FIU Magazine - Winter 2010 - F I WHO?

M a g a z ine WINTER 2010 magazine.fiu.edu

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Join the Alumni Association and show your Panther Pride with an FIU license plate. Proceeds from the sale of FIU license plates go back to your university to provide scholarships for deserving students. More than $375,000 has been generated from the sale of license plates towards student scholarships.

The FIU license plate does more than show your Panther Pride and provide scholarships. There’s something in it for you, too.

By joining FIU’s Alumni Association you’ll receive special perks when you purchase your FIU license plate. There are also benefits for current Alumni Association members who purchase the plate. Please visit us to find out about these benefits and how to order your license plate at:

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WINTER 2010 Volume 20

On the Cover 08

In This Issue

03 Letters to the Editor

34 Connecting Worlds

04 President’s Corner 05 In Brief 12 My Haiti, Our Shared Future FIU professor Chantalle Verna reflects on the challenges and opportunities ahead for Haiti.

16 Strengthening Democracy

The question has gone unanswered for too long. To be honest, we’ve been too busy growing and building a research university to stare in the mirror.

Now, it’s time to embrace the vibrant, entrepreneurial and innovative university we have built. No university in the world has accomplished what FIU has accomplished in just 40 years. We are ready to define ourselves: FIU is “Worlds Ahead.” Inside, Senior Vice President of External Relations Sandra GonzalezLevy will tell you about how and why we developed “Worlds Ahead.” And on every page of this FIU Magazine, you’ll see the proof of this bold public declaration of who we are.

Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian Ph.D. ’05 travels throughout Latin America as an elections expert for the Organization of American States.

18 A Letter Home from Colombia FIU doctoral student Amy Ritterbusch reflects on living in Bogota and doing research on Colombian street girls.

Derek Capó ’03 masters Mandarin and founds a company to open China to travelers, students and business executives.

36 A Letter Home from Japan Brian Beckford ’05, MS ’08 immerses himself in Japanese culture as he earns a doctoral degree in Japan.

39 Eight Countries, One Team With players from around the world, diversity unites FIU’s winning women’s volleyball team.

40 Alumni News Alumni head into their communities on National Panther Day of Service.

46 Class Notes

23 Inspiring Creativity Phoebe Moll ’00 finds inspiration in Europe as a global account director at one of the world’s leading advertising agencies.

48 Donor Profile: The Marriott Foundation

49 VIP:

28 Understanding War Bertin Kouadio Ph.D. ’09 examines the causes of civil war in his homeland, the Ivory Coast.

Richard Brilliant MS ’93

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Exceeding Expectations

Electrifying Compositions

Gorillas in the Mist

Global Learning

School of Hospitality and Tourism Management alumnus Frank van der Post ’84, MS ’84 leads operations for one of Dubai’s top luxury hotel companies.

Alumnus Henry Vega ’99, an electroacoustic performer living in The Hague, uses a most unexpected instrument to compose music: the computer.

Environmental sciences alumna Bryna Griffin MS ’04 follows her passion for conservation to Africa through work at Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.

FIU’s new undergraduate education program will help graduates become knowledgeable and engaged global citizens.

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WINTER 2010 Volume 20

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Has anyone ever asked you the question: FI-Who? If you’re a proud alum like me, answering that question is easy. I’ll tell you how my graduate education in FIU’s Latin American and Caribbean Center broadened my understanding of the world. I’ll tell you about FIU’s dedicated professors who share the global perspective of their research in the classroom. I’ll tell you about the creativity and innovation of FIU’s students.

FIU wants the rest of the world to know what many of us already know about the excellence of an FIU education. That’s what the new “Worlds Ahead” brand initiative is all about – telling the FIU story consistently and constantly. Through “Worlds Ahead,” we are defining FIU and elevating our expectations for the future. In the pages that follow, we’re going to show you what “Worlds Ahead” means.

For environmental sciences alumna Bryna Griffin, it means following your passion for conservation to the Congo to work with local communities on sustainable land use. For physics alumnus Brian Beckford, being worlds ahead means challenging himself to earn a doctoral degree in Japan as he learns a new language and culture. Hospitality alumnus Frank van der Post lives worlds ahead by setting a standard for luxury matched by few in his profession.

The successful alumni we feature in this issue aren’t part of any organized campaign. They represent the passion, hard work and ambition of so many of our alumni. They are evidence that FIU has long delivered on the “Worlds Ahead” promise to educate students who can excel in the global marketplace. Our alumni are one of the best reasons we can answer that FIWho? question with confidence: FIU is Worlds Ahead.

FIU Magazine Editorial Advisory Board

FIU 2009-’10 Alumni Association Board

Division of External Relations

Executive Committee

Director of Marketing, Communications & Recruiting College of Business Administration

Sandra B. Gonzalez-Levy

Jose M. Perez de Corcho ’93

Dr. Gisela Casines

Terry Witherell

Luis Casas

Senior Vice President External Relations

President

Joaquín “Jack” F. González ’98

Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Associate Vice President External Relations

Vice President

Dr. Carol Damian

Bill Draughon

Secretary

Professor of Art History, School of Art and Art History

Rebecca Dinar

Outreach Coordinator, BBC

Associate Vice President Alumni Relations

Karen Cochrane

Cynthia J. Dienstag, Esq. ’83 Gabriel Albelo ’93 Treasurer

Ralph Rosado ’96, MA ’03

Office of the Vice Provost

Director Editorial Services

Dr. Stephen Fain

Deborah O’Neil MA ’09

William R. Trueba Jr., Esq. ’90

Professor Emeritus, College of Education

Editor, FIU Magazine

Dr. Larry Lunsford

Associate Editor

Martin Haro ’05

Associate Vice President for Student Affairs University Ombudsman

Aileen Solá-Trautmann

Michelle Mason, Esq.

Writers

Associate Dean for Admissions and Student Services, College of Law

Rafael Paz, Esq.

Associate General Counsel, Florida International University

Art Director

Sissi Aguila ’99, MA ’08 Madeline Baró Margaret Donaghue Bryan Gilmer

Khaleel Seecharan ’02, MS ’03

Photographers

Mary Sudasassi

Gloria O’Connell Ivan Santiago Roldan Torres ’85 Michael Upright

Director of Operations, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine Director of Public Relations, College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Jose M. Perez de Corcho ’93 President, FIU Alumni Association

Dr. Jonathan Tubman

Associate Vice President for Research Associate Dean, University Graduate School

Until next time,

Deborah O’Neil MA ’09

Letters to the Editor: FIU Magazine welcomes letters to the editor regarding magazine content. Send your letters via e-mail to alumni@fiu.edu, by fax to 305-348-3247 or mail to FIU Magazine, Division of University and Community Relations, UP PC 515, Miami, FL, 33199. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. All letters should include the writer’s full name and daytime phone number. Alumni, please include your degree and year of graduation.

Change of Address: Please send updated address information to FIU Office of Alumni Relations, MARC 510, Miami, FL, 33199 or by e-mail to alumni@fiu.edu.

FIU Magazine online: magazine.fiu.edu

FIU MAGAZINE

FIU Board of Trustees Michael M. Adler Cesar L. Alvarez Jorge L. Arrizurieta Thomas Breslin Joseph L. Caruncho ’81 Albert E. Dotson Sr. S. Lawrence Khan III R. Kirk Landon Miriam López Albert Maury ’96, ’02 Claudia Puig Anthony Rionda

Parliamentarian Past President Officers

Gonzalo Acevedo ’91 Gus Alfonso ’02 Chi Ali ’00 Stewart L. Appelrouth ’80 George B. Brackett Jr. ’76, ’77 Elizabeth Cross ’89 Raymond del Rey ’97 Isabel C. Diaz, Esq. ’01 José Manuel Díaz ’86 Ariana Fajardo, Esq. ’93 Sharon Fine ’99 Marlon Font ’04 Dr. Jason Scott Hamilton ’89, MS ’93 Carlos H. Hernández ’97 Jorge F. Hernández ’95 Eduardo Hondal ’88, ’00 Samuel C. Jackson MPA ’97 Michael Maher ’97 Ana L. Martinez, CPA ’92 Michael R. Méndez ’03 Alberto Padron ’98, MBA ’09 Frank Javier Peña ’99 Enrique Piñeiro ’03 Justo Luis Pozo ’80 Franciso Ramos Jr., Esq. ’93 Alicia Maria Robles ’98 A. Celina Saucedo ’99 Carlos E. Velazco ’06 Dr. Susan Webster ’87

WRGP Radiate FM: FIU Student Radio is broadcast north of Kendall on 95.3 FM, south of Kendall on 88.1 FM and 96.9 FM in North Miami and South Broward.

Alumni Office: Write to FIU Office of Alumni Relations at UP MARC 510, Miami, FL 33199 or call 305-348-3334 or toll free at 800-FIU-ALUM. Visit the Alumni Relations Web site at fiualumni.com for the latest news and alumni events.

Gifts to FIU: Contact University Advancement at 305-348-6298 or visit: advancement.fiu.edu/giving.htm.

Copyright 2009, Florida International University. FIU Magazine is published by the Florida International University Division of University and Community Relations and distributed free of charge to alumni, faculty and friends of the university. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

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WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

Letters to the editor A phenomenal education

I am a graduate of FIU’s College of Arts and Sciences and have a master’s degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey. I am presently in my third year of medical school at the University of Medicine & Health Sciences in St. Kitts. My dream is to return to FIU as a professor once I complete my medical degree.

My experience at FIU was always one of challenge and growth. I had the honor of taking courses like genetics with professor Rene Herrera, gross anatomy with professor Robert George and immunology with professor Charles Bigger. I also had the opportunity to customize my education as a pre-med, so I was able to take courses like histology, embryology, biochemistry and human physiology, which prepared me for medical school. My FIU professors instilled in me a love for the biomedical sciences. Unfortunately, because there was only one private medical school in Dade County at the time, I had to leave to attend medical school elsewhere.

I am proud to see that FIU has finally stepped out from under the shadows of the University of Miami and opened a new medical school. I was one of many who had to leave in order to fulfill dreams of becoming a physician. But now, FIU has taken its place among the greatest universities in this country.

I know that I received a phenomenal education, one that was comparable to schools like Harvard, Yale and Penn. Thank you and congratulations to FIU, the College Arts of Sciences, my professors and President Emeritus Modesto A. Maidique.

Panisse Maurice Padilla ’00 Portland, Me. A Memory Keeper

I enjoyed your “Remember When” in the Fall 2009 issue. Yes, I do remember when. My enclosed photo is from September 1971, taken from the old runway. You say it was “abandoned.” My young sons considered it the perfect spot for launching rockets.

I enrolled in FIU in 1972 and graduated in 1975, and became a lifetime member of the Alumni Association in 1979. I have a copy of the Outreach Magazine, which was more like a pamphlet, from June 1979.

I enjoyed seeing the photo of Chuck Perry, Don McDowell, Nick Sileo and Butler Waugh again.

I was also at the first graduation. We sat outside while the ceremony was in the then library, the basement of Primera Casa. It was an exciting time! What an adventure. Does anyone else remember?

Thank you for remembering our rich past. From all of us who left the campus so long ago and don’t recognize much today, one page of the FIU Magazine was a memory keeper.

Nancy K. Webster ’75 Naples, FL Saluting President Emeritus Maidique

In many families, one of a father’s main responsibilities and privileges is to see to a child’s education to be certain that the child is ready to head out into the world; to make sure the child is prepared to make a contribution to the world; and make sure that he or she will do the best job possible. I know this was definitely the case in my family.

But also in this way, my father, Modesto “Mitch” Maidique, has been a “father” to so many in the Miami community, and you are all his children. I know that he cares about the education of each and every one of you.

And whether he is president of FIU, a professor or another man at the coffee shop, he will expect you to do your best constantly – and, believe me, that makes you a better person. This, in turn, makes South Florida a better place for all.

Please join me in thanking him for this, as well as for his many years of service to Florida International University and the community.

Ana Maidique Bogusky Boulder, Col.

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President’s Corner Mark B. Rosenberg

Building a legacy of local and global engagement For me, every student counts. It goes without saying, of course, that every graduate counts as well. I am particularly proud of the accomplishments of one of my students and one of our early graduates, Manny Diaz ’77, who has just completed a highly successful term as mayor.

Manny was one of those students who we knew would be a success. His leadership skills were evident then. His interest in public service was way above the norm for his fellow students. And he had a passion for our community that has only deepened over the years. Manny would have done well at any university—we were privileged that he was one of our students and thrilled that we can claim him as one of our graduates.

Just as impressive is the Gonzalez family—12 members from The Gonzalez Legacy Family: Gregory Grandio ’09, Silvia González ’83, Jorge G. González MBA ’77, Tony this family have graduated from FIU over three generations!

González ’00, Bobbie Marie González ’02, FIU President Mark Rosenberg, Roland González ’90, Daniel González ’04, Eva González ’94, Jorge A. González ’90. Front: Kelley Grandio ’04, MBA ’09, Margarita González ’04 and Their confidence in our faculty, and in our institution is truly an Florence Rouit-González ’90. inspiration. It is testimony to the power of how FIU has had a positive impact in our community by educating and preparing families for the challenges of the dynamic 21st century economy.

Our alumni are a lifeline for a lifetime. Our legacy graduates and families, like Manny Diaz and the Gonzalez family, are a vital lifeline for our institution. Thirty-seven years after we first opened our doors to students, FIU is now old enough that we have educated many parents and their children, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings and even grandparents and grandchildren! These legacy families believe in FIU, have trusted FIU with their educations and continue to trust us with the education of their newest generations.

Their unwavering support is crucial as FIU builds on its accomplishments and moves forward in this new era as a more studentcentered, urban public research university.

Outstanding graduates like Diaz and the Gonzalezes are testaments to FIU’s new Worlds Ahead brand. The Worlds Ahead campaign will serve as affirmation and celebration of who we are by telling the success stories of our alumni, our students and our faculty. Worlds Ahead highlights FIU’s strengths as a vibrant, entrepreneurial, community focused and accessible university with a global perspective.

Being worlds ahead means providing an environment that will help prepare our students to compete in today’s global economy. We have renewed our commitment to the “international” part of our name through our Global Learning Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), one of the pillars of the Worlds Ahead brand. We aim to give each FIU graduate the knowledge, skills and attitudes of global citizenship in the 21st century. Already many of our students and graduates are engaged in education, research, and community-enhancing endeavors around the world, while others have assumed international leadership positions in their professions. They are all shining examples of how an FIU education prepares students to succeed in the global marketplace.

But to stay worlds ahead in this competitive environment, to build the value of the FIU degree, we will need all our graduates— including Manny Diaz and the Gonzalez family—telling the story of FIU. We will need their commitment to help us place new FIU graduates in meaningful work. And, we will need greater levels of financial support from grateful FIU graduates who are now positioned to give back! This will happen—for it is our graduates who will help us to continue to turn the impossible into the inevitable!

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in brief

Study aims to keep Hispanics in college The College of Education has been awarded a grant to develop a retention program for Hispanic students that can serve as a model for universities around the country.

The $496,000 award from the Lumina Foundation for Education identifies FIU as one of the largest producers of Hispanic graduates and funds a three-year study to examine the university’s strengths and weaknesses in serving the Hispanic community. The grant also will assess the Miami-Dade College-FIU Dual Degree Program.

“The student population of FIU is representative of the future of higher education,” said FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg. “All communities are growing to look more like South Florida with its immigrant, English-language minority, lowincome and ethnically diverse population.

Our findings will help universities across the country create results-oriented, studentcentered programs to help Hispanic students attain the American Dream.”

Nationally, the six-year graduation rate of Hispanic students at public universities is 46

percent, while 57 percent of white students graduate over the same period.

At FIU, where more Hispanics graduate each year than at any other university in the nation, several programs during the first year of college have helped minority students stay and succeed, such as the required First-Year Seminar course, enhanced training of instructors and the establishment of learning communities. In addition, FIU is enhancing its academic advising services and has added special counselors geared solely for at-risk students. n

Miami CEOs appointed to Board of Trustees Two South Florida business leaders and lifetime Alumni Association members were appointed to the FIU Board of Trustees last October. Michael M. Adler, chairman and chief executive officer of Adler Group, Inc., and Joseph L. Caruncho, chief executive officer of Preferred Care Partners, fill seats held by Betsy Atkins and David Parker, whose terms expired Jan. 6.

Adler, who served on the Board of Directors of the FIU Foundation for five

years, leads a multi-profile real estate firm. A graduate of the University of Miami, Adler and his wife Judith S. Adler have three children: David, a student at FIU, Matthew and Rachel.

Michael M. Adler Joseph L. Caruncho, a 1981 College of Business Administration graduate of FIU, served on the Board of Directors of the FIU Foundation and the Alumni Association. He Joseph L. Caruncho is a founder of Preferred Care Partners, a Medicare Advantage health plan. Caruncho also has a law degree from Nova Southeastern University. He has two children, Joseph and Natalie, and lives in Miami. n

Engineering professor wins Outstanding Faculty Award The FIU President’s Council presented its Outstanding Faculty Award last fall to engineering professor W. Kinzy Jones for more than two decades of teaching and research excellence at FIU. The award was presented at the annual Faculty Convocation and comes with a $12,500 monetary award.

A professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering, Jones established the, 2000-square-foot Motorola Nanofabrication Facility, and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute known as AMERI. He also established the Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Materials Science. Jones, a mentor to students and junior faculty, has brought more than $8.5 million in research support to the university. n

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in brief José Gurvich, “Hombre Cosmico,” NY, Témpera on paper

Partnership aims to solve local transportation issues

Frost Art Museum celebrates first year Amid Art Basel fervor, The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum celebrated the first anniversary of its new building in December with the opening of The Dahlia Morgan Members Lounge.

“It is difficult to believe that it has only been a year since the museum opened its doors,” said museum director Carol Damian to guests while standing in the newly opened and completed members lounge. “It is incredible the number of people that have come through the new building, as well as the great exhibitions we have featured this past year.”

Since opening the new 46,000-squarefoot building during Art Basel Miami Beach 2008, more than 29,000 people have visited the museum and enjoyed world-class exhibitions. The newest exhibit at the Frost, The Fantastic World of José Gurvich, runs through April and explores the work of the

Lithuanian-born artist who emigrated to Uruguay at age 6.

Also on exhibit is Women’s Work/Men’s Work: Labor and Gender in America, which the Frost is presenting in collaboration with The Wolfsonian-FIU. This exhibition inaugurates the Frost collaboration with the Wolfsonian in creating an on-campus teaching gallery in which the Wolfsonian’s collection can be presented at a site that is near the geographic center of FIU’s academic community. The exhibit explores how the sexual division of labor in America has been represented in art, propaganda, and advertising. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, is on view in The Wolfsonian Teaching Gallery at The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum through April 25.

“We are proud to begin this important collaboration with the Wolfsonian and see it as an opportunity to fulfill our educational mission,” said Damian. n

FIU and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) are partnering to explore ways to reduce traffic bottlenecks in MiamiDade County.

Funded with up to $500,000 from MDX, FIU’s Lehman Center for Transportation Research will focus on the development of an advanced bus rapid transit system along State Road 836 (Dolphin Expressway) and ways to make mass transit more appealing.

The agreement will involve several of FIU’s colleges, schools and centers and is part of the university’s efforts to become a hub for transportation research and policy.

“This initiative is an excellent example of the power of partnership to address community issues and improve the quality of life in Miami-Dade County,” said FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg. “Our research faculty and students will work collaboratively with MDX specialists to establish a major transportation think tank that is long overdue in our community.” n

CNN anchor brings live news show to FIU FIU students, staff and faculty welcomed CNN anchor Rick Sanchez to campus last October for a live broadcast of his hourlong news show. The program showcased FIU Athletics and included interviews with President Mark B. Rosenberg, Athletic Director Pete Garcia and men’s basketball coach Isiah Thomas.

Sanchez’s son, Rick Sanchez, is a student at FIU and was part of an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds that attended the broadcast in the FIU Graham Center. After the show, Sanchez praised FIU’s global perspective.

“I believe that America needs to be more globally thinking,” he said. “We need to have

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in brief a broader perspective on who we are and who other people are. That’s what attracts me to FIU. I love the idea of a Florida “International” University. I don’t think you can separate the international from this school. It makes me feel good to be here. It makes me feel good to be around people who are thinking outside the box. This is the school that is leading the way in that kind of thinking.” n

Teacher Imperative dedicated to increasing the diverse pool of highly qualified math and science teachers across the country. In addition, the Department of Physics and the College of Education are participating in the Physics Teacher Education Coalition project aimed at promoting the education of future physics and physical science teachers, including traditionally under-represented minorities. n

Law dean named among most influential Hispanics

Teaching program to improve math, science education

R. Alexander Acosta, dean of the College of Law, has been named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country by Hispanic Business magazine. This is the second time Acosta, the former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is listed among the 100 most influential Hispanics.

“I am honored to be listed among such accomplished Hispanic men and women,” Acosta said. “Reflecting South Florida’s diverse population, FIU educates a higher percentage of Hispanic attorneys than any other law school in the nation. Access to quality education changed my life, and I hope that at FIU we can do the same for others.” n

The College of Arts and Sciences has joined forces with the College of Education to transform science and math education and graduate scientists poised to become trailblazing teachers in their fields.

Through FIU’s new secondary teacher education programs, the College of Arts and Sciences prepares students in their chosen science or math subject area, while the College of Education gives them the tools they will need in the classroom. By choosing new integrated education programs in physics, mathematics, chemistry and earth sciences, students will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in their chosen discipline and will be eligible to obtain a full professional teaching certificate from the state of Florida. A biological sciences education program will be proposed soon as well. The first graduates are expected in 2011.

College of Education Interim Dean Marie McDemmond said this new model will infuse the teaching profession with the expertise needed to raise students’ academic standings in math and science.

“I think this is the way we must grow our next generation of teachers,” McDemmond said. “You can’t teach physics if you don’t know the content matter and since this new format will make our students eligible to receive their teaching credentials, our graduates will have a strong and versatile resume from the get-go. I think that’s what students want today.” n

FIU leads U.S. in minority science, math degrees FIU ranked first in the nation in awarding science, technology, engineering and math degrees to minorities in 2007, according to a recent study. It is the first time FIU led the nation, producing 1,527 minority graduates in those fields.

The study published by the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology looked at a variety of disciplines within science and math. FIU is one of the leading participants in the Science and Mathematics

Honors College partners with city of Sweetwater FIU Honors College has launched a sweeping partnership with the city of Sweetwater that will build students’ leadership skills and improve the quality of life in that city.

Sweetwater Mayor Manuel M. Marono and Honors College Interim Dean Lesley A. Northup announced the partnership at the annual Honors College convocation last October. The collaboration gives Honors College students unique opportunities to engage in community service and learn firsthand about the management and governance of a small city. Sweetwater has slightly more than 14,000 residents, 93 percent of whom are Hispanic.

“While The Honors College has long offered many wonderful community service activities, it was important for us to find a single focus which would allow many of our students to participate and get enthused about community service,” said Northup.

“The Sweetwater project is an ideal way to accomplish that goal.”

Honors College students participate in diverse projects including tutoring children, helping to launch an athletic program for girls and working with the elderly. A “green team” of students will promote environmental awareness with recycling and energy conservation programs and improve the aesthetic appearance of the city with neighborhood cleanups and by planting flowers and trees in parks and recreation areas.

“I feel privileged to be able to partner with the FIU Honors College and its distinguished staff and students,” said Marono. “This is a perfect example of how Sweetwater and FIU and its students can partner to make positive contributions to the community at large.” n

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ENTREPRENEURIAL

INTERNATIONAL/GLOBAL

ACCESSIBLE COMMUNITY FOCUSED

VIBRANT IDEALLY LOCATED

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Defining FIU “Worlds Ahead” tells the FIU story and raises the bar for the future

By Sandra Gonzalez-Levy FIU Senior Vice President of External Relations

Florida International University is ready to define itself.

For the first time in our history, FIU is launching a branding campaign, a public declaration of what makes us unique.

“Worlds Ahead” is an affirmation of who we are and an aspiration for the future.

As a longtime Miami resident who has viewed FIU from both the outside and now the inside, I believe the timing and the message of “Worlds Ahead” are exactly right. No university in the world has accomplished what FIU has accomplished in just 40 years. With more than 40,000 students, we are one of the 25 largest universities in the country. We offer nearly 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs, including law and medicine. Our researchers bring in more than $100 million in sponsored research from the most competitive agencies in the country. We are No. 1 in the country for granting baccalaureates to minorities.

Yet somehow our success and the excellence of FIU’s programs, faculty and research are a well-kept secret.

Through “Worlds Ahead,” we’re going to change that. We are going to do a better job of telling the FIU story consistently and constantly.

Even our alumni may be surprised as they get to know FIU again. Today, FIU is a vibrant, innovative research university that is educating leaders not only for Miami, but the world. In this issue of FIU Magazine, you can read about some of those global leaders, individuals like Frank van der Post in Dubai and Phoebe Moll in Europe. The education they received at FIU positioned them to be worlds ahead in their careers.

Neither a tagline nor a logo, “Worlds Ahead” is built on attributes we can demonstrate. We know this because we did our homework. In 2009, my division worked with Stamats, one of the country’s top education marketing firms, to reach out to nearly 4,000 prospective students, current students, parents, alumni, supporters, donors, faculty, administrators and community leaders.

We surveyed their views of FIU, held focus groups and conducted in-depth interviews.

We discovered that people agree on six attributes that define FIU: entrepreneurial, international/global, accessible, community focused, vibrant and ideally located. Those attributes are the foundation of FIU’s identity: “FIU is a vibrant, student-centered public research university, ideally located in Miami that is worlds ahead in its commitment to learning, research, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity so that our graduates are prepared to succeed in the global marketplace.”

These are the words I hear when graduates tell me about FIU professors who inspired them and academic programs that defined their future. These words also reflect our shared expectations and our vision for the future of the university.

Our research underscored the importance of developing a clear and confident identity for the university. There is a disconnect between FIU’s academic quality and its academic reputation. Many are unaware of just how good FIU really is. I am continually impressed by the outstanding caliber of FIU programs across the disciplines, from international business to music and environmental studies.

Outside of Miami, there is confusion about who we are. We intend to clarify and cement our public image so everyone knows FIU is worlds ahead. The campaign will be local, national and international in its reach. But “Worlds Ahead” is about much more than “official” communication from the FIU Division of External Relations. It’s about you. Through your involvement, “Worlds Ahead” will become the FIU story. In the coming months, we’re going to provide you with the tools and a number of ways to live the worlds ahead message.

To begin, we will share FIU’s “Worlds Ahead” stories on our new website and we encourage you to share yours by visiting worldsahead.fiu.edu. We want to hear about the professor who changed your life. Describe the FIU class that made it all click for you. Share your career success story and tell us how FIU helped you get there. Go to worldsahead.fiu.edu to learn more about your university.

Spend some time reading this issue of FIU Magazine; it’s a 48-page testimonial to how an FIU education empowers alumni to be worlds ahead in their careers. The value of an FIU degree and the prestige of our university grows when we have the support of proud alumni, faculty, staff, donors and friends.

We know there are many more stories to tell out there.

We challenge you to take the time to tell the FIU story.

How are you Worlds Ahead? n

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Exceeding expectations in Dubai

By Bryan Gilmer

Photo courtesy of Jumeirah Group

The Jumeirah Burj Al Arab is the sail-shaped hotel tower that has become the icon of Dubai as a 21st century world city. It has been called the world’s only seven-star hotel, and it offers guests a level of luxury few people ever experience.

If you are not arriving via the hotel’s helipad, a hotel staff member will greet you at the airport as you step off your plane and usher you through an express customs lane reserved for Jumeirah guests. Then, your chauffeur will spirit you in the bank-vault silence of a white Rolls Royce to the Burj Al Arab, where “a brigade of highly trained butlers” will attend your every need. A recent Google ad for the hotel proclaimed, “Enjoy rates from only $1,592,” and those not on a budget can spend well over $20,000 per night.

As the chief operating officer of Jumeirah Group, Frank van der Post ’84, MS ’84 is in charge of making sure guests’ experience is worth the money – and not just at the Burj Al Arab, but at all 11 of the company’s elite hotels in Dubai, the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York, two hotels in London and one in Shanghai opening in this year. The portfolio is not limited to hotels, it also includes Jumeirah Living, serviced apartments, Jumeirah Retail and Wild Wadi waterpark.

“We are a luxury hotel company,

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Alumnus Frank van der Post ’84, MS ’84 oversees global operations for one of the world’s most exclusive hotel and resort groups so our guests’ expectations are high,” van der Post says. “You make sure you deliver. At the end of the day, the building is only one thing. What really creates a key difference in the guests’ experience is the service.”

Van der Post completed a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management and then stayed on at FIU to earn a master’s degree from the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in December 1984. His time in Miami was part of a journey to one of the most prestigious hospitality executive jobs in the world. Hospitality Associate Dean Rocco Angelo says, “From his days as a student, it was obvious that Frank was going to be in a top executive position.”

The journey began with him washing dishes at a hometown restaurant as a teenager.

“I grew up in the middle part of the Netherlands, and I knew early on that I wanted to go into the hospitality business,” he says. His parents had thought of him becoming a lawyer or banker, but finally, “my dad said, ‘Look, go find yourself a job somewhere in town for 12 months and I will think about it.’”

So at 15, van der Post hit the suds at the little fine dining restaurant,

slowly working his way into the kitchen. After high school, he moved to London to work for Hilton, then went to hotel school in the Netherlands. In 1981, he took a food-and-beverage job in Brussels, Belgium, at another Hilton.

He knew he’d found the right career, so he began to look all over the world for further education in hospitality management. The search led him to FIU. “They had a great reputation,” he recalls. “At the time, they were really trying to get European students.”

FIU gave van der Post the skills he wanted. He says: “FIU was a great complement to the practical things I had learned in the Netherlands, primarily because it focused so much more on the management aspect, on finance, human resources, accounting, computers and marketing.”

Intercontinental Hotels recruited him, and his 21-year career with the company took him to 14 international cities. By 2005, van der Post was Intercontinental’s regional vice president for the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean.

Then Jumeirah Group approached him. His interview in Dubai included the Rolls Royce welcome at the airport, and he called his wife to tell her, “Honey, this job is looking pretty good.”

He began as Jumeirah’s senior vice

“FIU gives you a slightly broader perspective on life than you would get elsewhere.”

— Frank van der Post

president for the Americas and in 2007 became COO. Now van der Post oversees the company’s global operations.

“In Dubai alone, we have almost 11,000 colleagues,” he says, using the term he favors for his employees.

“Right from the top of the company, there is a focus on people, and that includes colleagues and guests.” The company houses all its colleagues, and it works to model for them the experience it expects them to provide for guests, he says. “They have great rooms, sports facilities, fitness facilities, shopping,” he says. “It’s a high standard. The company who does the landscaping for all our hotel properties does those facilities, too.”

Van der Post says he gained cultural competencies at FIU studying with people from diverse countries – and it’s given him an advantage.

“Prior to coming to FIU, I’d worked in Brussels and England and traveled the world, but that was really the first place I started befriending people not just from the U.S. but from Latin American countries and the Caribbean. FIU gives you a slightly broader perspective on life than you would get elsewhere.” n Writer Bryan Gilmer is based in Durham, N.C., and is the author of the new thriller novel “Felonious Jazz.”

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My Haiti, Our Shared Future When the world stops looking at Haiti with eyes of pity and begins looking at Haiti with eyes of possibility, true collaboration and positive change can really take place.

By Chantalle F. Verna, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History and International Relations

Born and raised in Caribbeancentered Queens, NY, my family encouraged me to be proud of my Haitian origins. By the time I was nine years old, I was well into the habit of identifying as Haitian-American. I celebrated my roots in a culture with amazing food, music, dance, stories, and art. I cherished having a beautiful place where I could enjoy Carnival and tropical summers. Many people around the world celebrate the richness of Haitian culture. At the same time, many lament the challenges that Haitians face on a daily basis, whether it is combating ignorant representations of Haitians in the media, establishing quality governance in Haiti, and relatedly, ensuring that the basic needs of Haiti’s majority are met. In the wake of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and weeks of aftershocks in Haiti, the need to recognize the richness that already resides in Haiti and to adequately address the needs of Haitian society are greater than ever before.

During my many childhood visits to Haiti in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I too struggled to understand

Many of present-day Haiti’s most pressing challenges echo issues that we grapple with here in the United States.

scenes and circumstances that surrounded me while in Port-auPrince: Why were so many smileyfaced white men and women gathered alongside us at the airport eager to enter the country? Why were there Haitian children begging at our car window? Why was my mother shhhhhing me when I asked her questions about Haitian society while standing openly in the capital city streets?

Some of the silence around these and other questions seemed to break in 1986 when then-Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier was ousted from power. But, the frequent political turnover in the late 1980s and 1990s still led me to join the impatient and frustrated chorus: “Again?,” I would ask, with a sinking heart. “When will we ever get it right?”

It would take nearly two decades before I began to seriously search for and find more satisfying explanations for the realities that were so unsettling about my homeland. And, perhaps more importantly, it would take that long before I began to ask questions that didn’t oversimplify Haitian history and society.

My opportunity for new knowledge emerged when I began my graduate Continues on next page

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studies in history in 1997. As my professors introduced me to the intersections between African American, Caribbean and Latin American history, I kept finding myself face to face with Haiti. I began to discover that the intersections were not simply driven by race. Rather, studying Haitian history soon meant understanding U.S. American history, French and British history, and gradually, I recognized, world history.

Those intersecting histories included the engagement of Haitians in political debates and revolutions around the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, the prominence of Haitian commodities in the 19th century world economy, and the participation of Haitians as founding members of international organizations such as the present-day Organization of American States and the United Nations.

Individuals who receive their education from FIU or participate in FIUaffiliated programs remain ahead of the curve when Haiti is thrust into the

In becoming aware of these historical links, I have come to understand that the “we” in “When will we ever get it right?,” is not simply about Haitians in Haiti or Haitians abroad. We is the entire world. Many of present-day Haiti’s most pressing challenges echo issues that we grapple with here in the United States, as do other communities around the globe: how to provide opportunities for education, employment, health, and shelter across social classes; how to plan the development of our urban, suburban and rural communities; how to ensure that our governments remain accountable to the interests of all citizens not just the wealthy and well-connected; how to respect diverse sources of knowledge not simply privileged North Atlantic traditions; and how to value the contributions

headlines.

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of our society’s laborers, as we do our professionals and capital investors.

Working with Haitians for solutions in Haiti holds the potential for identifying solutions across the world, including here in the United States.

When the world stops looking at Haiti with eyes of pity and begins looking at Haiti with eyes of possibility, true collaboration and positive change can really take place. While there certainly are an abundance of resources and many knowledgeable people from abroad who can contribute positively to Haitian society, these resources and experts must work in collaboration with the resources and expertise that already exists in Haiti. The greatest challenges following the earthquake are less about funding and physical reconstruction, and more about maintaining open and respectful dialogue with a cross-section of individuals from Haiti and the international community. This crosssection of individuals should include established leaders from the public and private sector, as well as lesserknown figures and ordinary citizens whose voices and visions are central to any successful and sustainable redevelopment project.

At this dawn of a new era in Haitian society, much remains to be discovered and better understood in order to fully appreciate Haiti, in general and in relationship to the larger world. We can each identify those possibilities by pursuing ties to Haiti that relate to our respective passions. For me, some of the most important resources for further understanding Haiti are in the underutilized and undervalued

collections of Haiti’s public and private libraries and archives, which I first explored as a graduate student in the summer of 2001. Scholars and lay persons alike commonly ask me, “Is there anything in Haiti worth consulting?” The question is an extension of widespread presumptions about “poverty” and “lack” in Haitian society. The gems of knowledge in Haiti’s libraries and archives are a metaphor for the richness, abundance, and positive developments already present in Haiti.

In 2001, I made it my charge to affiliate with individuals and institutions who would help to support the efforts of Haitian citizens and public administrators who for decades have been working to preserve and provide access to Haiti’s public, congregational and family collections.

This led me to begin serving as an advisory board member to the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) in 2005. The Digital Library is a dynamic project administered by FIU and the University of Florida, in conjunction with academic, library and archival partners in the United States and across the Caribbean. The National Archives of Haiti was a founding partner in this project, established in 2004; and, since, several other Haitian libraries and archives have joined the project making Haiti one of dLOC’s leading and most active partners.

Today, the vision which came to me in the summer of 2001 is now an evermore urgent mandate to respond to the post-earthquake needs of Haiti’s libraries and archives. While the four main patrimonial libraries and archives remained standing (despite a range of visible damage) immediately after

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the earthquake, the heads of these institutions continue to work diligently to complete formal assessments of the structures and their contents. These assessments will allow for a locally-driven and internationally-supported approach to helping to preserve the collections and bring the libraries and archives back into service for the long-term. Through my work with dLOC, I am able to contribute to a multi-institutional and international effort that is helping to secure the future of Haiti’s cultural patrimony, a source of world knowledge.

As a faculty member at FIU, I am able to use this knowledge to create unique learning opportunities for students; to guide Florida public school teachers on how they can develop their own courses; and to share such knowledge with the larger community through speaking, writing, and public history projects.

In these settings, individuals who receive their education from FIU or participate in FIU-affiliated programs remain ahead of the curve when Haiti is thrust into the headlines and the world finds itself seeking answers to critical questions about Haiti — critical questions that when we begin to explore carefully can also teach us so much about our own assumptions and our own societies. These are professional experiences that allow me to be proud not simply of being Haitian-American, but also to be proud of being a professor at FIU. n To learn more about the Digital Library of the Caribbean visit www.dloc.com.

Previous page: Franklyn Gile Latortue, Fête Patronale (Feast of the Patron Saint) 1960s.

Courtesy of the Figge Art Museum, gift of Dr. Walter E. Neiswanger, M.D., 1967.0013 On this page: Professor Chantalle Verna outside the Little Haiti Cultural Center. Photo by Roldan Torres ’85/Picture Works.

“I literally took what I was learning in school and used it in my business at the same time.”

— Robert Bell

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4 Strengthening democracy Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian Ph.D. ’05 organizes election observation missions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for the Organization of American States

“You know you are doing something for the good.”

— Betilde MuñozPogossian Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian learns about the voting kiosks in El Salvador for the Presidential Election of March 15, 2009. A worker from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador explained that the kiosks allow voters to get the exact information of where and how to vote. Photo courtesy of the Organization of American States.

By Deborah O’Neil MA ’09

When the votes are tallied on election day, the first question we ask is, “Who won?” However, the more important question might be not who won, but how: Was it a free and fair election?

The answer can have lasting implications for a country’s future.

International support or sanctions.

Popular celebrations or uprisings.

Political legitimacy or instability.

Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian Ph.D. ’05 has spent nearly a decade building and strengthening the foundation of free and fair elections in Latin America. As an elections expert with the Organization of American States, she has helped stage local, regional and national votes in El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala and Costa Rica. In 2010, she will serve as the deputy

chief of mission for Colombia’s March legislative election and May presidential election.

Her work is the behind-the-scenes mechanics of democracy: non-partisan cooperation, strategic analysis, technical training, problem solving. The Venezuelan-born Muñoz-Pogossian believes her work is an important part of the political life of a country.

“It’s very, very exciting. I can see something concrete come out of the things we do,” Muñoz-Pogossian said.

“The best part is the person who is benefitting the most is the citizen.”

The OAS is an international organization based in Washington, D.C., made up of 35 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Its mission is to promote democracy, human rights, security and development in the Western Hemisphere. MuñozPogossian began working there as an intern while she was a political science doctoral student at FIU. When the OAS offered her a full-time position, she hesitated to go to Washington because she had not finished her dissertation. But the job was too good to forego, so she did both.

“I got up at 5 a.m. to be able to write before I went to work,” she said.

She credits political science professor Eduardo Gamarra, her dissertation chair, for keeping her focused. “If you don’t have a good mentor when you are finishing your dissertation you aren’t going to succeed,” she said. “I owe a lot of what I was able to do to Dr. Gamarra.”

Gamarra arranged for Muñoz-

Pogossian to interview officials at the highest levels of Bolivian government for her dissertation research.

After she graduated, Gamarra worked with Muñoz-Pogossian to turn her dissertation into a book that was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008. Her book, Electoral Rules and the Transformation of Bolivian Politics: The Rise of Evo Morales, is the first book-length analysis of the rise of power of Morales and his political party.

“Betilde is one of the most focused and driven students I have ever had the privilege of mentoring,” Gamarra said. “Apart from writing a very good dissertation, which is now a book, she has become one of the foremost experts on elections at the OAS. I swell with pride when I see her elbowing her way around heads of state to insure that electoral rules and outcomes are respected.”

Today, Muñoz-Pogossian is the chief of the Electoral Studies and Projects section of the OAS Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation. The travel is extensive.

In 2009, she took eight trips to Latin America, ranging from a few days to six weeks. She takes her daughter Emma, who will be 2 in June, with her; sometimes her husband joins them also.

Her role at the OAS is to bridge electoral field work and theory. She helps implement electoral observation missions, observing myriad details from ensuring polls are accessible and poll workers are trained, to how votes are tallied and results officially

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Betilde Muñoz-Pogossian (center) visits a polling station with Dante Caputo, chief of the OAS Mission, to observe the local and federal elections in Mexico on July 5, 2009, the first time the OAS observed elections in that country. She served as deputy chief of mission for the election. Photo courtesy of the Organization of American States.

proclaimed. Afterward, she analyzes best practices.

“My research background helps me a lot,” she said. “I have the opportunity to write about the lessons learned from the field.”

The OAS assists with elections only when invited. For the host country, the presence of the OAS observers helps prevent fraud and irregularities.

Historically Latin American countries have struggled to separate the politics of elections from the process. As recently as November 2008, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega barred the OAS and other international organizations from observing its municipal elections. Allegations of massive vote fraud by the opposition party led to riots in the capital.

For most Latin American countries, however, electoral fraud, one-party dominance, voter intimidation, election-day violence and voting

restrictions meant to exclude the poor are scars of the past. The greater challenge today, says Muñoz-Pogossian, is creating equitable conditions for political competition. It is vital that political figures compete in a level playing field. A country’s political campaign financing model can contribute to this, and that is something the OAS observes.

In 2009, Muñoz-Pogossian witnessed the transformative power of democratic elections in El Salvador.

She served as the deputy chief of mission for the historic national election that ended nearly two decades of one-party rule. The vitriolic campaign had reignited factions from the country’s 12-year civil war. Yet despite widespread fears of violence, both parties accepted the transition of power peacefully.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza praised Salvadorans

Her role at the OAS is to bridge field work and theory.

for “displaying their affinity for democracy and exercising their right to vote in peace, leaving behind a history of brutal confrontation that only brought pain to this beautiful Central American country.”

The election was a moment of pride for Muñoz-Pogossian too. “It was seeing democracy, seeing people decide.

You know you are doing something for the good.”

Muñoz-Pogossian says the years of travel and interactions with the people of Latin America have broadened her world view.

“I’m definitely a different person from when I started,” she said.

“Maybe I have even changed my point of view of what it is to be ‘left’ or to be a neoliberal. When you see people who have nothing to eat exercising their political rights, you understand things from a completely different perspective.” n

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Pain and hope on the streets of Bogota “There are no words to describe the pain I feel for these girls.”

— Amy Ritterbusch, FIU Ph.D. candidate

Photos of Colombian street girls

by Amy Ritterbusch

An introduction to A Letter Home

By Professor Patricia Price Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies

Amy Ritterbusch is my doctoral student in the School of International and Public Affairs and her research centers on street girls in Bogota, Colombia.

Though they don’t have a literal house they call home, the girls occupy a variety of public and semi-public places, some safe and some unsafe. Amy is working with these girls to map and photograph the spaces that they inhabit and how the girls navigate the city. Her approach is participatory because it involves the girls doing the actual research and making sure that some of the project’s outcomes are of practical use to them. Her essay on the next page reflects how Amy’s own biographical journey is intertwined with her work and the lives of the girls she studies in powerful ways. As Amy has faced the emotional and intellectual challenges of her research, I have consistently emphasized that finishing the Ph.D. is but one step on a long journey, one that will – hopefully – involve her own mentoring of doctoral students as they walk their own paths.

Her research is supported by some of the most competitive grants available to doctoral students, a National Science Foundation doctoral grant and a Fulbright Grant for Doctoral Research Abroad. In addition, FIU’s College of Arts and Sciences also awarded Amy a grant for field research.

Amy’s research will make important academic contributions to the study of children’s geographies. It also has real-world implications by informing development policy to recognize the intrinsic value, autonomy and contributions of girls regardless of their socio-economic status or place of residence.

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A Letter Home from Colombia

By Amy Elizabeth Ritterbusch MA ’08 Ph.D. candidate, International Relations

toms and lombian Cus o C in d en d t feel gin an cause I don’ m Bogota be o be fr s u d o an rv ne to e k My trips ays makes m s agents loo process alw The custom . e h ry T nt n. u o o c ti , e ra tá Immig en I enter th PLACE: Bogo olombian wh port (BIRTH s s pa s so that y m like a ‘real’ C ee they s in 30 second en ry h to w s e m fe li at y suspiciously break down m inal limbo. e, I have to m ti h c Ea . luggage term a) in with a t’ s o ‘l Colombi t ses to travel don’t ge fu gs re ba o h y m w d an s an he last eric I do here. T olombian-Am ng the proces C at lo h t o w is pr it f t el o n’ h an es r the agent do knew the dept ts take me fo If they only e, most agen e. c eg an il gl iv t pr rs e fi is ied.

At no. er to exerc , sir,” I repl ?” I replied ssport in ord dress. “I do ily in Bogotá ad m y fa m e av at h s Colombian pa u ve do yo asking who li oned me, “So some more, ed dd agent questi o at the age of pr e h erican family onvinced, m nc A u an y gl by in m ed See y?”

I was adopt s your famil family here. e av h “I literally t n’ “Well, where’ do es from my : “I ll of messag ad to tell him h fu I as w en l th ai .” nd em s A te y voic as at the up in the Sta sit home, m took what er. Viviana w vi ew th a gr o r d br te an er af h h nt ta f street ce o Bogo one mo niform” for e disappearan I was rived back in “u ar th y I by m e , d m te ps ti ta t to The las called, devas ans and high tion zone.

Marcela had oodie, torn je na h ia a D . to ts in the prostitu an d learning in ge an ts h worker to inform c en m I o . m ear-old sex b wound t lively s -y ta o s 16 m , a e nt m th na o eg h fr c nth pr hospital the brothel enings to cat eight-minoschool g in front of ork in the ev d I took an in w an nd I at . ta er h s rk c , o ea nt w tr na h ou eac preg ue all day th aling shoe gl a fellow outr e friend, also and used h ag y, in en da m te o xt fr e er ne it h d e h te Th ngelica with so deteriora t and little w We found A Angelica was ffy pink jacke u n. fl o druga ti it in my h tu it ti s w the hospital. o pimp and/or ny bulge youth pr er ti r H e fo e. th m s id ti u h o e e ri Sh e sam that is noto other. aged at th as pregnant. at know she w tared at each t and yet dam business. W r s en ve t c s ne no ju in ld e u k o o you w word at they flit made her lo ’t say a the sameey are so hardened th side ponytail pital. He didn s o h e h T th . s spandex. Her to us e girl so deep and e scars are d came with feel for thes h en T I ri . in yf em pa bo th e g time.” in th ff deal s o ribe ird child. the pain roll ords to desc Angelica’s th if w is as no is h e es T il ar m e ? s Ther adopted, ounds toned will grow up ling these w — with giddy, s d ea il h ts h c ee rt e tr ta s s th e to be around th an one begin tate. Or may yers. How c zed by the s Robert Bell la ei s y s an m es nl o u s mbians thel have ke. girls and Colo rn into a bro ther looks li ng o bo u m yo be er l h ed il it w at o h pl w The baby , sexually ex ad, I have r away land, olence, babies rhaps in a fa ted me. Inste vi c pe fe to g, af in re er u as s h nd o po w a fifth e ex how it worker with to dwell on k about it, th ex in t s th no th y I u tr en yo I h er W ool. I But turn to sch ants is a form mber on me. re rm nu er a fo h in t ne y u m do o f ab ly o g has real We are talkin g others. One earn money. elf into savin to ys m . es n le in w ib az s ro ag s th po women. ls m these young better life is who now sel f a o n s s io er ve at li th c o u e ed w th grade she can sho and feminist) the better in succeed so man, critical a change for u e (h ak y m h l ap il gr w want her to o h d ge y experience at my researc l relations an ricia Price. M na at P io r at o rn s s te in fe My hope is th o , pr d taking ng in ided by traini tle Havana an of my adviser it gu L rt o is in pp h h u s rc rc ea ea al res My res and intellectu ensitivity NSF-funded ing personal sor Price’s and critical s s ge fe o ed pr al n c o gi and the ongo lo istant the methodo research ass today. ded me with vi o pr working as a ts of Bogotá pristine e ee rs tr u s o c e y th h n ap o exploring its gr ip a, no h s h al rs et s la g s o in h e’ c c s Dr. Pri e music, danc is more my activistlistening to th of living here contours of d e e c an th en a ri bi ng pe m ni fi lo ex o de to the real in C a. On the way ee hills. The med of living bi ff ea m o dr c lo o g s C in ay ll f w o ro al s I and e. Out dream ped mountains f look like m rly romantic o ap ea -c nd y ki w m o no f h s o , w y e beaches yet it tops an treets, peopl ign place. complex and walking the s e re o pl o m not-so-fore , pe t an e bu m th u n h ig at re nd fo u o ly ar , I looked is paradoxical grocery store am home in th I el fe I , streets here on the

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“I literally took what I was learning in school and used it in my business at the same time.”

— Robert Bell

Photo by Michael Upright

WINTER 2010

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By Sissi Aguila ’99, MA ’08

Electrifying Compositions FIU alumnus Henry Vega ’99 creates a new musical language for international play list

The crowd files in ready for a night of music; the curtain parts to a familiar silhouette: a man ready to perform. He reaches for his instrument and begins to type. Yes, type. Henry Vega ’99 is a trained composer, a classical guitarist and his instrument is the laptop.

Vega, a graduate of the School of Music, is an electroacoustic performer living in The Hague, Netherlands. He works with choreographers, theatre directors and video artists creating and programming new sounds with his computer.

Electroacoustic musicians such as Vega use the computer to create music that focuses less on rhythm, meter, harmony and melody than traditional compositions. Instead, they emphasize gestures and textures often by using speakers to manipulate sound within a space. This music has become more and more popular overseas with numerous conferences and festivals such as the International Computer Music Conference.

“We are at the frontier,” said Vega. “We’re still trying to create a stronger audience that looks for this music.”

Europe is the hub for this avant-garde musical art form, so Vega knew early on he wanted to be based there.

Vega’s music has received worldwide acclaim.

He took first prize at Musica Nova in the Czech Republic, received an honorable mention from the Hungarian Radio EAR competition, and was awarded first prize at Queen’s University competition in the United Kingdom for his theatre piece “Iminami” at the Dragon’s Den. After receiving his master’s in sonology from the Royal Conservatory’s Institute of Sonology in The Hague, Vega studied at the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast, United Kingdom. He returned to the Netherlands in 2008 and co-founded the trio Electronic Hammer. Vega, along with band mates Diego Espinosa and Juan Parra, performs percussion computer music in international venues such as Poland, Serbia, Cuba, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the Continues on next page

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“The language I have created came from my experiences

United States.

The trio recently released their first album, How to philosophize with a Hammer. On their Web site, the group describes their work as an attempt “to ask the hard musical questions without reservations or sensitivities; its (the album’s) only aim is to break the ground of the new medium with vision and precision in order to pick up the pieces and find a way forward.”

Their songs exemplify their vision for the future with innovative sounds not typically found in music. They conjure images of technology yet to exist. One song moves from a soft murmur to overwhelming resonance, while others challenge the listener with the juxtaposition of sounds.

Vega is currently working on a new CD of vocal music and computers titled The Worm Songs. The album is made up of original compositions and is in collaboration with his theatre group, The Spycollective.

Vega is living the life he always wanted, but admits that he was surprised when he accomplished his goals.

“When I first started college, I was torn between music and computer programming,” he said. “Professors Kristine Burns and Orlando Garcia introduced me to the hybrid of music and computers, which can connect in a creative end.”

Vega went on to major in music composition and classical guitar.

“The guitar was my link to

in Miami.”

— Henry Vega

tradition and history,” he explains.

“There’s a huge connection between modern music and traditional music through the guitar.”

School of Music professor Orlando Garcia, a world-renowned composer himself, watched Vega’s music evolve during his time at FIU. In the beginning, Vega studied the classics but eventually found he couldn’t produce the music he wanted to on traditional instruments.

“I am very proud of the work that Henry is doing,” said Garcia.

“While at FIU, he worked really hard to get to the point where he was comfortable with the music he was writing. He moved toward electronics to create sounds from scratch.”

Vega characterizes his approach as an old way of thinking about instrumental music. “Instruments traditionally mimicked the voice. I’d like to return to that instrumentally and electronically.”

After graduating from FIU, Vega obtained a master’s degree from the University of North Texas.

There he learned about the Royal Conservatory and immediately set his sights overseas. Before making the move abroad permanent, he backpacked across Europe for months. At the Conservatory, he met his wife, Kasia Glowicka, a native of Poland. His parents, who are Colombian, were supportive from the beginning, even though no one in the family is musical.

Yet the transition wasn’t completely smooth. On Vegas’ first day in the Netherlands, he found himself lost in a strange town unable to communicate with anyone because he didn’t know Dutch.

Vega decided to ask for help at the first restaurant he spotted. When he walked inside, Vega immediately noticed a Colombian flag draped across the back wall.

In disbelief, he asked, “Hablan español?” “Si,” responded a waiter.

Vega was reassured about his new home. The Hague, he found, is very diverse, much like Miami where he grew up.

The modern composer has spent his time abroad developing programming and musical skills for a new language in music. After years living, studying and working in Europe, he wants to bring his music back to Miami. “The language I have created came from my experience in Miami.”

Vega is also focused on making the computer a recognized stage instrument.

“When one of my pieces is performed, I’m on stage,” he said.

“I have to be on stage. I’ve created music that demands I conduct it like chamber music. The audience literally sees the connection.”

To learn more about Henry Vega and Electronic Hammer’s music, visit henryvega.net or electronichammer.com.

To purchase his new CD, visit cdemusic.org. n

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

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Inspiring Creativity Alumna Phoebe Moll ’00 finds inspiration in global marketing career

By Sissi Aguila ’99, MA ’08

“This job is harder than I imagined,” trips in France. She’s also made new Sitting at a café, Phoebe Moll ’00 she said. “But, it is even more international friends. For Thanksgiving, Her prime sketches the 17th-century townhouses rewarding than I could have hoped for.”

Moll invited to dinner a TV production location has that line the Nyhavn canal in Moll, who in 2008 received a Torch assistant from Amsterdam who served Copenhagen, Denmark. With Award for alumni achievement, loves allowed her as a guide and translator during two watercolors, she adds the bright hues finishing a campaign and seeing it on TV shoots she worked on in Rio de to visit that characterize them. This storybook air, in magazines, online and talked Janeiro in 2004.

Istanbul, scene is a dream come true for Moll about by consumers around the world.

Moll feels that one of the biggest who has been living and working in “Advertizing is an art,” Moll said. “It’s Copenhagen, social challenges she has faced is not Düsseldorf, Germany, for the past the brilliant combination of the three knowing the German language. Having Lisbon, year-and-a-half as vice president and things I loved the most while studying: grown up in Florida, she studied Paris, Global Group account director at design, business and persuasive writing.”

Spanish in school.

BBDO Worldwide, an international It is not rare for Moll to grab her Still, she has formed close friendships Amsterdam advertising agency. passport and suitcase mid-afternoon with coworkers. “I like to invite friends and, for her over for impromptu dinners to test out Moll was given the opportunity to to fly to Geneva and meet new clients transfer to Europe while working at that evening. But it’s not all work for my new recipes on them,” she said. birthday, BBDO’s headquarters in New York.

Moll. Her prime location has allowed On weekends, Moll shops at the Valencia, She first traveled abroad to Italy as part her the opportunity to visit Istanbul, farmers’ market, where they sell fresh Spain. of the Honors College curriculum at Copenhagen, Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam cut flowers from Holland at a great FIU during her senior year in 2000. and, for her birthday, Valencia, Spain. price, fresh breads, vegetables and fruits.

“I just loved it. It really cemented “I often bring my watercolor pencils “Germans are great bakers!” she adds. my interest in working and traveling with me on trips to relax and help me In the month of December, many of overseas,” explained Moll, a lifetime capture the beautiful places I discover,” the towns in Germany have Christmas Alumni Association member and Torch she said. markets in the evening and on the Award recipient.

Although Moll misses her family weekends. Last year, Moll joined in on In her current position in Düsseldorf, and friends back in the States, she has the fun winding the rows of booths in the economic center of Germany, Moll reconnected with old friends that have search of handmade ornaments, holiday handles the Proctor & Gamble Braun made Germany feel like home. While treats and wooden toys. “It is so festive Beauty account. She has also worked living in Panther Hall at FIU, Moll and colorful.” on accounts for Oral-B, Bayer, Gillette became close friends with Brazilian Moll is on board with BBDO and Best Buy. Her day is packed with exchange students. One of them now Germany until June 2010. Not ready creative planning meetings for ads lives in Paris and Moll has been able for her European adventure to end, she and commercials. to visit her twice while on business hopes to stay a bit longer. n

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WINTER 2010

Gorillas in the Mist Through her work with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, world traveler Bryna Griffin MS ’04 develops land conservation programs with local communities in the Congo

Photo by Hari Balasubramanian, courtesy of Bryna Griffin.

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

By Margaret Donaghue

Seeing the gorillas transformed the In 1967, Dian Fossey trekked deep young conservationist, already a world into the Virunga Mountains and first traveler who spent much of her youth sighted the elusive African mountain in Thailand and did her environmental gorilla. It was a life-changing meeting studies graduate research there, as well. for both species. Fossey would She realized that the Congo represents become famous as a remarkable a last hope for large-scale wilderness. animal researcher, a champion of the “There are very few places left on endangered apes, and a pioneer of Earth with this much forest, this much modern conservation. wildlife and this much left unknown,” Nearly 50 years later, following Griffin said. “If you are interested in Fossey’s footsteps, FIU graduate Bryna conservation you have to be interested Griffin MS ’04 would rediscover the in Congo. “ gorillas and redefine her own life. An Griffin was not content with experienced hiker, even Griffin was appreciating Congo from afar. exhausted by the five-hour journey She would soon leave behind a through deep mud and stinging nettles comfortable desk job in Washington, to reach the cool, steep mountainside D.C., traveling to the heart of Africa where the gorillas reside. to oversee part of Dian Fossey’s legacy.

“I walked through some tall brush, and, there, in front of us were the Wetlands to Grasslands gorillas. A family was immediately Griffin chose FIU over Columbia visible in the mist—yes, they really University for her master’s degree in were gorillas in the mist,” she recalled. environmental science. Not only was For the next hour Griffin FIU a better value, but she appreciated sat, transfixed, watching and the department’s more individualized photographing the animals. She approach. Through FIU’s Asian smiled as juveniles chased one another Studies program, she won a $2,000 in the undergrowth. She spotted an travel grant to spend summer 2003 enormous male silverback gently in Thailand, studying the wildlife use grooming an infant. As the great of the Karen Tribe in Kaeng Krachan animals yawned, nursed and napped National Park. before her, she marveled at how much Associate professor Mahadev Bhat, they share in common with their Griffin’s master’s thesis advisor, recalled human observers. that the year she traveled to Thailand “Sitting in the wet brush, smelling was the year of the SAARS outbreak. of sweat and crushed grass, I realized “Bryna was one of the most dedicated I was watching a real family. These and brightest students we ever had. gorillas were so closely related to me She’s a great nature lover,” he said. “She that I wanted to treat them as equals,” was determined to go to Thailand for she remembered. her field work – SAARS did not deter

“As humans we have a unique ability to see and understand the effects we have in the world and we can make it better.”

— Bryna Griffin

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her from traveling to the Far East.”

Going back to Thailand as a graduate student was, in a sense, returning home for Griffin. She lived there for nine years when she was in grade school. Her parents were teachers at the International School Bangkok, where she graduated before returning to the United States for college. Living there helped prepare Griffin for a career of living abroad, teaching her, for instance, how to get by in a foreign place when you don’t speak the language very well.

At FIU, Griffin was involved with exposing others to foreign places of a different sort. As the teaching assistant for the Ecology of South Florida, she led student field trips to the Everglades and local nature preserves. “It was such a trip to take Miami city kids into the swamp, stepping in alligator holes,” she said.

“That is the kind of intense training and passion that our Environmental Studies graduate students build while in the program,” Bhat said. “Bryna is a great example of how a student uses what they learned in school to shape their career and outlook for the benefit of society.”

Soon after college, Griffin put classroom theory into real world practice as a grant manager for Conservation International, a non-profit organization devoted to protecting global biodiversity by creating partnerships between sustainable environmental programs and corporate donors. Traveling from Peru to Sierra Leone she assisted native Continues on next page

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people in developing and financing sustainable wildlife conservation programs. But Griffin longed to leave her office and paperwork to return to the fieldwork she loved.

The opportunity came in 2005 when Griffin read a proposal by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI). The plan was to create community-managed eastern lowland gorilla reserves in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The project and subsequent trip to Africa where she watched the gorillas reignited her commitment to conservation.

“As humans we have a unique ability to see and understand the effects we have in the world and we can make it better,” Griffin said, “There are a lot of practical reasons for conservation. I believe that if we don’t understand something, we shouldn’t be messing with it. And that’s true of our environment.”

Into Africa That passion moved Griffin to accept a two-year contract with the DFGFI as the co-director of the Congo office in the eastern town of Goma along the border of Rwanda.

Situated on the shore of Lake Kivu, one of Congo’s great lakes, and surrounded by lush mountains, Goma was once a popular holiday destination. In the past decade, much of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Congo’s civil war, the deadliest armed conflict the world has seen since WWII, and by the aftermath of a 2002 volcano eruption.

Still, as a lake port city and center of local government, Goma serves as

“Bryna is a great example of how a student uses what they learned in school to shape their career and outlook for the benefit of society.”

— Mahadev Bhat, professor, Environmental Studies

WINTER 2010

an important commercial hub. The local professional class works alongside a significant expat community from Europe, the United States and other parts of Africa, many of them working at NGOs like DFGFI. Griffin works with local chiefs to help Congolese communities develop and finance local conservation programs using a three-part land use system. At the center is a nature preserve surrounded by a buffer zone encircled by a sustainable economic development area.

Land use – and abuse – are critical issues in the region. The eastern Congo has abundant mineral resources that are mined for electronics and goods in the United States and other wealthy nations. By any measure, the people of Congo should be prospering, yet the average person earns less than $1 a day. Because of weak governance and corruption, mineral wealth is in the hands of armed militia groups that have taken control of the mines and exploit local workers and child labor.

“It’s actually fuel for armed groups and perpetuates widespread corruption because so little is done to regulate it,” Griffin said. “So in a very direct way, the purchase of a cell phone in Miami or Chicago impacts the forests and people of the eastern Congo.”

In August 2009, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Goma, calling international attention to “conflict minerals.” The international community must look “at steps we can take to prevent the mineral wealth from the DRC ending up in the hands of those who fund the violence here,” Clinton told reporters.

The ongoing war in Congo is a real threat to personal safety, political stability and natural resources. As recently last February, rebels attacked a DFGFI-supported radio station.

Griffin believes the conservation programs can actually promote greater political stability. The DFGFI conservation model creates jobs, provides education and improves public health, giving the Congolese people a real investment in seeing the programs succeed.

Since opening in 2000, the DFGFI in Congo has assisted in the creation of a primary school for orphaned children, a university which specializes in conservation education, health clinics and a clean water project. These programs employ about 400 people including rangers, teachers, and doctors.

“It’s an exciting, huge and ambitious, project, and I have a part in making it more effective,” Griffin said, but admits that working in Congo does present some special challenges. For one, she speaks neither Swahili nor French, although she is studying the latter.

“The language barrier is one of the hardest things,” she said. “Having grown up in Thailand I am used to getting around town on very little but at work and in meetings it’s been a major hindrance.”

The Congolese are a diverse, lively and passionate people, Griffin says. That passion, she adds, can be both the source of problems and the solution to problems. While she feels safe, she says she is always a little on guard.

“Everything is loud and slightly

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

complicated,” she said. “Situations and fights can break out quickly and escalate more than you’d originally think. Bargaining over veggies in the market can be stressful and end up involving a dozen unrelated people yelling at each other on your behalf.

On the other hand, that passion is often directed toward creative problem solving, ingenious solutions to what would seem a hopeless situation.”

For Griffin, one of the greatest joys of being at the Fossey Fund comes from doing conservation work in a natural environment that is like no place on earth.

“Working on these issues, particularly here, is really a dream come true,” she said. “When I’m having a particularly rough day, I visit the three orphan gorillas we have at the Goma office now. I peek through their fence and watch them rolling around together, climbing their jungle gym or baby chest beating at each other.”

The orphans will soon move into the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education center. This latest DFGFI program is slated to open in 2010 in the nearby Tayna Nature Reserve with the goal of returning the animals to the wild, Griffin said. She added, “Gorillas are so rare and precious. We have to give them the chance to rebuild their population.” n

27

“I literally took what I was learning in school and used it in my business at the same time.”

— Robert Bell

Editor’s Note: Bryna Griffin recently left DFGFI and is developing research projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Margaret Donaghue is a writer living in Wilton, Maine.

Potato sellers in the Congo. Photo by Bryna Griffin.

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

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Bertin Kouadio is used to being first.

A member of the minority Beng people in Côte d’Ivoire, he was the first among the Beng people to move to the United States. And in December, when he walked across the stage at FIU’s U.S. Century Bank Arena, he became the first Beng person to obtain a Ph.D. in the United States, an achievement that he hopes will help him build a better future for his African homeland. His doctoral dissertation represents the first comprehensive scholarly work to examine the political, social and economic causes of the Ivory Coast civil war.

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“We are a small community and I am proud to attain the highest level of education and, eventually, become the voice of my people,” said Kouadio, who is an assistant professor and chairman of the international studies department at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa. “This is an accomplishment that my family and the entire community also take pride in. I hope to apply my years of research and study to solving some of the most pressing problems in my country in general, and our region in particular.”

The eldest of six children, Kouadio was born in Kossangbé (District of Mbahiakro) to a peasant farming family. Because of the structure of the schooling system in Côte d’Ivoire, each stage of Kouadio’s education took him to a different

“The crisis is very personal to me and it has had a tremendous impact on our region and our people.”

“I literally — took what Bertin Kouadio I was learning in school and used it in my business at the same time.”

— Robert Bell

WINTER 2010

part of the country, where he learned new languages and about different cultures. Today he is fluent in seven languages, including his native Beng and French, as well as English and several African languages. He is also proficient in German.

Internal conflict in Côte d’Ivoire interrupted his legal studies in the early 1990s, with the advent of multiparty democracy, which swept the whole of Africa. The country had been under the one-party system from 1960-1990.

Through a friendship he had forged over the years with anthropologist Alma Gottlieb (whom Kouadio calls “my American mom”), a professor at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign who has studied the Beng people, Kouadio came to the United States in 1994 to study at the

University of Illinois.

There, he had to start from the beginning because the education system was different from that of the Côte d’Ivoire. Kouadio spent a year studying English and eventually obtained his bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in African studies, both from the University of Illinois. After meeting FIU international relations professor John Clark at a conference in Nashville, Tenn., Kouadio decided to pursue his Ph.D. in international relations at FIU. Understanding war Kouadio looked homeward for his dissertation, seeking to understand the causes of his country’s civil war.

“Côte d’Ivoire is an interesting case because it was stable for a long

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Bertin Kouadio

period of time, apparently making it an infertile ground for conflict,” Kouadio writes in his dissertation.

“Since the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire was so unexpected, it should have something interesting to tell us about civil wars in general and African civil wars since the end of the Cold War in particular.”

An economic crisis in the 1980s in Côte d’Ivoire was followed by failed political reform in the 1990s that led to years of political and social conflict. A 1999 military coup was soon followed by civil war in September 2002.

Kouadio’s research identifies a number of causes: an economic crisis that impoverished large numbers of Ivorians, the end of a one-party system and consequent changes in the country’s relationship with France, weakened state institutions and the absence of sound immigration policies to deal with an influx of refugees from other African countries. All of these provided a social context and created the conditions that led to the war.

Kouadio said he hopes his research will help Ivorian and other African leaders understand the root of internal conflicts and use that in creating more stable futures for their countries.

“The crisis is very personal to me as it has had a tremendous impact on our region and people,” Kouadio said. “I want to make sure people, especially our leaders, understand the causes of the war and to understand the long-term implications. Countries who haven’t gone through this kind of war can also take advantage of this knowledge. This has important policy implications.”

When Kouadio travels back to Côte d’Ivoire, he does not go to his home region because it is still under

rebel control and it would be unsafe for him to do so. He is also very cautious while in the country as a political scientist doing work on that very crisis.

Professor John Clark, Kouadio’s mentor at FIU, said Kouadio’s research has a unique insider’s perspective.

“Few researchers could or would travel to the country in the midst of war, or have access to those in a position to understand the war’s outbreak,” Clark said.

Clark also praised Kouadio’s perseverance and his devotion to teaching. While at FIU, Kouadio was twice nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Award, winning one in spring 2005. At the University of Illinois, students ranked him as an “excellent instructor” on several occasions and in 1998, he won the “Bertin’s Language Teacher of the Year Award. quiet “His love of teaching has been confidence a source of energy and renewal for him,” Clark said. “His quiet and confidence and determination have determination carried him through to success.”

With a cousin who is a police commissioner, Kouadio has also been discussing ways to help their home region through partnerships with foreign non-governmental organizations.

When Kouadio describes his home it is with fondness. Family and have A born leader community play an important role in carried him On his mother’s side, Kouadio is his community. Like in many African through to descended from the traditional leaders societies, the group has primacy of his region, who make decisions for over the individual. The adults take success.” the area and settle disputes. Under responsibility for the upbringing of all — normal circumstances Kouadio the children, so it is not unusual for would become a leader at some point John Clark, one person to correct or reprimand FIU professor, another’s child, if necessary. Once a in his adult life, in line after one of International his uncles. year, around Easter, those who moved Relations Although Kouadio, whose softto the city return home to celebrate Pakinou, or “reunion.” spoken demeanor belies his steely “The family connection is strong, determination, does not formally and sharing is most important, have those responsibilities, many especially in times of happiness, grief, back home look to him for leadership sorrow and resource scarcity,” Kouadio and guidance, something he takes seriously. He has worked with the U.S. said. “Our region has many needs and embassy on a project to bring running we are trying to make sure we provide water to all of the villages in his region for ourselves until the government is through the establishment of water able to do so, especially after seven pump stations. years of civil war.” n

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“The intent is to move students out of their comfort zone.”

— Hilary Landorf, director, Global Learning Initiatives

WINTER 2010

we heard about this initiative. That, combined with the good experience I’ve had in the Corporate MBA program so far, have certainly made it worth a look.”

The Global Learning initiative represents a bold reshaping of undergraduate education at FIU and is one of the pillars of FIU’s new “Worlds Ahead” branding campaign. The new curriculum will challenge students to develop global perspective, global awareness and global engagement. The aim is for FIU students to graduate with the skills to understand diverse points of view, knowledge of global and international issues and systems and a willingness to share responsibility for solving the world’s problems.

These are exactly the skills that employers will be looking for from the graduates of Hannah’s generation and beyond, said FIU President Mark Rosenberg.

“Global Learning for Global Citizenship is an ambitious, forward-looking initiative,” said Rosenberg. “FIU students will be distinguished among their peers as having the skills, knowledge and attitude necessary to succeed in a

By Deborah O’Neil MA ’09 global marketplace and address the most pressing issues of the future.”

Hannah Couture has a world The Global Learning initiative of college possibilities as a talented emerged from a process begun two junior in one of the state’s prestigious years ago as part of the university’s international baccalaureate high 10-year reaccreditation with the schools. She’s already visited Barnard, Georgetown, Smith, Wellesley and Tufts. Southern Association of Colleges and After her mother heard about Schools. FIU is required to implement FIU’s new Global Learning for a “Quality Enhancement Plan,” or Global Citizenship initiative, Hannah “QEP,” of its choice to improve student added FIU to her list. The program’s learning for all undergraduates. international emphasis fits Hannah’s Several groups of faculty members academic interests and FIU’s in-state proposed different ideas. With tuition makes it an attractive option. input from students, faculty, staff “Hannah’s not sure what she wants and administrators, a proposal to to study yet, but she’s been drawn to “internationalize the international colleges that offer diverse perspectives university” was chosen. The contours and interesting environments,” said her of that idea took shape with broadmother Wilma Norton, who works at based input from the entire university St. Petersburg College and heard about community.

FIU’s Global Learning after enrolling in Upon its launch in Fall 2010, all new FIU’s new Corporate MBA program. undergraduates will fulfill new Global “We hadn’t thought about FIU until Learning course requirements. Students

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

in their freshman or sophomore year will take one new Global Learning foundations class. Initially, six new classes, selected from 17 faculty course proposals, will be offered in the fall: • Loosening Cultural Comfort, Gaining Global Perspective, cotaught by professors from history, global and sociocultural studies and religious studies, will teach students how to understand the perspective of others and how to critique their own perspective.

• Artistic Expression in a Global Society, co-taught by professors of music, art and speech communication, will provide students with an appreciation of language, music and art, as well as the global dynamics that influence them.

• Global Supply Chain and Logistics: Business, Technical and Legal Issues, co-taught by business and engineering professors, will explore issues surrounding international business and trade.

• International Issues on Public Health and Nutrition, co-taught by professors in public health and environmental studies, will teach students about the impact of public health and nutrition on economic development and political stability in the world.

• Foundations of Global Learning in the Humanities: How We Know What We Know, co-taught by a librarian and professors from journalism and English, will explain how and why information is made and teach students tools to evaluate information.

• Our Coastal Environment from the Bay to the World, co-taught by professors from biology, international relations and global and sociocultural studies, will explore the relationship between humans and the environment.

In their junior or senior year, students will select a second Global

Learning course. FIU’s academic departments are in the process of either developing new upper level courses or revising existing classes for the Global Learning program.

In addition to the coursework, the Global Learning for Global Citizenship initiative will introduce co-curricular programming and events to complement the academic requirements. This fall, FIU kicked off the first of its Global Learning co-curricular events with “Tuesday Times Roundtable,” a series of weekly student and faculty discussions about a New York Times article concerning a global issue. Student Affairs staff and faculty teaching Global Learning courses are developing other global learning co-curricular programs.

Early on, FIU professors involved in planning for Global Learning decided the program was important for all students, regardless of their majors.

Global skills and understanding are as important for environmental scientists as they are for political scientists, said FIU education professor Hilary Landorf, who is leading the implementation of Global Learning for Global Citizenship.

“Global learning encompasses more than discussion of nations in comparison to other nations,” Landorf said. “We’d like all future professionals, from engineers to mathematicians, to artists and musicians, to get a global education.”

The Global Learning curriculum reverses the traditional classroom paradigm. Instead of emphasizing what professors are teaching, Global Learning is concerned with what students are learning. As a result, the Global Learning curriculum is structured around dialogue, group interaction and problem solving.

“The intent is to move students out of their comfort zone,” Landorf said.

“One way to do that in the classroom is by giving them a problem that challenges their values.”

For instance, students might be

FIU professors decided Global Learning was important for all students, regardless of their majors.

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asked, “What are the ethical and cultural implications of an American pharmaceutical company putting a copyright on a South American native plant that can cure disease?”

Answers to such a question would vary widely, depending on a student’s life experiences.

“Students tell us that they encounter many different points of view at FIU, but that is not specifically mined in the classroom,” said Stephanie Doscher, associate director of Global Learning and an FIU doctoral student writing her dissertation about the Global Learning project. “We want students to tap into multiple perspectives regarding different kinds of problems and situations.”

The university will track the success of Global Learning through assessing student learning outcomes when students enter the university, in each global learning class, and when they graduate. Those results will be compared to baseline data of FIU students collected in Fall 2009.

“I am confident it will work, as the program has been in development for a number of years with the input of numerous faculty from a wide variety of disciplines,” said Joann Brown, a speech communication professor who has been involved with the project from the beginning. “These classes have specified learning outcomes that emphasize the mission statement of the university.”

Professors teaching Global Learning courses attend a seminar designed to help them structure their courses differently. They learn what is called “backward curriculum design” where course content and activities are determined after the learning objectives are identified.

Journalism professor Fred Blevens attended the seminar to prepare to teach the foundation class “How We Know What We Know.” The Global Learning curriculum is both cuttingedge and sound educational practice, he said. n

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WINTER 2010

(‘“ Connecting Worlds) Alumnus Derek Capó ’03 masters Mandarin and launches a company that opens China to students, business executives

By Bryan Gilmer

Derek Capó ’03 figures if you’re Next Step fluent in English, Spanish and China Mandarin, you ought to be able to works to conquer the world. And if, like him and many of his peers at FIU, you eliminate all grew up speaking English and Spanish, the problems he says the best way to add Chinese is to move to China and immerse Capó yourself. encountered That’s what Capó did. He’d grown when he first up in Miami, coming to FIU on a dual-enrollment program during high stepped school. He got interested in China in off the the College of Business Administration after studying with Chinese professors, plane. including Chun-Hao Chang, chair of the Department of Finance and Real Estate. After getting his bachelor’s in 2003, Capó put in a stint as a stock and bond analyst at Miami-based Everest Capital. That confirmed his

belief that the most exciting business opportunities pointed east.

“China’s a developing country; it feels like how the United States was 60-70 years ago,” he says. “The world is changing, and China’s becoming this big presence. I decided I wanted to change my whole life around. I wanted to go to China.”

As he planned to move there, he realized he needed help enrolling in a language program, finding an apartment in a safe neighborhood and, at least at the beginning, even buying groceries whose labels were written in an alphabet he couldn’t understand.

He found a company offering that assistance. “The price was low, but the service was horrible,” he says. “I didn’t like their tutoring. I felt they didn’t really care about the customer.”

When Capó found a language

program he liked, he devoted 10 months to intensive language instruction. It was only after he became fluent in Mandarin that he decided to start his own competing service.

He and a business partner launched Next Step China, nextstepchina.org, in October 2008.

They began by offering to handle all the logistics for foreign exchange students studying in Beijing or Shanghai, logistics so daunting that very few foreign students had been coming.

Next Step China works to eliminate all the problems Capó encountered when he first stepped off the plane.

The company picks you up at the airport, drives you to a furnished, luxury apartment they’ve

Life in China • Food: They try to do American food and they don’t do a very good job. Chinese food is really spicy and it has a lot of vegetables. They serve a lot of egg too.

I’m not a picky eater so I like it. The real Beijing food is duck and it is by far the best duck I have ever had.

• Lifestyle: It is very active and aggressive. In a big city like Beijing, if you are riding a bike, you have to watch out or you will get run over. When you are in the subways you have to push and

shove or you will get left behind. You walk a lot too. And you have to be careful as a foreigner because people will try to take advantage of you, like when you are shopping or taking a taxi and don’t know the cost.

• Language: It wasn’t that hard to learn Chinese because I was very committed.

I can speak, write and read very well.

It’s important to find the right language program. What happens in a good university program is that one day you

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

leased for you, introduces you to the fellow exchange students who will be your roommates, gives you a local mobile phone, pre-programmed with Capó’s and other emergency numbers, and sets you up with a Chinese tutor. The service starts at $6,500 per semester, including rent, utilities, high-speed Internet access, weekly cleaning service, bottled water – and travel and medical insurance.

“The only two things you’re going to have to do are cook and study,” Capó says. “Bills are all taken care of. Your job is to learn the language.”

Next Step China is now creating programs for executives who want to add Chinese language skills to their résumé. In other words, people like Capó was a few years ago. He also wants to expand to Latin America, where he can market his services in Spanish.

“Derek is a great example of what we promote at FIU,” says Joyce J. Elam, executive dean of the College of Business Administration. “We nurture the entrepreneurial spirit that many of our students already have, and the exposure to people from all over the world allows our students to capitalize on an interconnected global economy.”

Capó says FIU positions students well to succeed in China. “The teaching was great,” he says. “And I met a lot of international students.

That was a great experience, being able to work on team projects with people

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from cultures all over the world.”

But knowing their languages, you find too, opens the most promising yourself opportunities in business, Capó stresses: having a “At FIU, you have a lot of highly conversation educated bilingual students. If they add in Chinese Chinese, they can communicate with with 1.1 billion more people.” n “One day

someone from Kazakhstan.”

— Derek Capó

The “Gate of Heavenly Peace” of Beijing’s Forbidden City on the northern end of Tiananmen Square.

find yourself having a conversation in Chinese with someone from Kazakhstan.

• Music: They are so into Western culture; they are really into hip-hop.

Even Chinese music sounds Western.

They go to Beyoncé and P. Diddy concerts. Classical Chinese music is beautiful.

• Freedom: I don’t feel like I’m in a communist country or an oppressed state. However, you do run into

communist controls. YouTube and social networking is blocked. Blogs are blocked. I can’t do Facebook. They monitor all the e-mails coming into Chinese servers and will delete them once in a while if they don’t like the content.

• Making Friends: Super easy.

You have to make the first move, but Chinese people are very, very open.

It’s even easier to make friends with other foreigners.

• Doing Business: It is very difficult because there are so many rules and regulations. The paperwork is literally a humongous book. I do understand it.

This is their country and I’m trying to make money here.

• Being American: It’s pretty good because they regard Americans as very positive and friendly people. They also think all Americans are rich.

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“The second motivation for journeying to Japan comes from a sincere and earnest interest in Japanese culture.”

— Brian Beckford Photos of Japan courtesy of Brian Beckford

Brian Beckford earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at FIU. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in physics at Tohoku University, one of Japan’s imperial universities, which are Japan’s most selective and competitive. Tohoku University is in Sendai, a city of one million located 90 minutes north of Tokyo.

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

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A Letter Home: Embracing challenge in Japan

By Brian Beckford ’05, MS ’08

multi-faceted Japan was a in y it rs ve ni U onal dy at Tohoku e and my pers u tu ig s tr in to n re io u is lt ition of t, cu The dec a high acquis emic interes es ad at ac it il m c o fa fr g on, along program one stemmin cant attracti university’s fi e ni ig th s , a ly al as ic em pful is w nature. Acad ledgeable, hel chniques. Th w te o d kn an ly e h ig dg h le e know visement of ofessors ar experimental under the ad rsity. The pr rk ve o ni w U to ku o ty h ni o ations. ortu at T f my consider nts. The opp f resources o o de e rt tu c s pa an f o nd o s u t al en with the ab physics, was the advancem ide in nuclear be involved in dw to rl o ng w li il n w w dent who is and kno oto Osamu, A foreign stu . im s h t te as ta H S r d o s te things are no e Uni profes panese. Many the one in th Ja to in t s , en ra bo tt nt m ri o w of time in li is a stark c f paperwork spends a lot emic system mountains o ne e o , th the ks gh as u y ro Japan’s acad tl nt. However, d direc vigate th ie an ip na c ly t re s al c u ip m ifi h c t rs pe en hola s made one s not fully flu of being a sc exceed offer And unless r . lt o u ed s h in re c tl a at u o m as r st d o ic system, ken pressure versities mu clearly state in the academ Japanese uni a large unspo re , s el tu c nt fe u de I tr s tu g. s in te ora reign a graduate not know e is the corp to attract fo eetings than ng m er le al rd re h o o c m in t t an at lo nific in a of the reality is th The most sig eas because This results . id . s f re ie o u it lt ge rs u ve c an h ni e c u y of Japanes n’s social

by American little open ex ical hierarch fers to Japa tings involve rt re ee ve ai m e h e th ko th f io er pa em owev ate decision a result structure. S to attend. H pically domin al as ty ic h rt ey ly ve th al ” c d ai pi h an pai the lead pai-ko student ty d to follow senior are sem n in the “sem te io c re s o s pe m u ex c d s e an di ar d lder lack of free r are kohai an e who are o d more junio ystem. Thos s an n er io ng at u c ifi yo strat ns. Those ad discussio making and le will be of pai. this program in em s ed r in ei ga th e f c o e and experien the knowledg at th e ev li be , I firmly endeavors.

Nonetheless Japanese in my future t interest in e es lu rn va ea e d bl an ra e immeasu om a sincer history and pan comes fr earching the s Ja re to e m g ti in e ey m rn chose to nt so r jou ion. Hence, I motivation fo arriving, I spe s er nd to m o r im ec io s is pr e d h T an lture us worth. nique culture standing a cu of tremendo u er e a c nd en u is ri t ly I pe al . ex re culture e path to ay learning hips between been an everyd y own. But th the relations as h in in is ly h nt T ta . le ns culture on m o c festy ithout being are expressed e Japanese li grasp this w r th at o th to y te in es an ga e c g vi ng an in na u pl to le nu form cannot hope tal tool for hora of subt vi ne et a O pl . is a rs t e I ge ar an e. e ag Ther nds and str arn the langu lleagues, frie perative to le im it lt teachers, co fe e hav As such, I m the culture. he move fro ip. h ns e relatio challenges. T er t c u o in s ks f o h ee c s u kind truly that s y nature that te part of m but I believe , na h in it e fa m f o o s leap seems to be does take a Lastly, there ry to study nt u o c n ig re to a fo one’s home ople. and to ly beautiful into better pe al s ic u et ld th o s m ae s leap at is e of its a country th , in the plac s in ar ke ye ta t gh to ei e r h the chanc ments, whic e pursued fo n grants me have had mo which I hav I ts r. as ar te e al ac Living in Japa es ti ar ar h th e m see my c , the Japanes trengthening . However, I s do ir u pa B to s e e de c e id ti d er gu an ac th a pr as en ness e struggles, e has also be ped by loneli es er ip h th gr g , m in er o iv nt L fr u e n. o id origi dents enc attempt to h l foreign stu moment. fe. I do not li f o ay I am sure al w ness of each e ll th fu e ng o th al in s stone d experienced the stepping uld be lived an o h s e if L e. is no escap

Snap s ho t s in Exc e ll e nc e from U . S . C e n t ur y B ank A r e na

Focus. Strength. Confidence.

U.S. Century Bank salutes FIU Basketball player Marlon Bright. This outstanding scholar-athlete has demonstrated exceptional achievements both on the court as a forward and in the classroom as a senior computer engineering major with a 3.8 GPA. Through our partnership with Florida International University, U.S. Century Bank is proud to support tomorrow’s leaders and advance our shared values of excellence and dedication.

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

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Eight countries,

one team

FIU women’s volleyball turned distinct playing styles, multiple languages and diverse cultural backgrounds into a record-breaking season

“I literally

By Deborah O’Neil MA ’09

How the women of the FIU Women’s Volleyball team made it happen will be stuff of university legend.

Senior Yarimar Rosa’s powerful kills were obviously key to their record breaking 32-4 season and 2009 Sun Belt Conference Regular Season Championship.

But there were more subtle factors. Like fear. With an arsenal of volleyball plays from around the world and with rapid-fire Croat and Spanish no one else understands, they left their U.S. opponents often guessing, sometimes uneasy. And there’s sweat.

Lots of sweat. They’re squatting their bodyweight on a barbell.

Perhaps most important to their success is something no one except the women talks about much: Respect. It explains a lot about how 15 women from eight countries speaking seven different languages harmonized worlds of differences into winning strengths.

“I love the fact that we are all different. That’s what makes us great,” said sophomore Sabrina Gonzalez of Miami. “We love each other and love where we come from. That’s what shapes our team character. We are so different and we are so patient in trying to understand each other.”

Says freshman Jovana Bjelica of Serbia, “I think I came to the best university for myself. It was easier to adjust. Some of my friends are in Memphis or New Orleans and it’s hard for them to live there. Miami is not a typical American city.”

The alchemist behind this winning formula comes from far away herself. Coach Danijela Tomic, a Croatian from Bosnia, says no matter where the students are from, they come to FIU for the same reasons: a good education and a chance to play with a great team. A shared purpose unites them.

“They have to be selfless,” said Tomic, the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year. “For the team to succeed it can’t be ‘me.’ It has to be ‘we.’”

Assistant Coach Trevor Theroulde, born in Trinidad and educated in Germany, says having such a diverse team requires a different approach to coaching.

“People assume if you are from the same background you are the same. We tend to coach the forest instead of the trees,” he said. “What this dynamic has created for us is we are more

what aware. We talktook to individuals and make it work for us in a positive manner. We look at coaching the trees, at the individual styles.”

I was With nine international students, the players and the coaches confront extra challenges learning like students’ visas, the effects of homesickness on their academic and athletic performance and in schoolIn the beginning, the teammates had to the language barriers. learn how to communicate with each other. Someone would yell and used “Switch!” and nothing would happen.

“When we count in drills, somehow it’s always off,” said Chanel it in my Araujo of California. “We’ll go from 30 to 40 in one jump.” at Eventually,business the teammates taught one another and developed their own lingothe – asame vibrant mix of Spanish, European and English smack. Someone scores a point: “Un punto! Ohhhh!” The USAborn teammatestime.” encourage the international players to use language to their advantage: Speaking in Serbian or Spanish on — the court messes with the other team.

Fifteen times a year the players sing Happy Birthday in English, Robert Bell French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Croatian and Serbian. Nina Colon from Miami is speaking Croatian. Ashlyn Balensiefer from Indiana knows all the Reggaeton songs.

“I’m learning the world isn’t Indiana,” Balensiefer said. “I saw the U.S. as the world. This has made my horizons bigger.”

Tomic herself was an international student-athlete who played for the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. So she knows, for instance, how tiring it can be for the five Eastern European student-athletes to speak English day and night. She understands how puzzling the university can be with its credit hours and many requirements. She knows how much they miss food from home.

She also nurtures the team’s sense of family because she knows it will provide the support the student-athletes need.

“I was really scared when I came here,” said sophomore Andrea Lakovic of Montenegro. “Having these girls around makes you feel comfortable. We’re one big family. You have people who will support you.”

Tomic makes a point of telling all potential recruits just what the FIU team is all about.

Do you like diversity? Do you enjoy learning about other cultures and languages? Do you like winning? You’re going to love FIU. n

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ALUMNI

A Message from Alumni Association President Jose M. Perez de Corcho ’93

Dear FIU alumni, family and friends, A part of what makes many of our great universities so beloved are the traditions that have been in place for many years. At FIU, we have made great progress in establishing some traditions that we will continue to build upon. One of these traditions is our Silver Pride Induction in which we recognize alumni who graduated 25 years ago or more and present them with a medallion.

I recently had the pleasure of recognizing many of these Silver Pride alumni during Homecoming Weekend. Many of these alumni traveled from great distances to arrive at a campus which they no longer recognized. Our Alumni Relations staff goes the extra mile to make sure that the return to FIU for our Silver Pride alumni is a true homecoming.

Another event that continues to gain attendance year after year is the Annual Greek Alumni Reunion. This event reunites all FIU fraternity and sorority members who are alumni of the university. Greek alumni are invited to network, reminisce and reconnect with one another.

Greek Life is one of the many traditions that continues to help the university as it begins a new era. Hopefully we can continue to build on these traditions as well as the tradition of winning our Homecoming football game.

A significant benefit of obtaining a degree from a leading university is the opportunity to become a member of a network of alumni who recognize the value of hiring fellow graduates.

At FIU, we continue to recognize that one of the best ways in which we can help our alumni base is by providing opportunities in which our alumni can connect, whether it is at a networking function or at our FIU Alumni Career Fair. If you are looking to hire, check out a fellow Panther. Together we can build our Panther Pride.

Finally, I’m proud that FIU’s football team has chosen to challenge itself against tough competitors on the field like the University of Florida. No matter the outcome, our football team is now playing against major college football programs. The only way to improve in athletics is by playing against the best. Part of the excitement of following any sport is not only winning, but seeing how one’s team improves and builds upon its success season after season.

We would like to hear from you and encourage you to get connected with our Alumni Association at 305-348-3334.

In the Spirit of Blue & Gold,

Jose M. Perez de Corcho ’93

Alumni Day at Kaufman, Rossin, & Co.

Alumni Days spread Panther pride at work The FIU Alumni Day program was designed as the FIU road show, to promote awareness and relationship building among our alumni working in the local community.

Some 75 percent of FIU’s more than 140,000 graduates work and build their lives in South Florida. We have found that often alumni may be employed in various capacities at the same organization and not aware that they have a shared FIU history.

The alumni day mission is to show our Panthers how proud we are of them and their successes. We inform alumni on what is new and exciting at their alma mater. We have seen them inspired at these events, when they connect with their fellow alumni and realize the university’s endeavors affect their industry and community both locally and globally. We are also able to share with alumni how they can access exciting discounts and share news about other upcoming FIU events.

The alumni day is typically less than two hours and depending on the corporate culture, can be a breakfast, lunch or reception. The program is informal with brief updates from key university faculty and staff, predominantly in the organization’s area of specialization (i.e., Miami Herald-School of Journalism & Mass Communication or the College of Business for accounting, marketing and finance.).

Food and beverages are usually hosted by the company and the Alumni Association brings memorabilia and giveaways that always end the program with many smiles.

For more information about Alumni Days, contact Elena Balsinde, assistant director of Special Events & Outreach, at 305-348-0159 or ebalsind@fiu.edu. n

WINTER 2010 Florida International Universit y Magazine

Top: Travis Kelly ’06; Mary Fernandez ’09; and Carla Duenas, an FIU student in dietics and nutrition, pitched in to plant trees in Overtown during Panther Day of Service.

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Feel the Pride

Bottom: Mary Fernandez ’09 and Carla Duenas

Panther Day of Service rallies alumni to volunteer in their communities

By Sissi Aguila ’99, MA ’08

Young alumni borrowed grandma’s gardening gloves and picked up shovels to create an oasis for the residents of Overtown’s Town Park Village on the second annual Alumni Association National Panther Day of Service Jan. 16.

More than 30 alumni members of the

Young Urban Professional Association (YUPA!) joined volunteers from Hands on Miami to help revitalize the 147-unit housing cooperative. They planted trees, spread mulch and laid sod in the center courtyard.

Alumni chapters throughout the country signed up to participate in the Panther Day of Service. Alumni worked at a soup kitchen in New York City and volunteered in Los Angeles food bank. The School of Journalism and Mass Communication chapter helped clean up the beach at Oleta River State Park in North Miami Beach.

In 1994, Congress designated the third Monday in January the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and a national day of service. Volunteers across the country go out into their community, lend a helping hand and celebrate King’s legacy.

Travis Kelly ’06, a graduate of FIU’s public administration program, brought high school

students with him to teach them a good work ethic, the importance of giving back and putting others first. Kelly said he also wanted to expose the teenagers to FIU alumni.

“My life is dedicated to helping others,” he said. “I’m not in it to make money.

Helping others is reward enough.”

Terrance Cribs-Lórrant ’04, who works for Better Communities of America, said volunteering makes his life more meaningful. His mantra: To whom much is given, much is required.

“Overtown is my area,” added CribsLórrant. “I can’t say I work in the area and not serve in the area.”

Carla Duenas, a senior in dietetics and nutrition, said she decided to volunteer after the catastrophe in Haiti. “I wanted to do more – something tangible,” she said.

Duenas, like many participants, had never done any gardening. “I get why my mom likes it so much now,” she said. n

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ALUMNI Photo Gallery Washington, D.C. Football Watch: The DC Capital Panthers and the DC Gators set the rivalry aside for just a few hours to watch the first ever FIU-UF football game.

The event took place on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Senator Bill Nelson, in town for a Saturday Senate vote, stopped by the event to root for his Gators, but was nice enough to pose with the Panthers for a photo. From left are Adriana Pereira ’05, Candice Mothersille ’97, Robert Valencia ’05, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Carlos Becerra ’98 and ’01, Robert Myers ’09, Jilma Lasso ’88, Mauricio Hernandez ’05 Below: Aviva Rose-Avila ’07 and Mari Lourdes Cabrera ’07.

On Right page: New York Reception: Some 125 Golden Panthers gathered at the Hotel Gansevoort Rooftop Garden in New York’s Meatpacking District in September for a lively Alumni Association NYC alumni cocktail reception. From left are Eileen (Anton) Rom ’92, Christopher Rom ’92, Edward Dramberger ’86 , Michael Hudson ’86 with School of Hospitality and Tourism Dean Rocco Angelo (center).

YUPA networking event: YUPA (Young Urban Professional Alumni) is a group designed to provide services, programs and networking opportunities for FIU alumni who have graduated within the last 10 years. This fall, YUPA, in partnership with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, hosted “Networking Your Way to a Job” at Graziano’s in Coral Gables. The interactive workshop and networking social brought together over a 100 young alumni including, from left Cynthia Martinez ’09, Rick Hernandez, law school student Alyssa Suarez, Ronald Rodriguez, graduate student Robby Perez and Vanessa Campa ’08.

Atlanta Cocktail Reception: Mary Ann Galvin ’85, Marlene Estorino ’00 and Robert Estorino joined more than 50 alumni for a cocktail reception in Atlanta, Georgia. The event included updates about the growing campus and the developing Alumni Association Atlanta Chapter.

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Feel the Pride

Greek Alumni Reunion: Jesse Leon ’03, Carlos Becerra ’98, Alfred Mitat ’07, Frank Consuegra ’05 and Robert Cabose Fernandez ’01 surround Roary at the 4th Annual Greek Alumni Reunion.

Greek Alumni Reunion: Demosthenes Mekras ’06; Brenezza DaParre ’05, MS ’07; Arturo Neto ’93 and Manny Niebla ’05 caught up at the Greek Alumni reunion.

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ALUMNI Alumni find enriching travel experiences, new friendships on cruises

By Martin Haro

Raul Chavez ’80 and his wife Angela Martinez love to travel and they love FIU. Through the Alumni Association’s Golden Panther Getaway program, the couple has found the perfect way to combine two of their passions and make memories to last a lifetime.

They have “thousands of photos” from four cruises to prove it.

Chavez and Martinez are two of the hundreds of participants who have taken an educational voyage organized by FIU with Oceania Cruises®, an upscale cruise line that emphasizes personal service and a destination-oriented experience. Martinez celebrated her last birthday on board the Oceania Regatta.

“We’re already planning for the next,” Chavez said. “They’re wonderful experiences. We’ve been to China and most recently we went to the Middle East.

It’s a great opportunity to travel with old friends and make new ones.”

Chavez was among the 14 people who took the Roman Revelations trip last October hosted by Alumni Relations

Associate Vice President Bill Draughon.

Chavez appreciated that the journey provided him the chance to learn more about each of the historic cities and sites the group visited. Each cruise features an FIU professor who gives guest lectures about the destinations the group is visiting.

“My favorite stop was Jerusalem,” he said. “We had a faculty member from the School of Architecture with us and he was telling us about the city. My wife and I loved these cruises – they’re a great deal.”

For the 2010 season, the Alumni Association has organized two educational voyages on board Oceania Cruises Insignia.

The European Legends cruise departs on Aug.10 for a 14-day voyage from Copenhagen to Lisbon. World renowned master chef Jacques Pepin will be on board for this special culinary sojourn. Guests will be treated to specially designed signature menus, engaging lectures, culinary demonstrations, book signings and much

more. The cruise will visit seven countries – Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. The FIU host will be Divina Grossman, FIU’s founding vice president for engagement.

The Ionian Inspiration, departing Sept. 5, will feature a 12-day cruise from Rome to Venice. You’ll see the best of the Mediterranean with stops in Portofino, Florence and Amalfi, Italy, plus Corfu, Greece, Dubrovnik, Croatia and other captivating ports of call. The FIU host will be Executive Dean Joyce Elam of the College of Business Administration.

Oceania Cruises will continue its legacy of generous donations to FIU based on alumni and friends participation. The donations will support student and alumni programming. For more information or to make a reservation, call Oceania Cruises at 1-800-404-6313 and request the FIU alumni promotion for your exclusive $200 shipboard credit and free airfare. If you would like to contact the FIU Alumni Association about the above cruises please call 1-305-348-3961 or send an email to alumni@fiu.edu. n

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Feel the Pride

Coming Home

Graduates rediscover their alma mater while sharing memories at alumni reunions

Top: The Silver Pride Reunion Class of 1984 and earlier. Left: Thirty-one former presidents of the Student Government Association and the Alumni Association joined President Mark B. Rosenberg in December for the Past Presidents Reunion.

By Deborah O’Neil MA ’09

On a sunny Saturday last fall, Margarita Zamora ’84 sat on the patio of the Frost Art Museum marveling at the university she could barely recognize after 25 years. The Texas native earned her master’s degree here the year Reagan was elected and Miami Vice debuted.

The university that Zamora attended back then was still forming colleges, creating academic programs and just beginning to establish traditions. The university that greeted Zamora last fall at the Alumni Association Annual Silver Pride Reunion is a flourishing research university with 40,000 students, a law school, a medical school and a Division IA football team.

“I am in awe to see all the changes and how we have grown,” said Zamora, who teaches at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Tex. “I am so proud.”

Last fall, dozens of alumni came home to reunions organized by the Alumni

Association. During Homecoming Weekend 56 graduates of the Class of 1984 and earlier were inducted into Silver Pride. Also that weekend, more than 150 former fraternity and sorority members attended the Greek Alumni Reunion in Coral Gables. And on Dec., 31 former presidents of Student Government and the Alumni Association joined President Mark Rosenberg for a new event honoring past presidents of Student Government and the Alumni Association.

“We are so proud to have you back,” said Rosenberg at the Silver Pride Reunion. “If then it was true that people didn’t know where FIU was or what we did, today I can assure you, wherever you go in South Florida and whoever you talk to, you are one degree of separation from FIU.” At the reunions, Rosenberg rallied alumni to meaningfully re-engage with the university. He reminded them that alumni offer what FIU didn’t have when they were students – an influential body of graduates who can help the university advance.

“Here’s what I need from you: I need pride. I need swagger. I need your commitment to tell the story about FIU,” he told the past presidents.

During their visits, alumni heard about

plans to build a new 50,000-square-foot FIU Alumni Center just east of the football stadium. Students in FIU’s architecture program have come up with preliminary designs for the center. A fund raising campaign is underway.

“It will be the first place where you can see the history of FIU and that is a great history,” said Bill Draughon, associate vice president of Alumni Relations. “The Alumni Center will be your home away from home.”

Alumni shared stories both funny and touching at the reunions. Former Alumni Association President Will Trueba ’90 recalled how he was FIU’s school mascot, the Sunblazer, in 1986. Former SGA President Jorge Espinosa ’83 recalled that his administration was the first to hold a sit-in protest in the office of the president.

“We sat down for an hour and sang songs because they had canceled performances of bands in the quad at the insistence of somebody on the faculty.”

Former Student Government Association President Cynthia Burton ’79 attended one of the first meetings on FIU’s campus in The Tower in 1972. She remembers hearing about what FIU could become. “I thought that looked like a pretty big dream,” she said.

“Never stop dreaming.” n

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ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 1970s Fay Whitman ’73, MS ’76 passed away on Aug. 18, 2009, at the age of 87. Whitman is survived by her husband of 68 years, Irv Whitman, and daughters Dianne Glick and Ruth Gordon. She was predeceased by her daughter Justine Wolfe. Whitman practiced nursing for 45 years at Miami’s Mercy and VA hospitals and was a professor of nursing at Miami-Dade Community College.

Gil Lopez ’74, a psychologist at Flamingo Elementary School, has been named Florida State School Psychologist of the Year.

Lopez’s name will be submitted as Florida’s nominee for the National Association of School Psychologists’ School Psychologist of the Year Award.

Bruce G. Bradburn ’75 was elected the 2009 chairman of the American Home Furnishings Alliance, the trade association for all home furnishing companies in the United States.

David M. Wells ’77, a shareholder of the Jacksonville office of Gunster, Attorneys at Law, was named by Florida Super Lawyers magazine as one of the Top 100 attorneys in Florida for 2009.

Peter P. Corolis ’79 is an investment advisor with more than 25 years of experience. Corolis assists families and business owners with wealth planning issues spanning investment, tax, estate, insurance, philanthropic and business succession planning. He joined Richardson Partners Financial Limited in 2004.

1980s Virginia Easley Johnson ’82, managing partner of the Miami office of the national litigation firm Foley & Mansfield, PLLP, was selected for inclusion in Florida Super Lawyers’ list of top attorneys for 2009 in the area of Personal Injury Defense: Products.

Luis Alvarado ’83 recently was elected vice chair of Member Affairs of the Executive Committee of the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce.

Kenneth Christopher ’83, who recently published a book titled Port Security Management with CRC Press, was named assistant dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Park University in Parkville, Mo., where he teaches in the Department of Criminal Justice.

Roberto Saco ’83 recently was elected to the Office of the President of the American Society for Quality, the world’s leading authority on quality, advancing learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results and create better workplaces and communities worldwide. Saco will serve for three years.

Edurne L. Gorricho Rodriguez ’85, MS ’89, a founder of the national fraternity Phi Sigma Sigma, Delta Kappa chapter at FIU, is the mother to 5-year-old Juliana, “who is super active and always keeps her on her toes.” Gorricho is married to Jose L. Rodriguez.

Lenore Smith ’85 has joined the appellate group of Sedgwick, Detert, Moran and Arnold, LLP, as special counsel in the firm’s Fort Lauderdale office.

Robert J. Lopez ’86 is the founder of growyourwinesales.com, a Web site aimed at helping restaurant owners, managers and their staff learn about wine and selling techniques.

Harvey S. Hyman, Esq. ’89 recently completed five years of active duty with the U.S. Coast Guard, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Hyman is pursuing a Ph.D. degree at USF. 1990s Manuel E. Pravia ’92 and Rachel E. (Francar) Pravia ’99 welcomed baby son Michael Enrique Pravia on May 23. Michael weighed 10 lbs. 1 oz. and measured 21.5 inches.

Cassandra D. Bruton ’93 is pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Carlos Albizu University.

Beatriz M. Bezos MS ’94, MS ’07 recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of her telecommunications consulting firm, Bezos Technologies. Bezos also completed a chapter titled “Work Areas” for the Telecommunications Design Distribution Manual published by BICSI. Her next book title will be “LEED Design of Data Centers.”

Rebecca A. Barba ’95 recently was promoted to manager of global marketing and communication (international representatives markets) at Royal Caribbean. Barba is responsible for the development and implementation of all Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises & Azamara Cruises marketing and communication strategies and programs for the trade and consumers in all international representatives markets.

Emma E. Trelles ’95, MS ’99 published Little Spells, her first book of poetry last year. Trelles is a nominee for the Pushcart Prize for poetry.

Anitere Flores, Esq. ’97 currently is serving her third term in the Florida House of Representatives. Flores is the deputy majority leader for the 2008-’10 term, the chair for the PreK-12 Appropriations Committee and the vice chair for the PreK-12 Policy Committee. When she is not in Tallahassee representing House District 114, she works at FIU, where she is the director of Community Partnerships.

Christine E. Geschwill ’97 began training dogs as a hobby in the early-1990s. Since then, Geschwill has studied animal behavior and applied her experience and knowledge as a professional educator to her training. She currently is working toward meeting her Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers standards.

Eddie Merille ’97, MBA ’00 is the director of Marketing & New Media at FIU. Jessica Stone ’97 has launched Green Appetite, a Web site where she shares recipes for healthier, greener dishes. Stone’s recipes and her blog are available at greenappetite.com.

Alejandro F. Vicencio ’97, a certified financial planner and senior vice president with Wells Fargo Advisors, was elected treasurer for the Chile-U.S. Chamber of Commerce for 2009-2011.

Christopher E. Webb ’97, ’98 welcomed daughter Melia Kaitlynn on Jan. 6. Melia weighed 4 lbs. 10 oz and measured 18.25 inches. This is Webb’s first child.

Karina M. Cerda Collazo ’99 has been named partner at Maltzman Foreman, a Miamibased litigation firm. Cerda Collazo previously served as an associate at the firm and focuses on admiralty and maritime law.

How to submit a Class Note: Share your good news with your fellow alumni by filling out an online Class Notes form at fiualumni.com/classnotes.htm. Send us information on recent hires, promotions, awards, career achievements, appointments, births and marriages. You may also fax us your information to 305-348-3636, ATT: Class Notes. Electronic photos can be submitted in jpeg or bitmap format to appear with class notes by e-mailing alumni@fiu.edu. Please indicate in the e-mail which class note the photo should appear with, along with the full names and graduation years of all the individuals who appear in the photo.

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Feel the Pride 2000s Erica Jacobik ’00, a lieutenant in the Region Legal Service Office (RLSO) of the judge advocate general of the Naval Air Facility in Atsugi, Japan, has earned the title of RLSO Junior Officer of the Quarter and has been nominated for Junior Officer of the Year.

Michelle N. Martin ’00, ’02 is a certified anti-money laundering specialist and founding co-chair of the Association of Certified AntiMoney Laundering Specialists’ South Florida chapter. Martin moved to Orlando last year when Banco do Brasil, where she works as a compliance officer, relocated from Miami.

Sensei F. Montalvan ’00 has been a teacher, student, practitioner and disciple of the Philosophy of the Martial Way for more than 45 years.

Sonia Paulino ’00 is a portrait photographer living in Los Angeles. One of Paulino’s pieces currently is on view at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., as part of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition group show, where it will remain through August.

Diana E. Rodas ’00, MBA ’03 is the owner and founder of World Sources, LLC, the parent company of Best Baby Organics, an online store offering organic baby clothing and eco-friendly baby gear.

Randall J. Wisser ’00 is an assistant professor of plant genetics at the University of Delaware. Wisser is married to Grace Sanchez Wisser, also of Miami. They have a son, Miles Caleb, born in February 2008. The Wissers live in Newark, Del. Alyn Higgins ’01, MS ’04 was appointed vice president of external affairs at Marin and Sons, Inc., a Miami-based campaign management and governmental consulting firm.

Previously, Higgins was an associate in the firm.

Nathan Delinois ’02, an artist, was featured in the Spring 2009 issue of DUO Magazine.

Justin C. Pane ’02, a contracting officer at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) in Silicon Valley, Calif., was selected for the 2008 Leslie A. Kaufhardt Acquisition Peer Award, recognizing his contributions to the ARC and the agency.

Barbara Toledo ’02 has been promoted from director of intake to chief of program operations at Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe, Inc., the lead agency for child welfare in Miami and the Keys.

Amanda Chrycy ’03, MS ’05 recently was promoted to manager of audit services at Grant Thornton, LLP. Chrycy works at the company’s Miami and Fort Lauderdale offices.

Ahiza M. (Beers) Fernandez ’03 welcomed her second daughter Naomi Marie on April 1. Big sister Gianna is enjoying her baby sister and both mom and dad are happy with their new addition to the family.

Karolin G. Luna ’03 brought her first feature film, Pedro, to FIU last year for a special MTV Tr3s screening held on campus. Pedro is an MTVco-produced movie based on Real World: San Francisco cast member and HIV/AIDS prevention advocate Pedro Zamora’s life. Luna plays Rachel Campos, one of Zamora’s cast mates.

Victor Joel Ortiz ’03 is a New York-based actor who has appeared on stage on an Actor’s Fund Benefit Broadway reading of All About Eve alongside Annette Bening, Keri Russell, Cynthia Nixon and Peter Gallagher, among others. Ortiz recently has been featured in a recurring role on All My Children.

Paola D. Suarez ’04 has joined Gibraltar Private Bank & Trust as vice president and private banker. Suarez currently is enrolled in the FIU Downtown MBA Program and is scheduled to graduate in 2010.

Rebecca Berman ’05 recently received board certification as a specialist in gerontological nutrition after successful completion of an examination by the Commission of Dietetic Registration of the American Dietetic Association. Berman is director of Clinical Nutrition for MorseLife, a nationally recognized center of excellence in geriatric care based in West Palm Beach.

**Individuals denoted with a are members of the FIU Alumni Association.

To become a member, please visit the online membership site at web.fiu.edu/alumni/jointoday_form.htm.

Arianne Bree Britt ’05 recently received certification as a professional in human resources from the HR Certification Institute.

Adriana Pereira ‘05 graduated with a master’s degree in public administration from American University in Washington, D.C., last summer and is currently serving as communications director to Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida on Capitol Hill.

Laetitia Blanchard ’06, M.Acc. ’07 recently was promoted to senior associate of audit services at Grant Thornton, LLP. Blanchard works at the company’s Miami and Fort Lauderdale offices.

Solange Ingold ’06, MS ’07 recently was promoted to senior associate of international tax consulting services at Grant Thornton, LLP. Ingold works at the company’s Miami and Fort Lauderdale offices.

Fernando U. Diez ’07 has been promoted to vice president of operations of Marin and Sons, Inc., a campaign management and governmental consulting firm in Miami. Diez previously served as an associate in the firm.

MacAdam Glinn J.D. ’07, an attorney with Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza Cole & Boniske, P.L., has earned the credential of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accredited Professional from the United States Green Building Council having passed the LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations examination.

Glinn, who focuses his practice on governmental, procurement and construction law, is the second attorney at the firm to receive the accreditation.

Viviana A. Jordan ’07 was appointed to the MiamiDade Commission for Women for 2009.

Monica Isola ’08 is pursuing a graduate degree in the Department of Biological Sciences at FIU. Seiichi Murasaki ’08 is pursuing a graduate degree in the Department of Biological Sciences at FIU. Veronica M. Perez ’08 married Guillermo Perez ’07 on May 8 at a wedding in Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church. The newlyweds celebrated with friends and family at the DoubleTree Grand Hotel Biscayne Bay. Natalie Ramirez ’08 and fellow Panther Gerardo Brenes were married on Sept. 5.

Xiaoli “Charlie” Yuan ’08 recently welcomed a baby daughter to his family. Yuan and his family live in Antioch, Calif.

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