UM JOINS THE ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE

ACCess Granted

et ready for the invasion of the Yellow Jackets, Blue Devils, and Wolfpack. They will be the University of Miami’s new rivals in the 2004-2005 academic year, when its 17 intercollegiate sports begin competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The decision to join the conference ended weeks of speculation, a flurry of proposals and counterproposals, and a lawsuit filed by several Big East schools to block ACC expansion.

“The ACC has built a remarkable conference based on high academic and athletic expectations,” President Donna E. Shalala says. “This decision allows us to provide an opportunity for all of our student-athletes to compete at the highest level.”

Says athletic director Paul Dee, M.S.Ed. ’73, J.D. ’77: “Our decision was based upon many factors, including the future of our overall athletics program and our financial and competitive interests over the long term.”

The Hurricanes will leave the Big East after 12 seasons, having won 32 team championships and nearly 200 individual titles. The ACC offers better long-term security, UM officials say, because of its commitment to Olympic sports, academic vision, proximity, and equal revenue-sharing policy. In the 2001-2002 academic year, ACC schools received $9.7 million each. The Big East, which gives higher disbursements to winning teams, awarded UM a reported $9.3 million that year despite winning the National Championship. Miami has paid the Big East a $1 million exit fee and will pay the ACC a $2 million entrance fee.

But the move is as much about academics as it is about money. President Shalala says she envisions an ACC similar to the Big Ten Conference, where universities apply for grants together, share library resources, design academic programs together, and participate in faculty exchange programs. The ACC’s new Traveling Scholar Program, for example, allows graduate students to participate in classes and research at other member schools.

So what does the move mean for Hurricane sports? “Tougher competition for one,” says women’s volleyball coach Nicole Welch, former assistant coach at Maryland.

Volleyball and other Olympic sports—such as soccer, track, swimming and diving, and rowing—will prob-ably benefit most because in the ACC they are often fully funded by scholarships, according to Connie Nickel, associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator.

Head football coach Larry Coker believes the ACC move could help in recruiting players. For baseball coach Jim Morris it means the team, an independent, “can finally come in from the cold.”

“It’s going to be a challenge,” says men’s tennis head coach Bryan Getz, a former Duke player. “But you have to play the big boys to be one of the big boys.”

Back to Top

SPIRITUAL STROLL

he shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. When inner peace and clarity of thought are your endpoints, you should follow a labyrinth.

A pattern that dates back 4,000 years, a labyrinth is a single, circuitous path that winds from an outside entrance into the center. Unlike mazes, which have dead ends and trick turns, labyrinths are intended to quiet the mind and inspire meditation. Walkers meander through different sections, or circuits, making turns that some people believe shift focus between the right and left brain, thereby enhancing consciousness and spiritual balance.

The University has installed a labyrinth at Walsh Point, a pristine plot adjacent to the Stanford Residential College on the Coral Gables campus. The 11-circuit, 30-foot diameter pattern, similar to one in Europe that captivated President Donna E. Shalala, comes from a New York labyrinth design firm. Cobb Fountain, recently outfitted with accent lighting, is the perfect backdrop.

Back to Top

STUDENTS PLAN VIZCAYA PRESERVATION

Monumental Task

lice Oliveira leans over the iron railing, ignoring a swarm of overzealous mosquitoes, tightly gripping her tape measure above a moss-filled pool. As she reads the distance to each point of curvature on the bridge, Marcus Chaidez records the dimensions on an architectural plan. In the fountain garden, Peter Nedev digitally photographs a majestic structure, which he likens to a satellite dish absorbing the hot Florida sun. Inside the villa at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Sonia Sarmiento inspects a floor-to-ceiling window for damage incurred after installation of air conditioning and hurricane shutters altered the natural ventilation built into the house in 1916.

This was a typical day this summer for seven UM School of Architecture students. Financed by a $66,000 grant from the Getty Grant Program with matching funds from the Vizcaya Museum and Garden Trust, the group spent 12 weeks sifting through archives and measuring every square inch on site. Two students this semester are analyzing the collected data and comparing it to historic photographs, letters, and original architectural documents in the estate archives. Their efforts will help identify areas that need restoration.

Never has there been an undertaking of this size and scope at Vizcaya, one of South Florida’s most important cultural resources. Chicago industrialist James Deering designed his winter estate as a showcase for his collection of European antiques, which includes a handwoven carpet rumored to have been beneath the feet of Christopher Columbus.

Documentation is critical, considering Vizcaya is situated in a flood zone, “where structures can literally exist one year and not the next,” says Miami historical architect Gregory Saldaña, a principal investigator of the project along with Rocco Ceo, associate professor in the School of Architecture, and University of Pennsylvania professor Frank Matero.

“At the University of Miami we recognize the value of history and precedent,” Ceo says. “The more homogeneous a community becomes through loss of its historic fabric, the less interesting it becomes. Students here understand that.”

Back to Top

Dare to Stream

he University of Miami is a real live wire—concert halls, lecture halls, walkways, and watering holes bustling with activity. Now an Internet connection is all you need to experience it. At www.miami.edu/webcams, viewers can click on live, streaming video 24 hours a day from four cameras recently installed on the Coral Gables campus. Two cameras atop the McDonald Tower residence hall provide aerial views of Lake Osceola, Clarke Recital Hall, Whitten University Center, and the outdoor swimming pool. Two cameras on the Whitten University Center roof scan the tree-lined pathway leading to the Otto G. Richter Library and The Rock, a central patio outside of the UC. Also on the Web site is a non-live but frequently refreshed vista of Biscayne Bay from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Since 2000, up to 25 people at a time have been able to hear School of Music ensemble concerts and student recitals streamed live on www.music.miami.edu/concerts. “We sit here with smiles on our faces, knowing we are right there with him,” says Andrew Giammalvo, who hears son Joseph perform in Miami via his home computer in New York.

The School of Medicine’s Department of Medical Education records and archives course lectures so students can review them online. The same technology enables the school to stream general interest sessions in real time over the Internet, such as a recent malpractice insurance discussion featuring Florida Governor Jeb Bush. About 100 viewers at once can link live on the Medical Education home page, www.mededu.miami.edu.

Back to Top

SUMMER SCHOLARS TAKE CLASS IN GHANA

Out in Africa

hile many college students spent the summer catching up with friends or working at the Gap, six UM students were climbing mountains, cruising the largest manmade lake in the world, crossing a rope bridge above a tree canopy, and speaking Twi, the dialect of local Ghanaians. Their guide on the two-week tour was Edmund Abaka, assistant professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences and a native of Ghana, West Africa.

History 501, Studies in African History, was one of more than 20 international education and exchange programs offered this summer through the Division of Continuing Studies. Coursework began in May on the Coral Gables campus with an intensive three-day orientation to life in the sub-Saharan coastal region.

“Watching television here in North America, all you see in Africa is AIDS, famine, war, children with AK-47s and distended stomachs, and safari animals,” Abaka says. “I wanted them to have a profound sense of the reality of the African situation—of people, families, bustling commercial centers, vibrant academic life.”

So he took the students to the capital city of Accra, home to the vast Makola market where they purchased colorful batiks and handmade crafts. He brought them to dinner at his sister’s house. He showed them botanical gardens, national parks, and waterfalls. And he showed them the vestiges of one of the harshest atrocities in human history.

“You expect them to break down for a few minutes, then be awestruck by the immensity of it,” Abaka says of the forts and castles that housed African slaves who were shipped to Europe and the New World between the 1500s and 1800s. Elmina Castle on the coast of Ghana, built in 1482, is one of the most notorious.

“While taking the tour of Elmina Castle I had a sick feeling to my stomach,” senior history major Matthew Wechsler writes in a journal. “I felt like we were walking through Hell.”

“I could feel the agony and misery,” says Marilyn Whitehead, a third-year B.G.S. student and senior secretary for Facilities Administration.

Staring at the “gate of no return,” the narrow opening in the castle wall through which millions have passed en route to the slave ships, Whitehead had a comforting epiphany. “The door of no return is no longer the door of no return. We can come back now. We can make things better.”

Ask the students what surprised them most in Ghana and they note the friendliness of the people. Wechsler writes: “Ever since I arrived in Ghana, the people have been so nice to me. They are teaching me their local handshakes and I am teaching them mine. I think I’m made for this country.”

“It’s important to incorporate a practical dimension to the academic world,” Abaka says. “The program has enriched their experience and outlook in a way that will forever be etched in their memories.”

Back to Top

Leader of the Stacks

s senior vice president and the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries for The New York Public Library system, William D. Walker managed 650 employees, an annual $65 million operations budget, and collections of more than 40 million items. Now he is the University of Miami’s new director of libraries. “Under his leadership, the library will flourish,” says Luis Glaser, executive vice president and provost.

“For me this is an incredible opportunity to position the Richter Library and its branches in the new academic work that is taking place in this country,” says Walker, who has lectured globally on digitization of services, innovative staff training, and capital fundraising strategies.

Back to Top

MASTER'S FOR SPANISH-LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS

Polishing the Periodista

ith 358 million native speakers, Spanish trumps English as the world’s second most common native tongue. (Chinese ranks first, with more than a billion speakers.) When the world’s Spanish speakers open their newspapers and magazines, the School of Communication wants to ensure that what they’re reading is of the highest quality.

“Ask any editor of a Spanish-language publication, and he will tell you that it’s a very important need within the entire hemisphere,” says Robert Hosmon, associate dean of the School of Communication, referring to the need for graduate-level education. He says that such programs in Latin America often focus on theory rather than practical training and usually require full-time study.The school’s new Spanish-Language Master in Journalism Program enables journalists around the world to earn a master’s degree without having to leave their jobs and move to South Florida. Modeled after a program in Spanish at the School of Business Administration, the journalism program includes five intensive, two-week sessions during a 12-month span. Students attend classes taught in Spanish by UM faculty and noted Latin American and U.S. journalists and media specialists.

“They get an edge in technology and how things are done in the United States, an edge in networking with the people they meet, and an edge from the quality of faculty at the University,” says José Romano, managing director of Grupo De Diarios America (GDA). A Miami-based, invitation-only consortium of 14 top newspapers from 12 different Latin American countries, GDA produces the monthly finance supplement Pulso Latino Americano, which ran an ad for the master’s program this spring that prompted more than 400 e-mails from interested journalists. In return for advertising, the school offers a 50 percent scholarship to one of GDA’s 2,900 journalists each year.

“Through my classes, especially Media and the Law, I am beginning to understand in legal terms the importance of freedom,” says Melba Leiman, a student in the program who was born and educated in Cuba but worked as a journalist in Mexico City before moving to Miami four years ago. “You don’t have these kinds of classes in Latin America.”

The School of Communication also sponsors seminars and workshops in Spanish on screenwriting, reporting, magazine production, and photojournalism. Its new Latin American Film Series, a partnership with the Motion Picture Association, brings first-run films from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico to the Cosford Cinema.

Back to Top

Scholarship Supports Student Journalists

ith a $100,000 gift, corporate newsletter publisher Evelyn Y. Davis and the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation have created The Evelyn Y. Davis Endowed Scholarship Fund at the University of Miami School of Communication. The fund will support graduate students who plan to study print or broadcast journalism in the areas of business, politics, or travel and tourism.

A shareholder-activist, Davis edits and publishes Highlights and Lowlights, a nationally known newsletter that offers political analysis, timely business items, and corporate governance matters for corporate chief executive officers. She studied business administration at George Washington University and lives in Washington’s Watergate complex.

Back to Top

FESTIVAL MIAMI KICKS OFF THE CULTURAL SEASON

The Main Event

eople used to say you really can’t do anything in Miami until November,” says William Hipp, dean of the newly named Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music. While it’s true that winter is the “shoulder season” of South Florida’s explosive cultural arts scene, Festival Miami sparks the fuse as early as September.

For the past 20 years, Festival Miami has combined music faculty and student talent with international professional artists in a five-week series of concerts, multimedia performances, and master classes open to the public. Hipp launched the festival in 1984, the year after he arrived at the University. The music school had been producing a smaller event featuring performers primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean, but Hipp envisioned something “much wider in scope.” The 2003 program, led by festival producer Philip DuBois, brought artists from Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Poland, Africa, England, Israel, Spain, and China.

“We wanted to reach out to the community,” Hipp says. “It helps develop audiences, it helps fundraising, and it gives more visibility to the school beyond Miami.”

Guest artists over the years have included Florida Philharmonic Orchestra music director James Judd, legendary trumpet player Arturo Sandoval, flautist Nestor Torres, and Wynton Marsalis, the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize in music. Marsalis, who performed with the UM Concert Jazz Band in 1997, also conducted master classes and workshops with students. “He was fabulous,” Hipp recalls.

Many works have made their U.S. or world premiere at the festival, says Hipp, who counts the 1986 debut of Elliott Carter’s Fourth String Quartet among the most memorable. This year Miami pop artist Romero Britto donated a serigraph for the festival brochure cover.

With an average of 25 events, Festival Miami draws roughly 14,000 people each year. State and county grants, corporate contributions, and in-kind support help keep ticket prices reasonable.

Positioning the festival at the cusp of the cultural season is strategic, though it’s “sort of like living on the edge because we do this right after school starts,” Hipp explains. “Students really have to hit the ground running,” Hipp says. “It creates a lot of energy.”

Back to Top

Open for Business

aculty in the Departments of Accounting, Management Science, and Marketing at the School of Business Administration have moved into the Kosar/Epstein Faculty Office Wing, which opened in June. Located adjacent to the James L. McLamore Executive Education Center, the wing was made possible by a donation from former Hurricanes quarterback Bernie Kosar and his business partner, David Epstein.

“At UM I learned some excellent practices, on and off the field, that have helped further my business ventures,” says Kosar, B.B.A. ’85, a Heisman Trophy finalist and University trustee. He and Epstein are part-owners of the Florida Panthers NHL hockey team.

Back to Top

A GLOBAL APPROACH TO FIGHTING INFECTION

For the Children

ess than a decade ago, Department of Neurological Surgery chair Barth Green and professor of family medicine Arthur Fournier established a plan to bring health care to underserved areas of Haiti. Through what has become Project Medishare, students and faculty members from the School of Medicine travel three times a year to the Haitian community of Thomonde, where they volunteer in a fully functioning clinic the project helped create.

A recent $2.5 million grant to the Department of Pediatrics from the Green Family Foundation will expand the project’s mission to provide medical care and education to children and families who have infectious diseases in Haiti, while doing the same for those in South Florida and elsewhere. The grant will fund faculty appointments and research at the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease/Immunology, which houses the largest single-site pediatric AIDS program in the nation. Directed by Gwendolyn Scott, the division cares for more than 300 HIV-infected children each year.

“The Green Family Foundation recognizes the substantial impact the University of Miami Department of Pediatrics has made in our community,” says founder Steven J. Green, former U.S. ambassador to Singapore and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees.

South Florida and Haiti have some of the world’s highest infection rates for AIDS and other treatable but potentially lethal diseases. The exchange of information between both sites promises to strengthen the fight against infectious disease worldwide.

Back to Top