Community leader Adrienne Arsht is giving $3 million to benefit the University of Miami's Ethics Programs. Ms. Arsht's gifts support a suite of university-wide, interdisciplinary initiatives: an ethics debate series, a distinguished speakers program and and a research program and, in the future, a visiting scholar initiative and faculty development projects.
For more information, click here.
Research
Philanthropist Adrienne Arsht has made a gift to the University of Miami Ethics Programs to support several initiatives, including research projects in applied ethics.
For more information, click here.
Debates
Conceived and funded by Karl and Teresa Schulze, and further supported by philanthropist and businesswoman Adrienne Arsht.
For more information, click here.
Speakers
Philanthropist Adrienne Arsht has made a gift to the University of Miami Ethics Programs to support several initiatives, including the Arsht Distinguished Speaker Series in Ethics. Goals of the series include bringing nationally and internationally recognized experts to the University of Miami for student education, faculty development and community engagement. Arsht speaker presentations are open to the public.
For more information, click here.
About
Trustee, philanthropist and community leader Adrienne Arsht committed to give a $5 million donation to support key initiatives across the university, including $2 million for the University of Miami’s Ethics Programs, adding to an earlier $1 million donation and constituting the largest gift for ethics in Florida history.
“Adrienne is passionate about a great many causes and, being the sharp businesswoman she is, she has been able to connect them all by generously investing in a variety of important projects at the University of Miami,” University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala said today in announcing the five million dollar gift. “We are so fortunate to have this tireless champion for education in our community.”
“I am pleased to lend my support to the University of Miami, an institution which touches so many lives in this community and elsewhere through higher education, medicine, medical research, culture and athletics,” said Arsht.
Arsht made her initial $1 million donation to UM Ethics Programs in 2006, at the time equaling the largest gift supporting ethics programs in the State of Florida. Her latest gift breaks that record and will continue to fund several university-wide interdisciplinary initiatives, including an ethics debate series, a research program and the Adrienne Arsht Distinguished Speaker Series in Ethics. The series will next present Bowen H. "Buzz" McCoy, a long-time leader, thinker and author in business ethics, on Oct. 27 on the Coral Gables campus. The latest gift will also support a faculty ethics project initiative and a visiting scholars program.
The UM Ethics Programs were recently designated a World Health Organization Collaborating Center in Ethics and Global Health Policy, the only one of its kind in the United States. The ethics center, in conjunction with the CITI Program in research ethics, has also just been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to train researchers around Latin America and the Caribbean.
In addition to Arsht's ongoing relationship with the UM Ethics Programs, she has designated $1 million to create the “Adrienne Arsht Hope for Vision Retinal Degeneration Research Laboratory.” The gift will fund a laboratory for retinal degeneration research at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the Miller School of Medicine. The lab will allow development of new treatments for hereditary eye disorders. For the fifth year in a row, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute has been ranked the nation’s best in ophthalmology in U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Hospitals” survey. Bascom Palmer has received this top ranking seven times in the last 14 years.
Arsht has also designated funds to other University of Miami areas such as athletics and the Frost School of Music, and provides vital funding for strategic University priorities. Arsht was appointed to the UM Board of Trustees in May 2008. She serves on the boards of numerous charitable organizations, including Amigos for Kids, American Ballet Theatre and Best Buddies International, among others.
“Ethics are at the core of everything we do," Arsht said in 2006 at the time of her initial gift. "By incorporating ethics into most fields of study, the University of Miami is providing a vision for leadership in this community," said Arsht. "My hope for this endeavor is that students from across all of UM's campuses will have a core understanding of ethics as it relates to all aspects of their lives.”
“Adrienne’s leadership in our community continues with her gift to the University’s Ethics Programs,” said UM President Shalala at the time. “It is through her example that our programs and our students will continue to be successful.”
Combined, the gifts create a platform for expanded university-wide, interdisciplinary programs. The gifts will enhance an already successful program that has been in existence at UM for 17 years under the leadership of Anita Cava of the School of Business and Ken Goodman of the Miller School of Medicine and Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences.
"Great universities have great ethics programs. These gifts will help us build on a decade-and-a-half track record and cement UM's status as a national leader in interdisciplinary education, research and community service," said Goodman, who together with Anita Cava, have worked with Adrienne Arsht on these issues in the past.
Cava noted that “these gifts are the culmination of an ongoing dialogue between Adrienne and the University. She is passionate about the integration of ethics at every level of learning, and Ken and I are both grateful to and inspired by her.”
The UM Ethics Programs’ website www.miami.edu/ethics includes such helpful resources as a geriatrics and ethics curriculum, the Philosophy, Science & Law online journal, and extensive documentation related to the Terry Schiavo case. Additionally, the University is developing a bioethics curriculum in Spanish as part of an ongoing international outreach initiative.