Wyche named vice provost and arts and sciences dean
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ames H. Wyche, a nationally recognized scientist and noted academic leader,
has been appointed vice provost and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
He will join the University August 1.
Wyche spent 14 years at Brown University as a associate provost and professor of medical science in the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry. Most recently, he was interim president of Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.
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“Dr. Wyche is a fine scientist and noted academic leader,” says President Donna E. Shalala. “The College of Arts and Sciences is the heart of our University. We will benefit tremendously from his expertise and leadership with the issues of science and diversity in higher education.”
Wyche holds a Ph.D. in biology from Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Brown in 1988, he was on the faculty of Hunter College from 1981 to 1988 and the University of Missouri-Columbia from 1974 to 1980. He also has held postdoctoral positions at the University of California, at both Berkeley and San Diego.
Wyche has served in a number of positions with the National Advisory Research Resource Council, National Institutes of Health, and is extensively published in the field of cellular biology.
“I am thrilled to lead the College of Arts and Sciences and become part of the diverse South Florida community,” says Wyche. “I look forward to working with the faculty and students to create an expanded role for growth and strength in the arts and sciences at the University of Miami.”
Wyche, who will continue to lead a research team at UM, is a nationally and internationally known researcher in the field of cell biology. During his tenure at Brown, he was a proponent of interdisciplinary study and diversity in education. Former Brown President Vartan Gregorian appointed Wyche as the executive director of the Leadership Alliance, a consortium of 29 colleges and universities, including leading research institutions, historically black colleges, and eight Ivy League schools, whose purpose is to increase graduate enrollment of minority scholars.
Wyche is an active member of the American Society for Cell Biology and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and has served on various national and international scientific committees.
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he was a Peace Corps Volunteer during the agency’s infancy. Her assignment:
Southern Iran, where she taught English and lived in a mud village from
1962 to 1964.
Some 41 years later, University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala addressed a new generation of Peace Corps Volunteers—32 Americans headed to Haiti—during a ceremonial send-off for the group at the School of Business Administration’s Storer Auditorium.
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“If you’re feeling queasy right now, that’s exactly the way I felt,” Shalala told the group, the 13th training class to go to Haiti since the Peace Corps returned to that island nation in 1996 after political unrest and a military coup prompted the agency to withdraw its volunteers.
The new Haiti training class will spend two years in the country working in rural areas with local farmers, cooperatives, small business owners, and youth groups to help develop and strengthen their business practices. Seven of the 32 will work specifically on health education projects, such as HIV/AIDS prevention, nutrition, child survival, water resource protection, and waste management.
At the send-off ceremony, Shalala told the group that the Peace Corps tested her resilience and creativity and taught her how to listen. “The Peace Corps made me sensitive in a way that I would not have been if I had remained in the United States and gone immediately to graduate school,” she said. “It gave me an ear and a set of eyes to really listen and to see. In my whole career, there is nothing that shaped me more than the two years I spent in the Peace Corps.”
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Shalala also gave the group some advice, telling them not to get involved in the politics of the country, to be patient and use their organizational skills, and to seize every opportunity to learn something new. “Every time there was an opportunity to take a trip or to go to someone’s house for dinner, I took advantage of it,” Shalala told the group about her experiences in Iran. “I learned about the culture, the poetry, the music. It was, for me, the most exciting time of my life.”
It was the most exciting time of Sherri Porcelain’s life as well. Porcelain, an adjunct professor of international studies who attended the send-off ceremony, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia from 1979 to 1980.
“The Peace Corps changed my life. I probably got more out of the experience than I was able to leave behind,” said Porcelain, adding that she often encourages her students to consider becoming Peace Corps Volunteers.
Twelve of the current 7,000 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in 70 countries are University of Miami graduates, while the total number of current and former UM Peace Corps Volunteers stands at 296.
Erin Seiler, a graduate student in international studies and the University’s Peace Corps campus recruiter, is helping to educate the UM community about volunteer service in the agency, conducting informational sessions in classrooms and for student organizations.
Seiler served in the West African nation of Mali as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1994 to 1996. She often shares with students her experiences of working in one of Mali’s rural villages, where she performed agricultural extension projects such as community gardening and chicken raising.
“I came back from the Peace Corps thinking that every American needed to do this,” said Seiler.
For information on the Peace Corps, which was founded by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, visit the agency’s Web site at www.peacecorps.gov, call the University’s Peace Corps recruiting office at 284-5398, or e-mail e.seiler@miami.edu.
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Bush also welcomed UM President Donna E. Shalala back to the White House. Shalala was formerly the secretary of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration. “Donna Shalala must have a pretty good touch,” Bush said. “After all, she becomes president of the University of Miami, and they win two national championships.”
Earlier in the day on Capitol Hill, football coach Larry Coker and baseball coach Jim Morris thanked the Florida delegation before heading for the White House ceremony with other NCAA championship teams.
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Jeffrey Spencer Shoulson, assistant professor of English literature, has been named director of the University’s Judaic Studies Program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that examines the social, political, religious, and cultural experience of the Jewish people during their almost 4,000-year history.
Shoulson, who has been with the University since 1995, received his doctorate from Yale University. His areas of specialty include early Jewish literature and the representations of Jews and Judaism in English literature. Fluent in both Biblical and modern Hebrew as well as several other languages, Shoulson was recently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and has been a Fulbright scholar.
“Professor Shoulson brings a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm to the Judaic Studies Program and will help to revitalize it and take it to the next level,” says Professor Haim Shaked, director of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, which works closely with the Judaic Studies Program. “We very much look forward to working with him and building a first-rate academic program in Judaic studies at the University of Miami.”
Now, all that could be changing, thanks in large part to a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary conference dedicated to Brazilian communities outside Brazil, which was held recently at the Whitten University Center on the Coral Gables campus.
“The conference was a wonderful way to bring scholars together to share their research on a topic that offers exciting opportunities to understand the adaptability of Brazilian culture beyond its homeland,” says Robert M. Levine, Gabelli Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences and director of the Center for Latin American Studies, one of the conference’s co-sponsors. The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures also sponsored the event.
During the day-long event, academics from more than 22 universities and organizations worldwide discussed their latest research on topics such as Brazilian racial and ethnic identity in the United States, religious dimensions of Brazilians in Florida, and the teaching of Portuguese in the United States.
Not only prominent scholars participated in the conference, but UM graduate students and community members as well. “One of our goals was to link the University to the South Florida community, and we believe we accomplished that,” says Butterman.
The Marlin Barnes Group Care Homes will “create an environment that will give young men and women in distress the best chance to succeed in living productive lives and to focus on their dreams and aspirations,” says Puncho Farquharson, founder and chief executive officer of the corporation, who was a personal friend of Barnes.
Barnes was raised in Liberty City under similar circumstances as the teenagers who will benefit from the foster homes. According to Farquharson, Barnes overcame extraordinary hurdles to achieve his goal of attending the University of Miami and starring on the football team. He was tragically killed on campus several years ago.
“Marlin was not only athletic, but intelligent and well-respected by the youth of Liberty City and beyond,” says Farquharson. “Kids get excited when they are told that Marlin started out under similar conditions in which they currently find themselves, and that through hard work and perseverance, succeeded in playing for one of the nation’s elite athletic programs.”
Each foster home will house six teenagers, who will participate in programs that will prepare them for the work force, build and enhance their character, and introduce them to role models, as well as cultural events.
Farquharson says that it will be a financial struggle to establish the homes and that he and many others who share a dream of honoring the legacy of Barnes will not rest until the homes have been built. Donations can be sent to: Marlin Barnes Group Care, 9000 N.W. 17th Avenue, Miami, Florida 33147, or call 786-514-1500.
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About 6,000 people attended this year’s picnic, which featured music, children’s activities, sports and games, a billiards tournament, and a book fair that benefited the United Way. A crime prevention team from the Miami-Dade Corrections Department fingerprinted and photographed children as part of a child identification program.
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Díaz, who will graduate in May, is the first student representing the University and the first Hispanic to be chosen for the award. An honors student and scholarship recipient, Díaz has held several key student government offices, including speaker of the senate and president.
He is a published poet and has worked as a student intern in Florida Senator Bob Graham’s office. The 21-year-old Miami native will attend Columbia University Law School this fall.
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