B.B.A. ’59 John H. Higdon, B.S.E.E. ’59 Laurence E. Kelley, B.B.A. ’59 Peter S. Rotella, B.S.E.E. ’59 Frank Waardenburg, B.B.A. ’59 Paul R. Bartemus, B.Ed. ’60 Gary M. Bong, M.D. ’60 Robert F. Keyes, A.B. ’60 Thomas J. McNanamy, B.B.A. ’60 Owen T. Myers, M.Ed. ’60 Jack W. Nelson, B.Ed. ’60 Carole J. Takiff, B.Ed. ’60 Michael J. Getelman, B.B.A. ’61, J.D. ’64 Burton N. Arnold, A.B. ’61

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 45

Class Notes William M. MacBride, B.B.A. ’61 Richard D. McCarthy, B.S.A.E. ’61 Marjorie B. Milner, B.B.A. ’61 Alan D. Searl, B.B.A. ’61 Jack F. Weins, B.B.A. ’61, J.D. ’67 James R. Yates, B.B.A. ’61 Joel B. Fleisher, B.S. ’62, M.D. ’65 Eileen F. Greenspan, B.Ed. ’62 Phillip E. Nichols, M.Ed. ’62 Donald W. Pelton, B.B.A. ’62 Jules W. Reich, B.Ed. ’62 Ronald N. Tamblyn, A.B. ’62 Charles A. Young, M.Ed. ’62 Ernesto D. Arguelles, B.S.M.E. ’63 Margaret Cuesta, M.Ed. ’63 John R. Kelley, B.S. ’63 Michael L. Miller, B.B.A. ’63 Wilton B. Reynolds, M.D. ’63 Roger W. Sherman, M.D. ’63 Charles E. Albin, B.B.A. ’64 Thomas R. Fahy, B.Ed. ’64 John B. Flanagan, A.B. ’64 Robert V. Gray, B.B.A. ’64 Richard R. Moore, B.B.A. ’64 Stephen Alexander, J.D. ’65 JoAnn Campbell, M.A. ’65 Clay M. Drexler, B.B.A. ’65

Antonio Franyie, B.S.M.E. ’65 Wendell H. Hester, A.B. ’65 Julian I. Weinkle, M.A. ’65, Ph.D. ’70 Lee J. Ford, B.B.A. ’66 Iris Murray, B.Ed. ’66 Alvin S. “Al” Volker, A.B. ’66 Frank Baque, B.B.A. ’67 Andres I. “Andy” Delgado, B.S.E.E. ’67, M.S.E.E. ’69 Jerry O. Morris, M.S. ’67 John L. Noppenberg, B.B.A. ’67 Richard C. Altman, B.Ed. ’68 Joseph F. Castellana, B.M. ’68, M.M. ’71 Joseph E. Holland, M.D. ’68 Ruth O. Muirheid, M.Ed. ’68 Alan F. Troop, B.B.A. ’68 Robert C. Work, M.S. ’68 Ilene M. Dresner, B.Ed. ’69 Anita J. Ferris, M.Ed. ’69 Robert E. Furst, A.B. ’69 Wilma Tunon Gutierrez, M.A. ’69 Roslyn L. Manas, M.Ed. ’69 Thomas H. Knowles, B.B.A. ’70 Patria L. Linares, B.Ed. ’70 Herbert Turnier, B.S. ’70, M.S. ’73

Dede C. Andersen, B.Ed. ’71 C. F. Andreone, A.B. ’71 Helen S. Bialolenki, M.Ed. ’71 Linda G. Kristal Bryant, A.B. ’71 Margaret K. Christensen, M.Ed. ’71 Paula J. De Dominicis, M.Ed. ’71 James H. Eggert, M.B.A. ’71 Rikki Kirzner, B.S. ’71 James H. Kurtz, B.B.A. ’71 Alexander S. Vuillemin, A.B. ’71 Henry S. Keel, B.B.A. ’72 Herbert L. Langdon, Ph.D. ’72 John F. Abbott, B.B.A. ’73 Joseph J. Chiaravalloti, Ph.D. ’73 Carl R. Dworkin, A.B. ’73 Roger E. Jones, Ph.D. ’73 Maynard Y. Rabin, B.B.A. ’73 Carl M. Mathison, J.D. ’75 Joseph S. Molnar, B.B.A. ’75, M.S. ’76 Franklin S. Filiberto, A.B. ’77 Christopher J. Moffitt, B.S.S.A. ’77 Leon B. Nembhard, M.Ed. ’77 Paige C. Patty, B.S. ’77 James W. Annesser, M.B.A. ’78, Ph.D. ’82

Building a Legacy The Oscar E. Dooly Memorial Building is a symbol of the University of Miami’s history and mission.

• Since 1947, nearly every ‘Cane has walked through its doors during their time at UM. • Enhancing its resources will help ensure that this multi-use facility continues to foster academic excellence and student engagement.

• We invite you to join us in preserving this campus landmark—and your fond memories of it—by naming one of its treasured classrooms in honor of someone special to you.

“The Memorial Building is a University of Miami tradition and a symbol of the wonderful memories and engaging experiences we were all fortunate to experience here. Join me and other UM alumni in ensuring that future ‘Canes can share in this treasure, too.” — Morris N. Broad, B.B.A. ’56

NAME A MEMORIAL CLASSROOM For a contribution of $25,000, you can permanently etch the memory of a loved one. Please contact:

Sandi Bliss Senior Director of Development 305-284-4893 • sbliss@miami.edu

46 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

Walter A. Record, J.D. ’78 Gregg J. Ormond, J.D. ’80 Irene R. Rathbun, C.N.P. ’80 Cynthia D. Lavery, A.B. ’81 Linda L. Reel, J.D. ’82 Andrew Hartmann, M.B.A. ’83 Sandra H. Hequin, B.B.A. ’84 Harvin A. Loyd, B.G.S. ’84 Leigh A. Scheinberg, B.S.Ed. ’85 Steven Blum, B.S. ’86 Antonio Lamas, B.S.E.E. ’86 Roberta J. Manning, A.B. ’86 Bruce A. Keller, M.B.A. ’87 Bonnie A. Marks, J.D. ’88 Joan P. Henry, B.S.N. ’89 Jorge H. Suarez, J.D. ’89 Efrain C. Lopez, M.B.A. ’93 Pia K. Johansson, M.B.A. ’95 Freddie Feliciano-Aponte, M.M. ’99 Melissa D. Viscount, B.S.C. ’99 Daniel A. Driscoll, B.B.A. ’10 *Names recorded as of January 20, 2015 We diligently research each name in the “In Memoriam” section. If you see an error, please contact alumni@miami.edu or call 305-284-2872.

ALUMNI LEADERSHIP

305-284-2872 or 1-800-UMALUMS n miami.edu/alumni

Board of Directors Executive Committee

Brenda Yester Baty, B.B.A. ’90, President

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

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

Alumni Trustees

Student Representatives

Regional Directors

’Canes Communities

Doyle Beneby, M.B.A. ’97 Susan Lytle Lipton, A.B. ’67, J.D. ’70 Michael “Pete” Piechoski, B.B.A. ’76 Guillermo de Aranzabal Agudo, M.B.A. ’84 Robert J. Munch, A.B. ’73 Kourtney Ratliff, B.B.A. ’03 Doug Weiser, A.B. ’78, J.D. ’82

Directors

Taghreed Al-Saraj, B.F.A. ’99, M.S.Ed. ’01 Suzanne M. Block, A.B. ’81 Cristie A. Carter, B.S.C. ’95 Victoria A. Colon, M.B.A. ’98 Santiago Corrada, A.B. 86, M.S.Ed. ’91 Jose “Pepi” Felix Diaz, A.B. ’02 Jorge Duyos, B.S.I.E. ’85, M.S.I.E. ’88 Bill J. Fisse, B.B.A. ’75, M.B.A. ’77 Martin J. Ganderson, B.B.A. ’73 Cynthia Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97 Brian L. Itzkowitz, B.B.A. ’90 Noelia Moreno, B.B.A. ’86, J.D. ’89 Andrew F. Potter, M.B.A. ’04 Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96

Faculty Representative

Manuel A. Huerta, M.S. ’67, Ph.D. ’70 Shawn Post, B.Ed. ’73, M.Ed. ’74, Ph.D. ’78, Delegate, Faculty Senate

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

Casey Rea, Alumni Ambassadors Brianna Hathaway, Student Government Atlanta John Fenton, B.B.A. ’80, M.B.A. ’82, jjfenton1@gmail.com Austin Dayna Chettouh, A.B. ’78, M.B.A. ’81, canesmiami@gmail.com Boston Ashley McNeil, B.S.Ed. ’13, ashleyjeanmcneil@gmail.com Brazil Ric Scheinkman, ’01, ricscheinkman@gmail.com Broward County Daniel Markarian, B.S.Ed. ’86, M.S.Ed. ’89, markariandaniel@gmail.com Charlotte Judson Dry, B.B.A. ’07, judsondry@yahoo.com Chicago Brian Kidder, B.S.E.E. ’03, b.kidder@umiami.edu Cincinnati Karin Johnson, B.S.C. ’08, karinjohnson@wlwt.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 Bryan Dolgin, B.S.C. ’97, bryandolgin@yahoo.com Denver Alicia Montoya, A.B. ’05, alicia.m.montoya@gmail.com Detroit Christina Hajj, A.B. ’08, christinahajj@gmail.com Houston Nikki Chun, B.S.C. ’03, M.S.Ed. ’06, niilani@yahoo.com Indianapolis Danielle Bruno, B.S.B.A. ’10, danielleevabruno@gmail.com

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

Jacksonville Catherine Lewis-Tubre, M.S. ’98, clewis-tubre@comcast.net Las Vegas Rebecca Chura, B.S.C. ’87, rchuraum87@gmail.com Los Angeles Emerson Davis, B.S.C. ’08, emerson.davis5@gmail.com Louisville Clifford “Dean” Furman, A.B. ’90, um@lawdean.com Middle East Reyadh Al-Rabeah, B.S.I.E. ’87, alrabeahr@gmail.com Nashville Ben Bruno, B.M. ’07, benbruno305@gmail.com New Jersey Michael Solomon, B.B.A ’98, J.D. ’01, solomon.michael@gmail.com New York Michael Gohari, B.B.A. ’11, michaelgohari@yahoo.com Orlando Adrian Burrowes, M.D. ’00, adrianmd2000@hotmail.com Palm Beach County Jared Lighter, M.B.A. ’93, jared.lighter@gmail.com Philadelphia Annette R. Ponnock, A.B. ’07, annetteponnock@gmail.com Phoenix Jason Hutzler, J.D. ’10, jhutzler@hotmail.com Portland Steven Godoy, B.B.A. ’89, umalumniclubpdx@gmail.com Richmond Molly R. Manuse, B.S.C. ’08, m.manuse@gmail.com San Diego James Mullaly, B.S.B.E. ’07, james.mullaly@gmail.com San Francisco Samantha Ku, B.B.A. ’10, sku920@gmail.com Sarasota Sam Waldron, B.S. ’09, s.waldron212@gmail.com Savannah Eugene Bloom, M.D. ’60, ecbloom60@gmail.com

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

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

Seattle Salvatore Russo, M.B.A. ’01, srusso44@gmail.com Southwest Florida Adam Guercio, B.B.A. ’10, adam.blake.guercio@ gmail.com Spain Daniela Martinez, B.S. ’11, d.martinez18@umiami.edu St. Louis Ethan Silverman, B.B.A. ’01, esilver47@gmail.com Tampa Cori Pecoraro, B.S.Ed. ’00, coriross@aol.com United Kingdom Gustavo Pifano, B.B.A. ’08, g.pifano@gmail.com Washington, D.C. Rachel Papeika, B.S.B.E. ’05, J.D. ’09, M.S. ’09, rachel.papeika@gmail.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 Gerard Loisel, B.S. ’76, goldensounds@ hotmail.com

School and College Groups

College of Engineering Tamara Ali, B.S.I.E. ’04, M.B.A. ’06, M.S.I.E. ’09, t.ali@umiami.edu

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

School of Law Patricia A. Redmond, A.B. ’75, J.D.’79, predmond@stearnsweaver.com, and Edward Shohat, A.B. ’69, J.D. ’72, ed@slsdefense.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 and Health Studies 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.

The University of Miami Alumni Association supports ’Canes Communities – formerly known as Alumni Clubs, that provide your local connection to the UM Global Community. ’Canes Community programming is open to all University of Miami alumni, parents, students, and friends and is the perfect opportunity to connect with your local Miami Hurricanes family for networking, events and fun!

For more information, please visit www.miami.edu/canescommunities.

To get involved with the ’Canes Community in your area, please submit a UConnect form at www.miami.edu/uconnect.

miami.edu/magazine Summer 2015 MIAMI 47

Big Picture

JENNY ABREU

A SNAPSHOT OF THE U TODAY

Selfie-Preservation A towering Ferris wheel, midway-style games, funnel cake, and live concerts into the night—Hurricane Productions’ annual ’Canes Carnival, held this year on April 24, is all about throwing a giant celebration to honor the last day of spring classes and give students a fun-filled way to reboot before finals week.

48 MIAMI Summer 2015 miami.edu/magazine

“We might not be able to make a major gift, but we can make a major commitment.”

—Vance, B.B.A. ’05, J.D. ’08, and Mariella, B.S.C. ’07, Aloupis

Committed Couple “ We cherish the memory of the day we first met over a cup of coffee at the Starbucks on campus. It’s just one of the reasons the U will always be at the heart of who we are. We are forever grateful to the U for our education, our professions, and our family!

We believe in this institution, and that’s why we give back.

It’s not necessarily the amount of our gift or the recognition. For us, it’s about staying connected. That’s why we make a monthly recurring contribution.

Our recurring gift of $83.33 monthly made joining the James W. McLamore Society affordable and attainable—and we can still enjoy Starbucks now and then!

Just think—if all UM alumni who aren’t yet donors gave the cost of just one cup of coffee to their alma mater each month, the University would have an added $6.8 million in revenue each year! And as a local and global leader in higher education and research, it’s the role of this institution—and alumni like us—to lead by example.”

Any gift to the University of Miami is fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Any gift, any size, anywhere makes a difference.

Please consider making a great impact on the U. Register your recurring gift today online at miami.edu/makemygift or call 1-866-UMALUMS (862-5867).

MIAMI

The University of Miami Magazine

University of Miami Division of University Communications Post Office Box 248073 Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1210

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 438 Miami, FL

UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS 1 4-140

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE As a ’Cane, you know It’s All about the U. Now you can flash the U wherever you go with the new University of Miami license plate! Available at any Florida tag agency for just $25 above the cost of a regular plate, the U plate adds pride to your ride and helps to fund UM scholarships.

(Offer valid for Florida residents with a vehicle registered in the state.)

UMPL8 Visit your local Florida tag agency, or renew online at GoRenew.com.

Class of 2015– receive a $25 rebate on your new U license plate. Call 305-284-9200 for details.