A University of Miami Libraries entourage recently traveled to Americus, Georgia, to honor Henry King Stanford, president of the University from 1961 to 1982. The contingent included University Librarian William Walker and representatives from the Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) and AMIGOS, an organization that promotes and supports the CHC. The CHC is the most comprehensive collection of research materials for Cuban and Cuban-American studies. AMIGOS presented its first AMIGOS of the University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection Henry King Stanford Award, created to honor those who have greatly contributed to the mission of the organization, to the person for whom it is named.

“President Stanford was instrumental in helping us create the CHC, was one of the founding members, and served as the first cochair of the AMIGOS,” says Esperanza B. de Varona, the Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair of the CHC.

Besides his role in establishing the CHC within the UM Libraries system, Stanford created many educational and cultural programs that helped Cuban exiles adapt to their new life in the United States.