Miami Magazine | Winter 2007

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T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F

great minds in medicine BEGINS HERE.

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t the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine,

The Miller School of Medicine is the nucleus—and the heart—

we’re educating tomorrow’s top physicians and scientists. Our med-

of one of the nation’s largest and most vibrant academic medical

ical students see the greatest patient diversity, the rarest of diseases,

centers. Progress at the medical school, in pioneering research and

and medicine’s most pressing problems. They publish research, train

patient care, has attained an unprecedented pace. In our quest to

with internationally renowned faculty, and

continue growing this unparalleled research

provide countless hours of volunteer service.

and clinical enterprise, we’re building more

Many stay right here in South Florida and

facilities and attracting more top experts.

become leading experts in their fields. They

Every day we’re thinking ahead—exploring

get an exceptional education and a world of

new medical frontiers, creating new knowl-

experience, which means our patients and

edge, and discovering the treatments of

their families receive world-class care.

tomorrow.

Thinking Ahead.

Learn more at www.med.miami.edu. For an appointment, call 305-243-5757 or toll free at 800-432-0191.

WI NTER2 007

THEUNI VERSI TY OFMI AMIMAGAZI NE

UMS p e c i a l i s t sg i v ec h i l d r e n

Me n d i n g F r a g i l eH e a r t s wi t hu n h e a l t h yh e a r t st h e c h a n c et og r o wu p .

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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 1

W Winter2007

For Alumni and Friends of the University of Miami F E AT U R E S

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Big Help for Little Hearts Pediatric cardiologists at the Miller School are pumping new life into these fragile, young patients.

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Minding Your Health People with chronic illness survive and thrive through the power of positive thinking.

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Pep Up the Volume UM’s cheerleading and dance squads add high-decibel excitement to athletic fields and beyond.

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Surf Turf The Law of the Sea—a specialty of School of Law professor Bernard Oxman—is designed to settle choppy disputes between nations.

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Out of Limbo For creative writing associate professor A. Manette Ansay, the balance between teaching, writing books, and having a family wasn’t always smooth sailing.

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DEPARTMENTS

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PostMarks Comments and opinions from alumni and friends.

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University Journal New buildings are up and running >> Boosting the biosciences >> CRB is ecofriendly >> Scanning cores for clues >> Distinguished Professors >> Cultivating cultural literacy >> Urban Debate League >> Prilleltensky is new education dean >> Hall is new dean of students >> Opportunities in nanotechnology >> Blink author speaks >> Health economists do the math >> Hurricane Hummer

Cover Illustration by Anita Kunz.

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Alumni Digest Alumni in the Bahamas >> & Magazine is an alumni effort >> Sebastian takes to the skies >> UMAA Legacy Reception >> Lifelong learning >> Annual Fund update

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Class Notes News and profiles of alumni worldwide

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DateBook Alumni events and activities

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Big Picture Arlette Perry is an allaround good sport.

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P o s t

MARKS A UM Star

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am writing in response to an article on female athletes in your spring issue (“Winning Respect”). Personally I think no article on athletics at the University of Miami is complete without mention of my mother Muriel Smith Marshall, A.B. ’46, who graduated as the Outstanding Female Graduate of the Year. She was an athlete in an era where it was not feminine to be an athlete, yet she was so beautiful and feminine that she became Orange Bowl Queen, Miss Miami, Miss Florida, and first runner-up to Miss America in 1943.

Comments and Opinions from University of Miami Alumni and Friends

Miami’s ill-fated professional With strong interest in football team, the Seahawks, dance and gymnastics, she she married Robert Aelian was recruited by the legMarshall, a Pan American endary Henry Fillmore to pilot she met while at the be a drum majorette at the University of Miami.

University of Miami. Her My mom died last goals of being an Olympic September but remained gymnast were cut short by the outbreak of World War II, but at the University she taught navigational trigonometry to pilot navigators training for the war.

After a brief run as the entertainment director for Muriel Smith Marshall, A.B. ’46

active in University of Miami activities and alumni associations until her death.

I encourage you to dig in your archives and discover.

She was a UM star, and I honor and miss her.

Deborah L. Marshall, B.M. ’73 Loxahatchee, Florida

Warm Fuzzies

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came to Miami in 1943 from New York, and although I never attended the University of Miami, I feel a connection to the institution that has kept me involved as a member of the Citizens Board for many years. Citizens Board director Joyce Galya (A.B. ’73,

FROM THE EDITOR

A Nod to the Storytellers

D

ressed to the nines and jovial despite the drive from Hallandale Beach, George Drucker, 81, endured the tedious traffic to allow Miami magazine to photograph him with Frank Penedo, principal investigator of a UM study that assessed stress management in men diagnosed with prostate cancer. George’s wife of 44 years was a little concerned about the drive. “He’s a very special man,” she had told me on the phone the day before, pausing to stress the word very.

George, who participated in Penedo’s study, is indeed a special man. It’s not easy to talk to someone you’ve never met about your battle with prostate cancer and all of its intimate consequences. But George went out of his way to help Miami magazine tell his story.

Similarly, it’s not easy to describe what it was like to confront the mortality of your child. Nicole and Kevin Keller talked to us about the moment they learned their son would be born with a rare heart malformation and would need a series of lifesaving surgeries. And on a delightful Saturday in October, when there were so

2 Miami magazine Winter 2007

many other things the family could have been doing, they invited Miami magazine into their home to photograph 3-year-old Garhett, who generously interrupted his playtime to flash our photographers a rosy, dimpled grin.

Most people like to keep their private lives private. But the people appearing on the pages of Miami magazine have invited 127,000plus readers to share in their most profound periods of strength, weakness, and growth. Over the years I’ve learned that people usually consider it an honor, rather than an inconvenience, to be featured in the magazine. Their rationale is the same as mine. It’s an honor to be a part of an institution with an altruistic mission— to educate, employ, help, and heal human beings.

Every day I am thankful for the people who share their stories with me and with all of you. They are the human face of our institution, the people who enlighten us about experiences and emotions we might not otherwise understand.

—Meredith Danton, Editor

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ple—even those who didn’t spend four years there—a sense of community and to help them feel good about the world around them.

Marge Pearlson Miami, Florida

Honey Days

I M.B.A. ’84) throughout the years has always made me feel welcomed and encouraged me to continue my efforts as a community activist and educator. I enjoy reading Miami magazine, and the most recent issue (fall 2006) gave me such a warm, fuzzy feeling that I wanted to tell you about it.

As I went all the way through the issue story by story, it was like a beating heart. It was real. I recognized the people in it and the meaning of an institution with thousands of people who make the world a better place. The cover story (“Going Global”) was particularly meaningful for me because it showed personal growth—insight on how people felt before their study abroad experiences and on who they became as a result.

The University of Miami is an example of how our institutions have an obligation to give all kinds of peo-

have many fond memories of my time at the University of Miami, and one that I will always cherish is having been a Hurricane Honey. I was a Honey all four years, serving as cocaptain my junior and senior years. Many people didn’t understand our role in supporting the Athletic Department, but while we had a lot of fun, we also took our duties seriously.

During the fall home games, half of us would accompany prospective football recruits and sit with them during the game. The rest of the squad would work the skyboxes, which required the ultimate level of decorum, especially in the Level 1 skybox, which included the University president, high-level donors, and VIPs and celebrities. In the spring we would help host players being recruited, as well as former Hurricane/ current NFL players who would drop by for a visit.

We would give campus tours, have meals in the players’ dining hall, and the

weekends would include a boat ride through Coral Gables down to the bay.

In the community we represented the University at various charitable functions, and we often served as assistants to the golfers and VIPs at the Doral Ryder Open golf tournament. My favorite community event was when we were invited to the Fontainebleau Hotel Chocolate Festival. The mayor of Miami Beach was our anchor man in a tug-ofwar against the hotel staff over a pit on the beach filled with chocolate ice cream.

The University of Miami gave me so much in the way of a great education. I like to think I gave a little back while having a great time as a Hurricane Honey. I am still proud every time I wear my Honeys shirt or jacket, and I will wear it with pride until the day I die.

TonyaMarie (Swearingen) Smith, A.B. ’90 Via the Internet

Letters: We welcome your letters. All letters must be signed (your name will not be printed if you so request in writing) and may be edited for clarity and space.

Address letters to: Meredith Danton Miami magazine P.O. Box 248105 Coral Gables, FL 33124 E-mail: mdanton@miami.edu

The University of Miami Magazine

Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing

P. David Johnson Senior Editorial Director

Todd Ellenberg Editor

Meredith Danton Art/Design Director

Scott Fricker Graphic Designer

Sau Ping Choi Production Manager

Jill McWilliams Editorial Contributors

Jill Bauer Joan Cochran Robert C. Jones Jr. Christine Kotler, B.S.C. ’91, M.A. ’01 Leonard Nash Blythe Nobleman Lisa Sedelnik, M.A. ’00 Jessica Sick, B.S.C. ’00

President

Donna E. Shalala Vice President for University Communications

Jerry Lewis Vice President for University Advancement

Sergio M. Gonzalez Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations

Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95

Miami magazine is published by the University of Miami Division of University Communications. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Distributed free of charge to alumni and friends of the University. Postmaster and others, please send change of address notification to Miami magazine, Office of Alumni Relations, P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410; telephone 305-284-2872.

Contributions of articles, photographs, and artwork are welcome; however, Miami magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited items.

The comments and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Miami or the staff of Miami magazine.

Copyright ©2007, University of Miami.

An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

www.miami.edu/miami-magazine

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U n i v e r s i t y

JOURNAL

Noteworthy News and Research at the University of Miami

Going Up New buildings rise and shine on campus

University Village, now resides in the four-story, 55,000-square-foot M. Christine Schwartz Center for Nursing and Health Studies. The building includes leading-edge technologies, including

University Village, above, and the M. Christine Schwartz Center for Nursing and Health Studies are among a host of impressive new buildings that are up and running.

patient simulation labs and smart classrooms outfitted with computer-based communications and instructional capabilities. Classes will be held there beginning in January.

Meeting society’s needs for better health care also is the overarching vision for the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine’s new

BUZZ WORDS

“By getting so close to the White House, Uribe has deposited all his eggs in one basket.”

Bruce Bagley, chairman of the Department of International Studies, on the challenges faced by Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.

–The New York Times

4 Miami magazine Winter 2007

DONNA VICTOR

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ne of the most visible results of the successful Momentum fundraising campaign is an ambitious construction docket. Several new facilities opened their doors and are playing a vital role in the University’s everexpanding array of worldclass programs and services.

One of the most eagerly awaited is University Village.

Fifteen years in the planning, this first new student housing community on the Coral Gables campus in 38 years began welcoming residents in September. Today the attractive complex is home to about 800 junior, senior, graduate, and law students. Among them is senior Nate Stout: “I like the ambience of campus life, and we enjoy having our own apartments.”

The School of Nursing and Health Studies, once housed in a building near

Clinical Research Building.

Providing more than 350,000 square feet of research space, the 15-story building will operate as a full-service clinical research center for scientists and patients. The first of the core research floors should be functional

by January; people and programs will continue to move in for about a year thereafter.

Perched dramatically atop the Clinical Research Building is the Medical Wellness Center. This state-of-the-art, 60,000-square-foot facility, which includes a 15,000square-foot fitness room, wet/dry saunas, a therapy pool, and a juice bar, is a welcoming destination for medical campus employees.

Says Lisandra Carballosa, associate director for well-

ness and recreation at the Miller School, “Feedback from employees since we opened in October has been very positive.”

Back on the Gables campus, finishing touches are being placed on the School of Communication Student Center. Resources of the five-story, 26,400-squarefoot addition to the Frances L. Wolfson Building range from a two-story lecture hall with surround sound and teleconferencing capabilities to a top-of-the-line Foley sound effects lab identical to those found in Hollywood studios. “The building will be just an envelope for what the faculty, staff, and students will accomplish within its walls,” says Sam L Grogg, dean of the school.

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Boosting the Biosciences Outreach programs increase minority presence

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iming to increase the number of economically disadvantaged and minority students who enter the biosciences, the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences has two outreach programs that partner with Miami Dade College (MDC).

In June the Howard Hughes Medical Institute awarded a $1.9 million grant to UM to enhance its Undergraduate Science Education Program, which supports new classes, programs, and faculty development and provides scholarships for MDC students conducting research with University faculty to transfer to UM. The Bridge to the Future Program, funded by a threeyear, $683,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, enables MDC freshmen and sophomores to come to the University for enrichment

classes and research labs. If they complete the program, they transfer to UM in their junior year and receive a Hughes scholarship. The program also pays students to work in labs and supports their participation at scientific conferences.

“You have this pool of community college students who are first-generation college kids, and there’s a tremendous amount of talent there,” says Michael Gaines, professor of biology and assistant provost of undergraduate research and community outreach.

“I feel very confident I will succeed as a Ph.D. student because of my experiences with the program,” adds Luis Duarte, B.S. ’05, a former Bridge to the Future student who is now pursuing graduate studies in cellular and molecular biology at Columbia University.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Good Publicity

Don W. Stacks, director of the School of Communication’s Public Relations program, was elected the U.S. chair for the International Public Relations Association (IPRA). Serving among leaders from 96 participating countries in the 1,000-member organization, Stacks will coordinate all IPRA activities in the United States.

“The chance to serve on the international stage says a lot about the University of Miami and the School of Communication’s reach into international public relations and business,” Stacks says.

Crockett and Tubbs, Soloway and Sleeman

Mark Soloway, M.D., chairman of the Department of Urology, and Danny Sleeman, M.D., codirector of the surgical residency program at the Miller School of Medicine, are celebrities around town, not only for their medical expertise but also for a Michael Mann and Mark cameo appearance in director Michael Soloway, M.D. Mann’s recent film, Miami Vice.

Soloway, who met Mann six years ago while the director was in town filming Ali, hosted the East Coast premiere of Miami Vice this summer. Soloway also honored Mann and Mann’s wife, Summer, at the premiere with the 2006 CURED Humanitarian Award for their help in supporting the Center for Urologic Research, Education, and Diseases at the Miller School of Medicine.

ABCs of the EU

JOHN ZILLIOUX

With 25 member states and a population

Biology professor Michael Gaines leads programs that partner with Miami Dade College to encourage underrepresented groups of students to enter the biosciences.

of 450 million, the European Union can seem a powerful yet enigmatic entity.

Joaquin Roy, the Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration and codirector of the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, has published a dictionary that clarifies the basic elements of the EU and related topics that have emerged since its formation more than a half-century ago. Cowritten with Aimee Kanner, M.A. ’97, Ph.D. ’01, assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, the Historical Dictionary of the European Union (Scarecrow Press, 2006) encompasses maps, photos, acronyms, a chronology, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries.

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UniversityJournal

Downtown ‘Ecolution’

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igh-rise development is not usually associated with eco-friendliness, but the University’s Clinical Research Building has broken new ground in a Miami push for energy-saving, healthful-living communities.

“You can see that this is a big facility, the largest ever built by the University of Miami,” President Donna E. Shalala says of the 15-story, 350,000-square-foot structure that opens in January. “But its environmental footprint is much smaller than other buildings of this size.”

The $90 million Clinical

Research Building at the Miller School of Medicine— home to important clinical trials and medical research designed to speed discoveries from the lab to the bedside— employs numerous “green” technologies. These include: double-paned, argon-filled glass windows that stay cool in the South Florida heat; a white roof that reflects sunlight; low-energy lighting fixtures that turn themselves off when no one’s inside; a raised floor system for better indoor air quality and energy efficiency; internal materials made from recycled and

recyclable products; and a chilled water loop system for cooling. There are multiple building projects planned for the medical campus that will embrace similar environmentally friendly features.

“When we try to recruit champions of medicine— leading physicians and scientists from around the world—having these types of facilities will be a tremendous attraction,” says Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School of Medicine.

The Clinical Research

Getting to the Core of the Matter

T

PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS

he grant proposal for a special new gizmo that high-resolution readout on anything from aluminum to xenon in about an hour—a fraction of the time it helps paleoclimatologists do their jobs was took using the old method of physical sampling. approved. But for Larry Peterson, the hard part was Peterson acquired the machine through a $600,000 just beginning. At 12 feet long and a little over a ton, grant from the National Science Foundation’s Major the device was too big to get through Research Instrumentation the door of his lab. So Program. It is one of only Peterson, professor of a handful in the world marine geology and geoand one of only two in physics, hired a contractor the United States, to bore a massive hole in according to Peterson. his laboratory’s wall.

Having used a slightly The mammoth X-ray older version before in fluorescence (XRF) core Germany, he is one of scanner, developed by the first U.S. scientists to Dutch scientists and publish a paper with data shipped from the Nether- Developer of the XRF core scanner, Aad Vaars, shows Larry generated from one of lands to Peterson’s lab at Peterson, left, the bells and whistles of the device. the machines. the Rosenstiel School of Peterson, who recently received a $1 million, fourMarine and Atmospheric Science in late August, meainstitution NSF grant, is using the XRF scanner to anasures the chemical elements present in deep-ocean lyze sediment cores he collected from Venezuela’s sediment cores, allowing researchers to obtain a Cariaco Basin over the past 11 years. record of the Earth’s climate history. It provides a 6 Miami magazine Winter 2007

JOHN ZILLIOUX

Clinical Research Building is part of Miami’s Green Initiative

The Miller School’s Clinical Research Building is a model for eco-friendly design.

Building, which includes a 1,400-car garage and a 60,000-square-foot wellness center, is part of the Miami Civic Center area, which has recently been renamed the Miami Health District. Two years ago the City of Miami and the University of Miami forged the Miami Partnership, an effort to revitalize the area and bring new housing, offices, restaurants, and retail shops to the district.

The proposed rebirth is more than concrete. Under Miami Mayor Manny Diaz’s “Green Initiative,” a special Miami Green Commission will develop strategies to restore and expand the city’s tree canopy, promote “green” construction, clean up waterways, develop greenways, retrofit existing city buildings with “green” fixtures, and add hundreds of hybrid vehicles to the city’s fleet.

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Well-Earned Distinction

JOHN ZILLIOUX

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ince its launch three years ago, the University’s Momentum fundraising campaign has established 25 endowed chairs and professorships. A recent anonymous gift, as well as a donation from a longtime UM friend, have created new distinguished professorships that support the scholarly work of exceptional faculty.

Through the generosity of the family of the late Leonard M. Miller,

Nobel Laureate Andrew Schally is named the Miller Distinguished Professor.

renowned endocrinologist and Nobel Laureate Andrew Schally has joined the faculty as Miller Distinguished Professor in the Miller School of Medicine. He comes here from Tulane University and holds a joint appointment at the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Medi-

cine and Physiology, Schally was one of a pair of scientists to first isolate and synthesize several of the communicating chemical links between the brain and the pituitary gland. He focuses much of his current work on hormonal regulation of tumor tissue. With more than 2,200 publications to his name, his discoveries have led to many widely used clinical applications.

A gift from an anonymous donor supports five additional Distinguished Professors—Charles S. Carver, David Ellison, Howard Gordon, Susan Haack, and Elizabeth PlaterZyberk. Carver is a personality psychologist whose research has focused on stress and coping, issues in emotional experience, and goal regulation. Ellison is a professor of French who chaired the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures from 1993 to 2003.

Gordon focuses his research in physics on ocean optics and has received numerous awards for his work with NASA. Susan Haack, the Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, is a professor of philosophy and law.

Plater-Zyberk is dean of the School of Architecture and owner of an architecture firm with her husband, Andres Duany.

PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS

Gifts help name Distinguished Professors

ON COURSE Title: MSC 120 “Topics in Broadcast Meteorology” Department: Marine and Atmospheric Science, College of Arts and Sciences Semester(s): 2006 Semester: FallFall 2006

Taking the News by Storm

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f you can do the weather, you can do anything, says NBC6 meteorologist John Gerard, who taught 12 students last semester about the ebb and flow of television weathercasting. “We don’t use a script, and there’s a lot of ad-libbing. You have to explain an inexact science in the most personable, credible way possible.”

Most students in the class are marine science or communication majors. They learned the science of interpreting data and making accurate predictions, and they learned the art of finding the right words to convey that data to the audience. “A lot of what I teach is relevant whether you want to be a reporter or a stand-up comedian; it’s all facts on how to communicate better,” Gerard says.

In every class, Gerard emphasized the importance of having a clear message in each weathercast. He also helped prepare them for unforeseen distractions, some of which he orchestrated. He once covertly arranged for a student in class to stand up, drop his book, and say, “I can’t take it anymore,” before storming out of the room—all during another student’s presentation. Gerard was pleasantly surprised when the “on-air” student continued, relatively unfazed, with her weathercast. For the final exam, each student conducted a two-minute on-camera weathercast, complete with attention to hair, make-up, and wardrobe.

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UniversityJournal

Words of Wisdom

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ank Aaron, absolute zero, abstract expressionism— these are just a few of the 5,000 terms that University of Virginia professor E. D. Hirsch Jr. included in his 1987 book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. This book and his subsequent titles like The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them (1996) influenced much of the educational reform in the United States over the last 20 years.

According to School of Education professor Eugene Provenzo, Hirsch’s body of work spurred the conservative movement and increases in standardized testing—“efforts seen reflected in the implementation of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ legislation of the current Bush administration.”

In his new book, Critical Literacy: What Every American Ought to Know (Paradigm Publishers), Provenzo challenges the exclusionary nature of Hirsch’s list, noting that it emphasizes mainstream American culture

and marginalizes female, black, Hispanic, gay, and other minority contributions to our national identity. Provenzo supplies his own list of 5,000 terms— concepts like Axis of Evil, blaxploitation, Cuban Missile Crisis, herstory, and Nintendo thumb—that he says should be taught not as an unexamined list of facts but rather as “a starting point for educated discussions that lead to deeper understanding of our diversity and what it means to be a culturally literate American. It’s one of many lists that might be created.”

It took Provenzo about a

DONNA VICTOR

Five thousand terms to launch educated discussions

School of Education professor Eugene Provenzo’s new book, Critical Literacy: What Every American Ought to Know, broadens the definition of cultural literacy.

Provenzo has augmented the release of Critical Literacy with a Web site and a sculptural installation. The instal-

Students are helping to produce the Web site, www.education.miami.edu/ ep/cliteracy, which will link

“These are terms that should be a starting point for educated discussions that lead to deeper understanding of our diversity and what it means to be a culturally literate American.” year to compile the list, relying heavily on suggestions from students and other word-of-mouth contributors. “Getting the first 4,000 terms was easy,” Provenzo says. “It was the last 1,000 that was the most difficult.”

Known for his creativity and aptitude in multimedia,

BUZZ WORDS

“We’re not talking about global warming as something that will happen in the future.

It’s happening right now.”

Harold Wanless, chairman of the Department of Geology. –Washington Post

8 Miami magazine Winter 2007

lation, which was on display at the 2005 American Educational Studies Association meeting in Charlottesville, North Carolina, is an eightfoot-tall wooden column displaying Hirsch’s 5,000 words pasted to its sides, on top of which are the words Knowledge Is Power and Power Is Knowledge spraypainted in black. “The really fun part of the installation is a digital sound recorder embedded into the hollow part of the pillar that plays my voice gently whispering my list of 5,000 words.”

each of Provenzo’s 5,000 terms to Web pages with information on the topic.

Honor Roll Online The Honor Roll list, which recognizes contributions of individuals and organizations, is available online at www.miami.edu/campaign/ honorroll. It is part of the Momentum campaign Web site, which is updated regularly with news and editions of the Campaign Momentum newsletter.

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Debate Engages At-Risk Kids G o F i g u r e

A strictly by-the-numbers perspective of UM

School of Communication hosts Urban Debate League University of Miami international alumni

y

“At-risk kids who debate do better on standardized tests and improve their reading scores and graduation rates,” says David Steinberg, director of debate at UM, which is based in the School of Communication.

Steinberg and his students serve as liaisons between the league and the University and help mentor local schoolteachers and students in the art of debate. Former UM collegiate debaters David Coulson, A.B. ’85, Elliot Scherker A.B. ’72, J.D. ’75, and Ed Shohat A.B. ’69, J.D. ’72, help guide the Miami-Dade league as members of its board.

“Debate is the most powerful tool I’ve ever seen,” says Miami-Dade Urban Debate League founder Barbara Garrett. “When our debaters come to campus and see college kids, they think, ‘Hey, if they can do it, so can I.’”

>> 6,700

International visitors to the city of Miami every 11 hours >> 6,700

Alumni in the Bahamas—more than in any other foreign country >> 1,416

Circumference of the globe in the library at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science >> 19 feet, 6 inches

Proportion of incoming e-mails rejected as spam on UM employee and student domains >> 29 percent

Spam e-mails the average American employee receives per day ILLUSTRATIONS: JACK HORNADY

T

his summer, the School of Communication swarmed with teenage boys who have a history of getting into trouble. But they weren’t making mischief; they were members of the Miami-Dade Urban Debate League, there to debate public policy at the Bay Point Debate Institute.

With its rapid-fire presentation and precise rituals, the power of debate to help students develop such skills as critical thinking, research proficiency, and conflict resolution is well established.

Founded in 1985 to bring the benefits of debate to disadvantaged kids, the Urban Debate League is now a national education reform movement with leagues in 17 U.S. cities. The MiamiDade Urban Debate League, founded in 2005 and hosted by the University of Miami, is the first in Florida.

>> 29

E-mail messages sent worldwide per day >> 30 billion

Cans of Spam lunchmeat sold worldwide each year >> 122 million

University of Miami’s endowment market value in FY2005-06

PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS

>> $620 million

UM’s annual operating expenses >> $1.36 billion

Harvard University’s endowment market value in FY2005-06 >> $29.2 billion

Having a strong endowment to fund scholarships and academic services >> Priceless

Teenage boys from Bay Point Schools debated public policy at a debate institute hosted by the School of Communication this summer.

Sources: Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, University of Miami Information Technology, Pew Internet and American Life Project, Nucleus Research, Hormel Foods, Division of University Advancement, Harvard University Gazette

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UniversityJournal

Educating the World on Well-Being

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$3.9 million grant from the Department of Human Services in Tennessee to fund community wellbeing improvements and organizational innovations.

“The University of Miami is delighted to have this distinguished scholar to lead the School of Education,” says Executive Vice Presi- Community advocate and man of the world Isaac dent and Provost Prilleltensky is the new dean of the School of Thomas J. LeBlanc. Education.

Developing comcation complement each munity initiatives is at the other in synergistic ways,” core of Prilleltensky’s vision he says. “Building on our as dean. “The three departments of the School of Edu- existing strengths, we plan to create a center of excellence in educational and Harmony and Respect Are Part of the Hall Way multicultural well-being.”

Prilleltensky and his dents fairly and with respect is his signature strength, nsuring an enriching, memorable student expewife, Ora, a counselor and as is the pursuit of multicultural harmony. rience is not an easy task. As the new dean of “Students here understand that they are in a spe- lecturer in the School of students, Ricardo Hall is the bearer of this weighty cial place in terms of diver- Education’s Department but rewarding responsibilof Educational and Psychosity,” Hall says. “But are the ity. Formerly the associate logical Studies, recently people from these diverse dean of students at Wake published Promoting Wellgroups communicating Forest University, Hall will Being: Linking Personal, effectively? As administraoversee judicial affairs, the Organizational, and Commutors we have to be intenCenter for Alcohol and nity Change (Wiley 2006), a tional about getting Other Drug Education, students to interact outside practical assessment of Greek life, campus chapwell-being from a multiof their comfort zones.” lains, crisis management, Among Hall’s immediate dimensional perspective. student-community relaTheir son, Matan, is a initiatives is an analysis of tions, and the UndergraduRicardo Hall is the new dean of students. the Student Rights and Res- sophomore at Clark Univerate Honor Council at UM. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Hall earned a Ph.D. in ponsibilities handbook and other student life policies. sity. Prilleltensky succeeds Hall’s predecessor, William Sandler, retired follow- former dean Samuel J. educational leadership from Clemson University and ing four decades at the University and a 17-year term Yarger, who died last year has held leadership positions in residence life and following a heart attack. student affairs at several institutions. Treating all stu- as dean of students.

saac Prilleltensky’s curriculum vita reads like a book from the Lonely Planet series of exotic travel guides. Born in Argentina and fluent in Spanish, English, and Hebrew, he has pursued an ambitious career path throughout five different countries. This fall he arrived in the global city of Miami as the new dean of the University’s School of Education.

“Living in Argentina, Israel, Canada, Australia, and the United States sensitized me to the plight of different peoples,” says Prilleltensky, who has a master’s degree in clinical child psychology from Tel Aviv University and

a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Manitoba.

“Issues of oppression, discrimination, diversity, and justice are at the heart of critical and community psychology, the fields to which I have devoted the last 20 years of my life.”

Prilleltensky is a highly lauded expert in community psychology and community well-being. Before joining UM, he was professor of human and organizational development and director of the Ph.D. Program in Community Research and Action in the prestigious Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. He also was coprincipal investigator on a

TOM SALYER

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New education dean is an international scholar

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PEAK PERFORMANCE

Shannon Scores Top Coaching Spot

Widely considered one of the best

a lot of emotion to do the right thing.”

Despite a 6-6 record this season, the Hurricanes’ defense under Shannon’s tutelage ranked fifth in the country in total defense (allowing only 252.1 yards per game), fourth in rushing defense (66 yards a game), and 12th in scoring defense (15.1). A native of Miami, Shannon becomes the 20th head coach and the first black coach in UM history. He replaces Larry Coker.

Look for a more extensive profile of Randy Shannon in the next issue of Miami magazine.

defensive coordinators in the country, Randy Shannon, B.S. ’89, has stepped into the driver’s seat in Hurricanes Football.

“It’s my dream job—always has been,” says Shannon, appointed new head coach in December, just as this issue of Miami magazine was going to press.

Having been on the Hurricanes’ roster for three out of five of the team’s national A Stable championship victoEnvironment ries—first as a linebacker and then as unior-year criminology an assistant coach— UM defensive coordinator Randy Shannon is major Jaya Krutulis was Shannon is a mainstay named head football coach. thrilled to discover a wellof the football proestablished equestrian gram. A four-year letterman at UM and team when she arrived at the University of recipient of the Christopher Plumer Award Miami from Evergreen, Colorado. From age for most inspirational player as a senior in 10 to 14, she spent every day riding Arabian 1988, he played for the Dallas Cowboys for horses, training during the week and comtwo seasons before going into coaching. He peting on the weekends. After a high was a graduate assistant at UM in 1991 when school hiatus from the sport, she was the Hurricanes won their fourth national ready to, well, get back on the horse. title, and in 1992 he became a full-time Last semester Krutulis took the assistant coach. Shannon left the University reins as president of the UM in 1998 to serve as defensive assistant with Equestrian Team, which is the Miami Dolphins. He returned in 2001 as the only non-varsity sport defensive coordinator, becoming the first at the University of Miami UM coach to receive the Frank Broyles to have an endowment. Five Award, presented annually to the nation’s years after its 1997 launch, top assistant coach. the UM Equestrian Team “This program is not on the downslide,” received a gift from Citizens Shannon says. “We’re going to do a lot of Board member Barton S. great things here for the community, for the Goldberg, B.B.A. ’56, J.D. ’57, school, and for the football program. We’re and his family to help going to have accountability, discipline, and subsidize expenses such

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as uniforms, equipment, and transportation to Intercollegiate Horse Show Association competitions. In October Krutulis and 15 of her teammates competed at the University of Florida, where they snagged a fourthplace overall finish out of 11 schools.

“In the last three to four years, I have been receiving inquiries from parents whose children are considering UM because we have an equestrian team. This never happened before,” says Maria Linares, team advisor and director of facilities and services for the James L. Knight International Center and the John J. Koubek Memorial Center. A longtime equine enthusiast, Linares once owned seven horses, including two Florida state champions and one Georgia state champion.

Krutulis attributes much of the team’s success to Karen Flynn, a hunter-jumper trainer contracted by the team since last year. Members of the team train with Flynn two to three times a week. Krutulis trains with Anisette, a chestnut warmblood mare that she leases from Flynn.

“When you win with a horse, you know it and they know it,” Krutulis says of the horse-rider relationship. “They perk up and feel good about themselves. You can tell by their demeanor.”

Spectators can cheer on the UM Equestrian Team at home competitions, held at Tropical Park on Bird Road in Miami.

UM Equestrian Team president Jaya Krutulis practices jumping.

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UniversityJournal

Mini but Mighty fined parameters, behave very differently from their larger counterparts. “It’s like putting a law-abiding citizen into prison to see if he will eventually become violent,” explains Vaidhyanathan Ramamurthy, chemistry department chair. UM chemists are exploring the behaviors and potential applications of nanoparticles in the department’s Center for Supramolecular Science, which houses state-of-the-art laboratories, including a “clean room” with special filters to eradicate any dust particles that could send such precise calculations awry.

Raymo, with graduate student Ibrahim Yildiz and

Associate Professor of Chemistry Francisco Raymo is working with luminescent quantum dots, which might one day help diagnose disease.

effective for targeting cancer cells and other biological maladies. The University’s Office of Technology Trans-

Hard drives that store more data, sunglasses that reduce glare, and clothing that resists stains—all are the products of nanotechnology. compounds that range in size from 1 to 200 nanometers. By comparison, the width of a single human hair is a mammoth 100,000 nanometers.

These materials, when reduced to such tiny, con-

postdoc Massimilliano Tomasulo, Ph.D. ’06, recently published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrating that luminescent nanoparticles called quantum dots are

BUZZ WORDS

“What happened to Steve Irwin and what happened to this guy in particular was just a fluke.”

Robert Cowen, professor and chair of the Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries, on two uncanny sting ray attacks. –National Geographic

12 Miami magazine Winter 2007

fer has filed two patent applications for this discovery.

Besides its medical potential, nanotechnology already has enhanced our modern world. Car bumpers that are stronger, hard drives that store more data, sunglasses that reduce glare, and clothing that resists stains—all are the products of nanotechnology.

“We saw about 2,000 new startups in the past two years,” says Adam Kalish, B.S.C. ’98, a partner at Lux Capital, a venture capital

firm that invests in nanotechnology companies. “Today tools exist that allow scientists to actually create new materials atom by atom.

One of the greatest benefits is bio-mimicry, or replicating Mother Nature—whether it’s surfaces that repel water like a lotus leaf or new adhesives made with synthetic setae, the billions of little hairs on a gecko’s feet that allow it to stick to walls.”

With more “nanoenhanced” products added to the market every day, the economic impact of nanotechnology is projected to be in the trillions, according to Lux Research. In terms of human progress, as well as economic benefit, this translates to a potential gold mine for those who are thinking beyond the bar.

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hich is more valuable—a bar of gold or a nanometer-sized particle of gold? At one-billionth of a millimeter, the nanoparticle of gold seems inconsequential. But in terms of its potential impact, the nanoparticle is a jewel.

“Nanotechnology is a relatively new word, but research on molecules has been around for hundreds of years,” explains Francisco Raymo, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Raymo is among a group of UM scientists who are researching materials like gold, platinum, cadmium, and various polymers and

JOHN ZILLIOUX

Nanotechnology promises golden opportunities in science

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Think in a Blink Gladwell makes a case for snap judgment

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the book as “thin-slicing.”

His first example is an ancient Greek statue called a kouros that the J. Paul Getty Museum purchased in 1985 for $10 million after conducting a rigorous 14-month investigation with scientists and lawyers on its authenticity. A group of art historians and Greek sculpture specialists who saw the kouros after the purchase determined in the blink of an eye that it was a fake.

They didn’t know how they knew; they just knew. And they were right.

“The ability to exercise judgment in the moment is squarely at the center of what it means to be good at what you do,” Gladwell said to students and members of the University community at the BankUnited Center.

Blink author Malcolm Gladwell delivers the Fall Gladwell Convocation lecture. acknowledged that “the Getty way” evolved enormous role in how we as an important part of good operate as human beings.”

In delivering the Univer- decision-making. But he also sity of Miami Fall Convoca- asserted that perhaps people have swayed too far from tion lecture, Gladwell quick judgment, the type of recapped many examples thinking based on accumufrom Blink to demonstrate the power of first impressions lated experiences and often in good decision-making. It’s employed in fight-or-flight scenarios. a technique referred to in

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e live in a world where the term snap judgment is often associated with poor decisions. But Malcolm Gladwell, whose springy curls lurch when he talks with his hands, proposes the contrary.

“When people make mistakes, we often say ‘You didn’t do your homework,’” said Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and author of two bestselling books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. “But instantaneous judgment plays an

FRONTIERS IN RESEARCH

The Power of Prozac

SSRI antidepressants like fluoxetine (Prozac), which was first introduced in 1988, have weathered ups and downs in the public eye. Julio Licinio, M.D., chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine, examined U.S. suicide rates from the early 1960s to 2002 and found that they dropped steadily after 1988, as sales of fluoxetine grew. The study, which Licinio conducted while he was the director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics and Clinical Pharmacology at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, was published in a recent issue of PLoS Medicine.

Advancing the Future of Drug Dosing

CYP2D6 and CYP2C9 sound like the names of Star Wars robots, but they’re actually genes responsible for metabolizing half of all prescription drugs in the human body. David Andrews, M.D. ’91, medical director of the coagulation laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the Miller School of Medicine, is developing a platform for testing these genes and how individuals metabolize certain medications based on their genetic profile.

“I am a slow metabolizer, so I might have 100 times the level of a medication in my bloodstream than someone else who took the same dose,” Andrews explains. “Psychiatry may be one of the first fields to incorporate pharmacogenomics as part of ‘personalized medicine,’ and we are partnering with Julio Licinio, M.D., psychiatry chairman, to develop these testing strategies.”

Managing Multiplicity

More women over the age of 35 are having babies, making multiple births increasingly common, says Barbara Luke, professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies. Luke recently completed two NIH-funded studies about multiple births. One, accepted by Fertility and Sterility, reveals that older mothers of multiples actually experience less risk than younger ones with respect to preterm birth, infant mortality, and the need for preterm labor medication. The second study, accepted by Pediatrics, shows that mortality rates for premature multiples are higher than for single births but that advances have improved survival rates for multiples to a higher degree than for singletons.

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UniversityJournal

Doing the Math

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ealth care in the United States is a sticky wicket.

Being able to maintain quality of care and affordability is the challenge. Here’s where the economists fit in.

“We can apply the fundamentals of economics— mathematics, statistics, and rigorous models—to the industry of health care, an area that is so interdisciplinary,” says Michael French, professor and director of the Department of Sociology’s Health Economics Research Group (HERG).

Each year, HERG faculty members often receive more than $1 million in grants from federal agencies to analyze the costs, benefits, organization, and delivery of health care and human services. Often partnering

with colleagues Universitywide, they research such topics as substance abuse, obesity, Medicare and managed care issues, emergency medicine, AIDS/HIV, and criminal justice. Prevention of disease through diet, screening, and other lifestyle behaviors, says French, has the highest potential to save lives and costs.

“A non-economist might say, ‘People don’t invest enough time or resources in preventive screening for disease or they engage too often in risky behaviors,’” French says. “While that might be true, as economists we believe we can change programs and behaviors through a combination of incentives and penalties.

There’s always a price or

PETER HOEY

Economists evaluate health care practices

cost that will initiate change.”

French and his colleagues recently completed a study funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that surveyed the effects of both alcohol and traffic safety policies on motorcycle crashes and fatalities from

From Hum to Roar

H

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Sebastian the Ibis on move-in day, the Hummer urricane spirit got a lift this year with a shiny earned hundreds of photo requests from students new set of wheels. Donated by UM trustee Ed and their families.

Williamson, the one-of-a-kind Catherine Robles, junior Hummer electric golf cart is communications major and rousing crowds at pep rallies, chair of Category 5, says that barbecues, and other events having the electric Hummer at organized by the Category ’Cane Fest this year helped 5 student spirit programming double student interest in joinboard. This high-energy vehiing the organization, compared cle—not in gasoline but in with last year. pure adrenaline—reaches Fun features of the cart, a rubber-burning speed of New electric Hummer has pep! besides snazzy metallic orange 22 miles per hour, says Keith and green paint, include a CD player with PA sound “Fletch” Fletcher, director of UM’s Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development. Making its system, beverage cooler, cup holders, and seats embroidered with the split U emblem. debut carting around President Donna E. Shalala and 14 Miami magazine Winter 2007

1990 to 2004. The study suggests that blood-alcohol content limits could be lower for motorcyclists than for automobile drivers, given the additional agility and coordination required.

It’s an example of how HERG research may play a role in shaping policy decisions.

The study of health care is a fairly new but growing specialization in economics.

HERG took form in 1995, when French joined the University as an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the medical school. This fall the University hosted the fourth annual conference of the Southeastern Health Economics Study Group, a consortium of health economists from institutions like Johns Hopkins, Duke, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

From left, Mark Huber, Joseph Dussling, Tim McNaught, and Tyler Hawkins

Houston, We Have Lift-Off

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he early morning flight out of Houston, Texas, felt like any other commercial airline ride Tim McNaught has taken in his young life.

Then the plane began to tilt downward at a steep angle and nosedive toward Earth, making the 19-year-old University of Miami student lose all sense of gravity—literally.

This summer, McNaught and three of his fellow aerospace engineering classmates enjoyed a “ride of a lifetime” that was part of NASA’s Microgravity University program, which allows undergraduate students to propose, design, build, fly, and evaluate an experiment in zero gravity conditions aboard its C-9 aircraft.

During the flight, McNaught and fellow teammates Mark Huber, Tyler Hawkins, and Joseph Dussling tested an experiment on how air, water, and solids react in zero gravity. “These elements interact differently in microgravity, so we wanted to observe that interaction and look at flow patterns,” McNaught says.

The four UM students spent an entire year outside of classes researching and designing the experiment, which was one of only 50 proposals accepted by NASA. They observed during zero gravity condi-

tions that the water took on a gel-like appearance, while solids—in this case, tiny plastic and foam pellets—tended to clump together. Their experiment, which could help solve problems of waste disposal in space, was filmed, and the team is currently analyzing the results frame by frame.

Before they could take off in NASA’s “Weightless Wonder,” the students had to undergo training and preparation, which included mission briefings, physical examinations, and sessions inside a hypobaric chamber to simulate the pressure of extreme altitudes. Dressed in official United States Air Force flight suits, they became the first all-freshman team in the nation to fly on the plane.

The special aircraft, which looks like a regular commercial jetliner, simulates zero gravity by flying a series of parabolic maneuvers—rollercoaster-style patterns in which the plane climbs at 60-degree angles and then nosedives at 45-degree angles over and over. It is during the descent toward Earth that passengers experience about 25 seconds of weightlessness. NASA has been flying student teams aboard the plane each summer since 1995.

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Children with unhealthy hearts are an intricate group requiring specialized care. Pediatric heart specialists at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine are pioneering ways to restore normal function and pump new life into these young patients.

Big Help for Little Hearts

By Joan Cochran Photos by Richard Patterson

The first thing you notice when you enter Nicole and Kevin Keller’s sunny home in Margate, Florida, is the clanging. Following the young couple into the kitchen, you find a bright-eyed, spirited 3-year-old pulling pots and pans out of the cabinets and dumping them onto the floor. Like any other boy his age, Garhett is having the time of his life amid the noise and shiny kitchenware.

But Garhett isn’t like other children his age. Born with a rare and complex heart disease called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), he’s already undergone three major surgeries to remodel his heart at Holtz Children’s Hospital of the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. The first was three days after his birth, when his heart was barely larger than a walnut. The second took place at four months and the third at two years. And, although Garhett is doing well, the Kellers know their only child will continue to need lifelong followup care.

HLHS, which occurs in one of every 4,000 to 6,000 births, is a complex combination of heart malformations that prevents the left ventricle of a child’s heart, the main pumping chamber, from developing 16 Miami magazine Winter 2007

and carrying oxygenated blood to the body. Six years ago, a four-center study showed that only 42 percent of 231 infants with a heart defect like Garhett’s survived one year following surgery. Since that study, these odds have improved significantly. More than 98 percent of the 900-plus children surgically treated at the Children’s Heart Center at Holtz Children’s Hospital for all forms of congenital heart defects in the last five years have survived. During the same period, the cardiac-related survival rate for children who have undergone the first of three surgeries commonly performed for HLHS has been nearly 90 percent at the Children’s Heart Center, compared with 80 to 85 percent at most children’s heart centers, due in large part to the introduction of a modified version of the standard surgical procedure for HLHS.

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liot Rosenkranz, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, who performed Garhett’s surgery, attributes the program’s success in correcting lifethreatening heart defects in children to a number of factors. “One of the first things we did after I began my position as division chief was to cohort critically ill children with heart defects into a specialized unit. These babies often encounter some subtle and unique difficulties that the hospital’s Cardiac Intensive Care Team is better able to identify and then respond to in a prompt and successful manner.”

Rosenkranz also introduced stateof-the-art surgical techniques to Holtz Children’s Hospital’s pediatric cardiac operating rooms. The surgical team now does complete, rather than staged, repairs when possible. In addition, new procedures such as the modified HLHS operation—which involves putting a more reliable connection between the heart and the main pulmonary artery that provides blood to the lungs—have been introduced.

The expanding field of interventional cardiology, also called cardiac catheterization, now assists in the diagnosis as well as the treatment of heart defects, without major surgery. An interventional cardiologist inserts a thin plastic tube called a catheter through blood vessels in the child’s groin or arm and then guides this up to the heart. The specially trained cardiologists can open narrowed arteries, remove obstructions, and patch holes in the hearts and blood vessels of children even as early as the day of their delivery. Rosenkranz is particularly enthusiastic about “hybrid” surgeries in which a cardiac surgeon and interventional cardiologist collaborate, thereby 18 Miami magazine Winter 2007

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reducing the time children spend on the operating table. He and other members of the cardiac team have shared these techniques with patients and health care workers in the Dominican Republic.

The summer of 2005 marked their third visit there, all through Caribbean Heart Menders, a group of medical volunteers who treat children with heart disease and train local physicians.

Some heart defects take the form of abnormal heart rates and rhythms, known as arrhythmias. The Children’s Heart Center is a leader in pediatric cardiac electrophysiology—the field that addresses these life-threatening abnormalities. Ming-Lon Young, M.D., director of the hospital’s Pediatric Cardiac Electrophysiology program and the interim division director of pediatric cardiology, uses a technique called radio frequency ablation to save young lives by removing abnormal or extra electrical pathways within the heart.

Despite the advent of these remarkable surgical and medical interventions, which can extend life but can never fully restore these damaged hearts, some interventions remain impossible.

In her first four months of life, Sophia Caceres seemed normal—sleeping, eating, and gurgling at her parents. Then her mother noticed Sophia had stopped growing and seemed unusually lethargic. Sophia’s mother, Claudia, brought her daughter to the Children’s Heart Center, where she learned that Sophia suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy (a condition characterized by unhealthy

Ming-Lon Young, M.D., below, performs a technique called radio frequency ablation on children to correct abnormal electrical pathways in the heart. As chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, Eliot Rosenkranz, M.D., right, has given children with heart defects a good chance at a normal, healthy life.

heart muscle and an enlarged heart) and heart failure. Without a heart transplant, this blue-eyed, black-haired infant whom pediatric nurse practitioner Ray Lavendera describes as a “little princess” would die.

At the Children’s Heart Center, children such as Sophia are referred to the Pediatric Heart Transplant and Heart Failure Unit. Paolo Rusconi, M.D., who directs the program, works aggressively to repair these tiny hearts with medication before resorting to a heart transplant. The sickest children are placed on the transplant waiting list, and roughly eight children a year have the procedure. Some of these children receive pacemakers or defibrillators. Some require artificial cardiac and pulmonary support from an external machine until a heart becomes available.

When Rusconi became director of the program in 1998, half of the children who came for cardiac transplants died. “There was a tendency to see the

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transplant as a last resort, so physicians tended to wait until a patient was extremely sick and on multiple intravenous medications and in multiorgan failure,” Rusconi says. “The first thing we did was create the heart failure program, a structure that supported patients with medication and nutrition until they improved or were well enough for transplant.” One medication, which Rusconi has pioneered, is carvedilol, a beta-blocker that has been very effective in adults with cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure.

This more proactive approach has paid off; the one- and three-year survival rates for children with conditions similar to Sophia are 90 percent or greater, which compares favorably with the national average of 87 percent. Less than 30 percent of the children referred to the unit for a heart transplant evaluation and work-up end up actually needing the transplant.

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he community physician who diagnosed Garhett’s HLHS in utero recommended that Nicole Keller deliver at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

At birth Garhett was taken to the hos-

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pital’s high-risk neonatal intensive care unit and monitored by the pediatric cardiology team prior to surgery. This type of extensive collaboration among medical specialists is one of the keys to success in treating children with heart problems.

“Families are happier, outcomes are better, and costs are lower when pediatric cardiac care specialists work together as an integrated children’s heart center team,” explains Steven Lipshultz, M.D., who chairs the Miller School’s Department of Pediatrics and is chief of staff at the Holtz Children’s Hospital. “During the past few years we have developed an integrated Children’s Heart Center that is one of the few in the world to function this way.”

Faculty from every discipline meet weekly to determine the best course for managing each patient. In many cases, physicians also meet with parents before the child is born to assess the child’s heart defect and plan his or her delivery and surgery. The Children’s Heart Center has operating rooms for

heart surgery, a cardiac catheterization laboratory, and a cardiac ICU. “Pediatrics as a whole is not just dealing with the child, but dealing with the family and the way the disease affects the family,” says Steven Schultz, M.D., director of pediatric cardiac critical care.

“When children get mixed up in the adult world as they’re receiving care, they find it’s not such a friendly place.”

“What makes this field so challenging is that every child with heart disease is born with a slightly different grouping of defects, so every medical treatment plan or operation is like a creative masterpiece,” Lipshultz says.

“You shed many tears and hold many hands and make many promises. You really develop a covenant with these families that you have to do more, to keep pressing for answers to achieve optimal outcomes for these children by developing new preventive and therapeutic strategies.” joan cochran is a freelance writer in Boca Raton, Florida.

When They Become Grown-Ups With advances in treatment, more children with congenital heart diseases have been able to reach adulthood and survive into their 20s and 30s. Unfortunately, many continue to experience complications as a result of their cardiac condition and as an unavoidable consequence of the surgery to repair it. This has created a dilemma for adult cardiologists, who are generally trained to treat heart problems that come with advancing age, such as heart attacks and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

In 1990 members of the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center’s pediatric cardiology team decided to start an Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program that would serve both its own grown patients and others in the community. Through this program, which is the only one of its type in South Florida, pediatric cardiologists and surgeons work with adult cardiologists and internists to address such issues as pregnancy, the need to revisit a childhood surgery, or newly recognized congenital heart defects.

The program is similar to the Pediatric Oncology Long Term Follow-up Comprehensive Program, which cares for survivors of childhood cancer.

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Chronic illnesses like heart disease, HIV, and cancer are both life threatening and quality-of-life threatening. Cognitive-behavioral interventions in the Department of Psychology help people survive and thrive through the power of positive thinking.

Minding Your Health

By Jill Bauer Illustration by Ken Orvidas

Rudy Torres was just 13 days shy of his 33rd birthday when he found himself standing in the triage area at Jackson Memorial Hospital, gripping his chest and struggling to lift his 285-pound frame onto a gurney. Earlier that evening, he’d rushed to the ER with his wife after feeling “like an elephant was sitting on my chest.” ■ But like the roughly 45.8 million other uninsured Americans, Torres was hesitant to go to the hospital that night. Even though he’d felt “kind of funny” the last few days, like he’d had a bad case of heartburn. Even though all the signs were there that he was about to have a massive heart attack. ■ “I was invincible until that night,” Torres says. “I was the typical guy. I did construction work, went up and down ladders, carried buckets. Sure, I was heavy, but I did everything. I was the kid who jumped off the roof of our house, and I was so used to getting hurt as a kid, to falling and breaking bones and getting up and walking away.”

■ But this time, Torres couldn’t walk away. While recuperating from a coronary artery bypass graft three days after entering the ER, he was approached by Elsa Velez Robinson, a University of Miami cardiac research nurse, about participating in a cognitive-behavioral therapy program at the University.

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ognitive-behavioral therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses imagery, self-instruction, and related techniques to decrease emotional arousal and alter distorted attitudes and perceptions. According to Neil Schneiderman, the James L. Knight Professor of Health Psychology and a professor of medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and biomedical engineering, it is the therapy of choice for behavioral management of chronic diseases.

Torres is among an estimated 3,000 chronic illness sufferers who have been recruited into and helped by UM’s various group-based cognitive-behavioral stress management therapy programs over the last 20 years. These patients, all sufferers of illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, and diabetes, have found hope in the form of these 10- to 12-week interventional studies.

“I didn’t even really know that it was cognitive therapy,” Torres says. “I was being taught how to eat and how to take care of myself. And the emotional support was really there.”

For more than 20 years Schneiderman has headed the Department of Psychology’s Behavioral Medicine Research Center, through which nearly 100 people on the Coral Gables and medical campuses conduct collaborative research on the relationship between psychosocial and behavior issues and health.

“Dr. Schneiderman has a real talent for searching across disciplinary boundaries to engage researchers in biopsychosocial problem areas,” says Rod Wellens, chairman of the Department of Psychology.

In his nearly four decades at the University, Schneiderman has assembled an accomplished team of researchers, each of whom works in more than one specialty, collaborating across illnesses. Gail 22 Miami magazine Winter 2007

JOHN ZILLIOUX

C

Ironson, M.D. ’86, has headed studies in coronary heart disease, breast cancer, and HIV/AIDS; Patrice Saab has worked with adolescents and heart disease patients; Frank Penedo, Ph.D. ’99, has studied people with HIV/AIDS and prostate cancer; and Michael Antoni, Ph.D. ’86, has headed studies on HIV/AIDS and cancer.

Penedo, associate professor of psychology and bio-behavioral oncology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Miller School of Medicine, is leading several NIH-funded studies on coping with the consequences of prostate cancer treatment. With project coordinator Jason Dahn and a team of researchers and graduate students, Penedo has helped many men adjust to the challenges of prostate cancer treatment, including urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, emotional distress, and overall compromises in quality of life. He recently received a $2.1 million grant for an NIH study called Ethnicity Determinants of Quality of Life in Prostate Cancer.

“What group therapy does for the participants is give them a commonality,” Penedo says. “It is often the first time, outside of talking to their spouse

Frank Penedo’s research has helped prostate cancer survivors like George Drucker, right, learn how to cope with chronic illness and everyday stressful situations.

or close relative, that they bond with another person.”

Penedo notes that the best time to offer psychological intervention to prostate cancer survivors is 6 to 12 months after they’ve completed treatment with either radiation or surgery.

And that’s exactly when help was there for Robert Grandchamp, a 67-year-old retired professor and Red Cross volunteer who had a radical prostatectomy in 2001.

“Mentally, I tried to prepare myself for what the fallout would be. I knew there would be erectile dysfunction. I knew there would be urinary incontinence, but I did feel some level of anxiety. I felt somewhat bewildered,” says Grandchamp, who also happens to have a Ph.D. in psychology. “Being a participant in the PC-SMART (Prostate Cancer-Stress Management And Relaxation Training) study recharged my knowledge about how to cope with stress. It helped me communicate with my wife better and helped me to focus on acceptance. And it provided a venue for me to get in touch with the fact that I was

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with men who were in the same boat.

We’re all in this together.”

This “we’re-all-in-this-together” mentality is at the core of UM’s successful interventional group therapy programs. “A lot can happen in a group that meets every week for ten weeks,” says Antoni, professor of psychology and the author of Stress Management Intervention for Women with Breast Cancer. “Something happened in our breast cancer groups that was a clear trend. The people who went through the ten-week support groups showed a reduction in stress hormones and cortisol. Being in groups affected their immune functions, and in terms of interpersonal relationships, they learned to not sweat the small stuff anymore.”

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to Lehigh Acres, Florida, after Hurricane Wilma destroyed his North Miami Beach condominium. “I used to get all worked up and my heart rate would go up, and now it’s like, ‘Oh well.’”

In addition to teaching Torres how to temper his reactions, the program taught him how to read food labels and to not be deceived by food marketing companies. “Zero grams of transfat doesn’t necessarily mean zero grams of fat. And then there are the minor changes. Like instead of parking in front of the movie theater, I park at the end,” says Torres, a car salesman.

Shirley Clarke, a post-MI (myocardial infarction) cognitive-behavioral stress management study participant who is raising her five grandchildren,

different sites (270 from Miami).

“It turned out that in terms of improving health and saving lives, the interventions seemed to work on men but didn’t work on women and minorities,” Schneiderman says. “What we got out of the ENRICHD study was that clinicians have to be very sensitive to minorities and attentive to the needs of women. And we are. But we recognize that most health research was historically conducted on white men and that most of us grew up in a male-dominated society.”

Told of Rudy Torres’s newfound practice of reading food labels, Shirley Clarke’s walking regimen, and George Drucker’s breathing technique, Schneiderman flashes a small glance of

“What group therapy does for the participants is give them a commonality. It is often the first time, outside of talking to their spouse or close relative, that they bond with another person.”

At 81 years old, George Drucker has changed the way he reacts to stress, now employing a breathing technique he learned in the University’s TeleSMART study, which assessed the effects of stress management on quality of life, immunity, and physical health among men who have been treated with hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer.

“In the group we discussed difficult problems related to the illness, side effects from different medications, and just everyday things,” Drucker says. “In super-stressful situations such as hurricanes, or just in line at the supermarket, I feel I can cope with everything better.”

“The learning is the best part of the program,” says Rudy Torres, who recently moved with his wife and kids

agrees that the sessions have contributed to her overall well-being. “I think the therapy program helped me very much with the walking because I had to write down that I did it. I had that homework. I walk twice a day, and it makes me feel much better mentally and physically,” she says.

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s with most clinical studies, the big payoff is new knowledge that can be applied to enhance practice.

The ENRICHD study (Enhanced Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease), a multicenter clinical trial funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH, produced some notable findings. Conducted from 1996 to 2001, the study included 2,481 depressed or socially isolated post-MI patients at

satisfaction. A glance that speaks volumes about what the power of science combined with good old-fashioned listening can do. “The best thing we’ve been able to see is people who lost hope but are now leading productive lives,” Schneiderman says.

And there is no truer testament than Rudy Torres, who at the end of every day—and often in the middle of a particularly hectic one—stops whatever he’s doing to breathe in and out.

Deeply. Like the way he was taught to breathe in group therapy. “It’s the best thing I learned,” says Torres, feeling at that moment very far removed from that night in the ER. jill bauer is a book author and freelance writer in Miami, Florida.

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Goo d te am focu stra tegy s, an da incl who ude s de l e lo from dica t o the f en tion ergy play , ers —n b o ut a t on UM lso ly ’s ch from eerl ead the ing fans add a nd d . high anc -de e cibe squ ads l ex cite gam m es w ent hile to t brin he ging g ood to t che he c er omm unit y at larg e.

PEP UP THE

VOLUME

By Jessica Sick, B.S.C. ’00 Photos by Richard Patterson

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F

or anyone who bleeds orange and green, the chance to run out of “the tunnel” with the Hurricanes football team in that familiar haze of billowing smoke is the chance of a lifetime, surely something along the lines of Maximus in the Coliseum.

But the guys with helmets and pads aren’t the only athletes on the field lucky enough to soak up that team spirit. For UM’s cheerleaders and Sunsations, getting tens of thousands of fans—and the players—pumped up for the big game is part of the job description. But, more importantly, it’s tradition.

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“W

hen cheerleading first came into existence, it was all men,” says Danny Reynolds, the coach since 1990 of the University of Miami’s coed cheerleading squad, which is consistently ranked among the nation’s top squads. “George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan—they were both cheerleaders in college.”

Launched in 1925, the year the University was founded, UM’s cheerleading program has come a long way since the days of men in polyester pants yelling into giant cones. While they still lead the occasional megaphoneassisted cheer, cheerleading is no longer considered a sideline sport. And yes, cheerleading is a sport. With twohour practices three times a week (twice a day prior to football season), plus weight room and gymnastics training, a UM cheerleader is as much an athlete as a rower, sprinter, or football player. “We’ve got the longest season of any sport,” says Reynolds. “We start in August and end in April.”

Being able to do a back handspring isn’t the only skill cheerleaders must hone. In addition to classes, practices, and game-day performances, the squad participates in a slew of promotional events. “We’re a bit of a public relations arm for UM. We do a lot of public speaking, talking with alumni, and networking,” says Reynolds, whose “other profession” is director of admission and financial aid at Palmer Trinity School. Many events, he says, are community service projects, like clinics for kids in inner city schools and fundraisers for muscular dystrophy and organ procurement.

“Confidence” is what former UM cheerleader Bill Tigano, B.S.C. ’93, says being part of the squad taught him.

“The ability to push your limits, try new things, multitask. It took a lot of 26 Miami magazine Winter 2007

discipline and commitment, knowing you’re part of a team, and we always had to represent UM with pride.”

Tigano, who majored in motion pictures and theatre arts, is now a lawyer for Wells Fargo in California and a partner in an assisted living facility in Orlando. He decided to try out for the squad after seeing the first football game of the season during his freshman year.

“Everyone was really hyped up, and I saw what a great time they were having on the field,” recalls the Pennsylvania native, who didn’t have any formal cheerleading training but was a former gymnast and diver. Reynolds notes that most male UM cheerleaders join the squad without previous cheerleading experience but with experience in some kind of sports program.

And if anyone epitomized the term “school spirit,” it was Tigano. After all, he invented the “U” motion fans make when the band plays the “Imperial Theme” from Star Wars. “All the big Florida schools have their thing,” he explains. “FSU has the chop, and the Gators have their chomp, so I wanted to come up with something to identify us.” Almost two decades later, the motion is still a game staple.

T

he 1985 creation of the Sunsations dance team came at a time when groups like the Laker Girls were growing in popularity. Basketball wanted its own version of football’s Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Teams of

IT’S NOT ALL FUN AND GAMES: Cheerleaders and Sunsations train three times a week and are actively involved in community service initiatives.

all-girl dance squads with an urban flair—hip-hop moves and attitude— began popping up all over the NBA. “They gave a little oomph to basketball games,” says former Sunsation and now head coach Kristine Stephenson.

“They were all models at the time.

Even though they weren’t the best dancers, they were pretty and did pom-type routines, and they brought a lot of energy.”

The dance team concept began to trickle down to colleges and the athletic skill began to increase. The railthin model was soon replaced by the physically fit athlete with extensive dance training.

Don’t let the sequined costumes and makeup fool you. The Sunsations, who perform at both football and basketball games, know their way around the gym. Being a Sunsation requires too much to not have a healthy appetite, Stephenson explains. With three-hour practices two to three times a week (and every day just prior to football season), “my girls eat like football players.”

Stephenson, who also works at Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove, makes sure the team is well educated on the sports for which they perform. She’ll invite the team to her

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performance. “It’s the kind of dedication that breeds professionalism in any work situation, whether it’s coaching a dance team or running a business.” In addition to her role with the Heat Dancers, Thompson runs Icon Talent, a talent management company.

Career-building skills aside, Sunsations and UM cheerleaders agree that

their greatest reward is, quite simply, having a lot of fun. “For me it was the 1989 Sugar Bowl against Alabama,” says Tigano of his favorite cheerleading memory. “We won the national championship, and just being on Bourbon Street with the rest of the varsity squad, seeing thousands of UM fans—it was incredible. It was all about loving cheering and being on the field.” jessica sick, b.s.c. ’00, is a freelance writer in Miami, Florida.

Sugar Sweet Memories

house to watch a game and give them small prizes when they correctly answer questions about what is going on. “If someone interviews you, you’d better know who the players are, the starting lineup, who we’re playing, that team’s mascot, colors, everything.”

And like UM cheerleaders, Sunsations are very involved in the community. Their programs include the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a program that pairs Sunsations with underprivileged kids to go school shopping.

There are some former Sunsations who have more directly applied the skills they learned from being on the team. Heather Phillips, B.S. ’98, is now the head coach for the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, and Janine Thompson, B.B.A. ’94, began her fifth season as director and choreographer of the Miami Heat Dancers this year.

“I bleed orange and green,” admits Thompson, a Miami native, when asked why she joined the Sunsations.

She says that people tend to overlook the time and effort that go into each

Another source of UM sports spirit are the Sugarcanes. Created in 1968 by legendary UM baseball coach Ron Fraser, the Sugarcanes were the first “official collegiate bat girls.” But the group does a lot more than just retrieve sports equipment. They’re ambassadors for the team and the University, and they help ensure that fans have a good time at the ballpark. As these early Sugarcanes attest, the memories they created have lasted long after the last at-bat.

Annette Ficucello, B.S.Ed. ’70 (first Sugarcane captain), director of supplier diversity for New York Life Insurance Company: “We were so proud to be the first North American team to play in Honduras. During the game, I kept asking Coach Fraser if I could take off my too-tight shoes because my feet were killing me. As I ran out to pick up a bat, the crowd cheered. I wondered if I missed a big play. They had announced how ‘Annette, in tribute to the people of Tegucigalpa, removed her shoes.’’’

Mary Bollero, A.B. ’72, special events/fundraising coordinator in San Francisco, California: “My fondest memory is the trip to Colombia for the World College Baseball Series in the summer of 1969. We toured The original Sugarcanes squad, circa 1969 hospitals and promoted good will. We were in the newspaper every day in Colombia, and there is a picture of me with the ambassador of Colombia in Bogotá on the front page. Another memory is that we had a manual scoreboard, and fans would hang out and distract the Sugarcanes from putting up the score. Then we would hear a voice on the microphone say, ‘Scoreboard, the score is now two to one, not one to one,’ and we would laugh and add another run to the scoreboard!”

Dawn Jenkins, B.S.Ed. ’70, M.S.Ed. ’78, professional dancer and high school teacher: “I remember our orange-and-white halter dresses with our name in green across the front, and I remember the streakers during the playoff games. Those were crazy years.”

Angela Fundaro, B.S.Ed. ’85, elementary music and art teacher and day care center owner: “I remember the year the Miami Maniac got married at one of the games. We all had a part in the wedding ceremony. I also met my husband because I was a Sugarcane. He pitched for UM for two seasons.”

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For nearly ten years, Romania and Ukraine had been unable to agree on a boundary dividing their offshore waters and the accompanying seabed in the Black Sea. In 2004 Romania brought a case against Ukraine in the International Court of Justice, asking the United Nations’ judicial body to help resolve the dispute. When Ukraine had the opportunity to name a judge ad hoc to sit on the court in the case, it chose University of Miami School of Law professor Bernard H. Oxman.

“The parties at the moment are in the process of preparing their second round of written submissions.

Once they are in, we will hear them,” says Oxman, who is only the second American to be appointed as judge ad hoc in the court’s 60-year history. Oxman is also the first, and to date the only, American to have served on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, having been appointed judge ad hoc of that tribunal in a case The Law of the Sea is an evolving vessel designed to navigate the choppy

between Malaysia and Singapore in 2003.

The International Court of Justice and the Interna-

disputes that arise between nations.

tional Tribunal for the Law of the Sea are two bodies

For 40 years School of Law Professor

authorized to settle disputes related to interpretation of

Bernard H. Oxman has been at the

the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

helm of this global effort.

This treaty—completed in 1982 and in force since 1994— is the culmination of decades of attempts to establish

By Lisa Sedelnik, M.A. ’00 Illustration by Guy Billout

global agreement on the International Law of the Sea. Since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1965, Oxman has been one of the strongest advocates of that goal, which includes a push for U.S. participation in the convention.

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o

xman’s impressive career in the field of international law has spanned close to 40 years and includes extensive experience in the Pentagon and Department of State. Upon his law school graduation, he went to work for the International Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy in Washington, D.C.—a job most wideeyed law graduates could only dream of. Thinking there was little chance of landing the job, since junior officers were not typically placed in that division “because if you messed up it could become a really huge mess,” Oxman waited patiently on the pay phone for nearly an hour for their final decision, adding coins periodically so that the call would not go dead.

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asking for its view on the idea of a new conference on International Law of the Sea. This stimulated an intense, multi-month study—the results of which culminated in the United States offering to meet with the Soviets to discuss the idea.

“I was very fortunate to begin my career at the Pentagon, dealing with this problem,” he says. “Behind those closed doors there was an atmosphere of lively debate and candid discussion on what would be to the greatest security advantage of the United States in any given situation. This was analyzed with a great deal of intellectual rigor, and that was an excellent way to begin a career.”

Dramatic changes in the International Law of the Sea in modern times

that if we (the U.S.) could make claims beyond the traditional limit that suited us, other people could make claims that suited them. This set off a process that was very difficult to control,” he adds.

Until then, the inherited system in place was the freedom of the seas doctrine, which dates back to the 17th century. This doctrine limited national rights and jurisdiction over the oceans to a narrow belt of seas surrounding a national coast. The remainder of the seas was considered “open to all” and “belonging to no one.”

By 1958 an attempt was made (in what is now considered the first conference of the Law of the Sea) to lay down a series of conventions (or treaties) on the subject. These conventions dealt with the traditional ques-

“Over the years we have resolved many issues pertaining to the Law of the Sea; what was not settled was the ideological battle over resources that have yet to be exploited.”

“They finally came back on the line, and they said it took them 40 minutes to find my file and that, yes, I had been assigned to international law,” Oxman recalls. “I have always assumed that in those 40 minutes they actually had made their decision.”

Oxman worked at the Pentagon in that position from 1965 to 1968. It was there that he first became exposed to the International Law of the Sea, and discussions on the subject surfaced not long after taking the job. In 1967 the Soviet Union, a growing maritime power in its own right, delivered a diplomatic note to the United States 30 Miami magazine Winter 2007

can be traced back to 1945, when President Harry S Truman issued a proclamation claiming the natural resources of the continental shelf (the submerged part of the continent) for the United States. This simultaneously recognized that every other coastal country could do it—although the waters above the continental shelf were supposed to remain high seas (beyond the limits of the territorial jurisdiction).

The result was a cascade of claims not only to the continental shelf but to the high seas above and well beyond it, explains Oxman. Chile almost immediately followed suit in 1947 with a claim to a 200-mile zone in the waters, while Argentina claimed the continental shelf and the waters above the continental shelf. “The fundamental dilemma is

tions, such as who is in control of coastal areas and the idea of freedom of navigation instead of coastal control.

But they were not globally ratified, and a new effort began. After many preparatory negotiations, 1973 marked the year of the official conference on the International Law of the Sea. From then on, one to two sessions a year would be held on the subject, concluding in 1982 with the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “If you look at the convention from an international perspective, it has succeeded,” says Oxman. “You have 149 parties that have ratified it, and those parties include every major industrialized maritime state in the world except the United States.”

DONNA VICTOR

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Bernard Oxman, professor and director of the Master of Laws Program in Ocean and Coastal Law, is a career-long advocate of global agreement on the International Law of the Sea.

The United States, ironically enough, has not become part of the convention.

The reason, says Oxman, lies in a portion of the treaty that deals with the future mining—once technology is invented to do so—of the deepest parts of the seabed.

“Over the years we have resolved many issues pertaining to the Law of the Sea; what was not settled was the ideological battle over resources that have yet to be exploited,” explains Oxman, who testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2003 and the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Hearings in 2004, urging the United States to ratify the convention. Today, the treaty submitted by President Clinton and supported by current President George W. Bush is still awaiting a vote in Congress. The outcome remains unclear.

Although Oxman immensely enjoyed practicing international law, he always knew he would eventually teach. In

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1977 he left the Department of State to take a teaching job at the UM School of Law, after much persuasion by the then-dean Soia Mentschikoff.

Almost immediately after taking the position, though, President Jimmy Carter’s representative from the Law of the Sea negotiations, Elliot Richardson, decided that he needed Oxman to continue working with the group and urged him to stay. “So I wound up for several years with the not-so-bad arrangement of spending my summers in Geneva and my winters in Miami,” Oxman says. “That wasn’t so awful.”

a

s a dedicated professor and director of the Master of Laws Program in Ocean and Coastal Law, Oxman tries to demystify his field by putting it into a context his students can understand. One example he uses to illustrate interests in an effective legal order is a scenario involving four hostile street gangs, each with the objective of ultimately dominating the other three.

“But they cannot suppress the others now because they do not have the power to do so, and in addition, each of them worries that the other three might gang up on them,” he explains.

Once he sets the scene, Oxman then asks the students to act as the lawyers (advisors to the respective gang leaders) and offers them a variety of potential outcomes.

One former student recalls yet another technique. “I remember that Professor Oxman started his lectures on the Law of the Sea holding the 1982 UN Convention in his hand and saying

how it was wrong to consider the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as the one and only source of the Law of the Sea because there were other international treaties and customary international law that had to be studied too,” recalls Igor Vio, who graduated in May 1993 with an LL.M. degree in ocean and coastal law.

Vio has since been working as a senior lecturer at the University of Rijeka, Department of Maritime Studies in Croatia.

“Professor Oxman was very influential in my decision to pursue an academic career in international law, and I have always truly considered him a mentor,” says Vincent Bantz, LL.M. ’00, a former student and research assistant of Oxman’s who is a lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland, Australia. “He always patiently and selflessly took the time to answer my questions and to debate difficult or controversial points. It’s not only the substance of the exchanges that I appreciated but also the exchanges themselves with a man who is profoundly sympathetic and honest.”

Indeed, Oxman has worn many hats during his career—lawyer, legal consultant, coeditor of the American Journal of International Law, international judge— and the work has been intellectually rewarding. But it’s the teaching, he says, that keeps him on his toes.

“I absolutely love the teaching. You never know what’s going to happen when you walk into the classroom,” says Oxman. “And being constantly in touch with younger people keeps you in tune with the shifting perceptions in society, which is just fascinating.” lisa sedelnik, m.a. ’00, is a freelance writer in Miami, Florida.

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uch of what happens to Meg and Rex aboard Chelone in Blue Water (William Morrow/Harper 2006)

are derivatives of A. Manette Ansay’s open ocean experience aboard the real Chelone with her husband, Jake. The University of Miami associate professor of English and prolific author did endure batten-down-thehatches squalls, days adrift in a windless stasis, and other salty-dog calamities during her three-month stay on the 38-foot sailboat. But the rest of the elaborate tale comes from a robust imagination that unfurls through a detailed regimen. After all, balancing a full teaching load, a 3-year-old daughter, and the occasional flare-up of a disease that formerly crippled her can inhibit the creative mind.

OUT OF

“In an ideal world, especially approaching the end of a novel, I write pretty much around the clock,” Ansay says. “I’ve got a book on tape going, I’ve got the computer on, I’ve got some meaningless project usually involving housework, and I just revolve around those things and sleep weirdly in between. I’ve often gone to colonies to finish books.”

It was in fact at The MacDowell Colony—the prestigious artist’s colony in New Hampshire that has hosted the likes of Aaron Copland and Alice Walker—that Ansay received a call from Oprah Winfrey about Vinegar

By Meredith Danton Photo by Michael Marko

LIMBO Having just released her seventh book, Blue Water, A. Manette Ansay describes how she sailed above torrents of adversity to live the life she didn’t know could be possible.

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The real Chelone became A. Manette Ansay’s muse for Blue Water.

Hill. The story of a woman’s struggle with overbearing in-laws and the harsh inflexibility of religion, Vinegar Hill is Ansay’s first novel and a 1999 Oprah Book Club Selection.

“The hardest thing was that Oprah said I couldn’t tell anyone,” Ansay recalls. “I had been living and working closely with 16 artists for a month, and when they asked who had called, I couldn’t tell them.”

After her chat with Oprah, Ansay retreated to her cabin and sat at the piano Leonard Bernstein used during his stay at MacDowell in the 1970s. It was an appropriate perch for her; she

teaching. For her 1999 appearance on Oprah, she insisted the producers film her both in her scooter and getting out of her scooter to show that people with disabilities “don’t have wheelchairs super-glued to their butts.” The publicity from the show drove Vinegar Hill past the million-copies-sold mark, allowing Ansay to stop working and investigate her illness full time. After completing Limbo, a memoir detailing her illness, she spent a year as an outpatient in an integrative medical center in New York City, where doctors determined she suffered from a deficiency in progesterone. Hormone therapy com-

forts the way a drowning person might reach for a piece of barbed wire. Because it is there. Because it is all you have.” The reference, it seems, also could describe the hope of a young woman who spent nearly 15 years in a wheelchair without explanation.

“I wrote most of the final version of Blue Water at the Holiday Inn Coral Gables during my second semester at the University of Miami,” says Ansay, who now lives with Jake and Genevieve in northern Palm Beach County, where

“If Oprah hadn’t happened to pick up a book I’d written at the age of 25, I would not be walking today. I would not have a child. Sometimes, I wonder if I’d even be alive.” was once a piano performance major at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. An illness with debilitating symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis struck in 1984, forcing her to leave Peabody in her second year. That’s when she took up writing.

A

nsay, a native of Wisconsin, met husband Jake in 1987 as a student at the University of Maine.

She was soft-spoken and studious, and he was outgoing and personable. She would spend time watching birds “on the rambling parts of campus,” and he would be watching her—not because she was in an electric wheelchair and had braces on her arms and legs, but because she was someone he wanted to meet. “It was a nonissue for him,” Ansay says, noting that she was very independent despite her disability. “We’re still on our first date.”

The couple married in 1990, a year before Ansay completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at Cornell and began

bined with immune-building treatments resolved the majority of her symptoms within six months.

“If Oprah hadn’t happened to pick up a book I’d written at the age of 25, I would not be walking today. I would not have a child. Sometimes, I wonder if I’d even be alive,” Ansay writes on her Web site, www.amanetteansay.com.

In 2001 a newly able-bodied Ansay set sail for three months with Jake aboard Chelone, the wellspring from which Blue Water began to flow. The book was originally a story about betrayal, infused with elements of airplanes and flying. But after living aboard Chelone and after daughter Genevieve was born, the story morphed into a sea-based tale of the relationship between a woman who lost her child and the woman whose actions took away the life of that child. The grieving mother, Meg, described the emptiness in the way friends tried to console her: “You grasp at such com-

her brother and parents live. She commutes to Miami via Tri-Rail.

Chronic eyestrain limits the amount of time Ansay can work consecutively, whether it’s on her five books presently under way or grading student work.

Ansay loves how teaching gives her “a sense of contribution that’s very much cause and effect.” A pivotal teaching moment came early in her career, when she was an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She had overheard students talking about her in the library stacks.

“In a nutshell, they determined that if I was any good as a writer, I wouldn’t be teaching,” she recalls. “I thought for a long time about what my teachers have meant to me and what I want to mean to my students. I realized I didn’t have any illusions about teaching; I do it simply because I love it.” meredith danton is editor of Miami magazine.

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major gifts “ Inon facilitating behalf of donors to

the University, I see the tremendous good that results.

L

”

isted in The Best Lawyers in America and Worth magazine’s Top 100 Attorneys, H. Allan Shore, J.D. ’71, LL.M. ’72, is a shareholder who specializes in high net worth estate and personal tax planning at the prestigious law firm Akerman Senterfitt. As a member of the Office of Estate and Gift Planning Advisory Board and of the Board of Governors of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University, Shore has developed and published a series of algorithms that chart the efficiency of various charitable trusts. He recently helped coordinate landmark gifts from the family of the late Leonard M. Miller and from Phillip and Patricia Frost, for whom the University’s medical and music schools are respectively named.

Shore’s background as an attorney and CPA, coupled with his own history of philanthropy, enable him to advise the University on the methods of giving that are most advantageous to donor and recipient.

His personal gifts—via cash and a charitable remainder trust—have supported scholarships and programs at the School of Law, the Miller School of Medicine, UM/Sylvester, The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, and many other areas.

“The University is multidimensional. From the law school I attended and the football team I watch, to the medical school and its affiliations that serve the community, so much of my life is intertwined,” Shore says.

GIVE WITH CONFIDENCE Create a charitable remainder trust with the University of Miami and know that your contribution will achieve its maximum potential for both you and the institution. Your gift can support University programs, scholarships, and other pressing needs while providing you with a current tax deduction and an attractive payout, portions of which may be tax-free.

For details, contact The Office of Estate and Gift Planning at 800-529-6935 or 305-284-2914, or visit www.miami.edu/estateandgiftplanning

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A l u m n i

DIGEST

News and Events of Interest to University of Miami Alumni

MIKE TOOGOOD

Isle Be a ’Cane UM is a popular choice among Bahamians

T

hroughout the markets of Nassau, the villages of Eleuthera, the gardens of Freeport—there are Hurricanes. Miami Hurricanes, that is. Of the 110 countries from which the University recruits its international students, the Bahamas claims more UM alumni than any other single region.

While proximity and similar weather make the University a logical choice for Bahamians, another reason is the School of Business Administration’s Saturday M.B.A. Program in Nassau.

Designed for working professionals, the two-year program holds classes on Saturdays in Nassau, taught

business, and her mother owned a mom-and-pop grocery store.

“Both parents took a risk to be able to control their own destiny,” Bethel says.

“I thought, if they could do it with limited education, I could certainly do it with all the resources I had.”

After finishing undergraduate studies at the University of Miami, returning to the Bahamas, and working for 15 years at Coca-Cola’s Caribbean Bottling Ltd., where she served as vice president of finances, she decided to go back to school.

Carleton Williams, M.B.A. ’78, Caribbean Bottling’s chairman of the board, told

Earla Bethel, a Nassau resident, is a double alumna.

lists her three franchises among its ten most profitable worldwide.

Tourism and offshore banking are the largest industries in the Bahamas, and many UM alumni work in these sectors. Wendy Wong,

The Bahamas claims more UM alumni than any other international region.

by UM faculty. Entrepreneurship is growing in the Bahamas, and many of the 600-plus Bahamians who earned M.B.A. degrees from the program since its 1976 launch have parlayed their education into success.

Even as a child, Earla Bethel, B.B.A. ’76, M.B.A. ’96, dreamed of owning her own business. She was born in Eleuthera, where her father owned a construction

Bethel: “If you do the executive M.B.A. program at the University of Miami, you will find it nothing short of rewarding.” Williams then proposed that Bethel take over his McDonald’s franchise business.

Today Bethel owns DanBrad Ltd. (named for her two children, Danielle and Brad), the holding company for all McDonald’s restaurants in Nassau. McDonald’s

M.B.A. ’96, has been working for 20 years as the club secretary/administrator at Lyford Cay Club, an exclusive country club on the Island of New Providence.

“The M.B.A., one of my proudest accomplishments, has given me credibility among my employers and the highbrow clientele of this organization,” Wong says.

Charles Klonaris, B.B.A. ’65—whose brothers

Anthony, B.S.E.E. ’60, and John, B.S. ’68, M.D. ’72, and daughter Kally, B.Arch. ’00, also graduated from UM— runs a well-known shoe business with his father in Nassau. Klonaris is chair of the Nassau Tourism Development Board, which is creating a framework to support businesses in the city.

“The quality and standard of living for the average Bahamian has risen so much,” Klonaris says. “Now there is a very large middle class that wants to get involved as entrepreneurs, not just employees.”

Known for its paradisaic lifestyle, the Bahamas is full of opportunity for an increasingly educated population.

Certainly University of Miami alumni will continue to play an important role.

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AlumniDigest

& Then Some

W

hen Vikas Johari, B.B.A. ’06, was new to the University of Miami from India, he didn’t know how to plan the perfect Valentine’s Day for his American girlfriend. While on campus one day, he recognized Jorge Arauz, A.B. ’04, managing editor of The Miami Hurricane student newspaper, and thought he would be a good person to ask.

From that serendipitous inquiry grew a friendship, and from the friendship grew a publishing enterprise that now employs 18 University of Miami alumni.

With headquarter offices in Miami, Amsterdam, Dubai, and Mumbai, MaXposure Media Group this summer launched its premiere issue of Andpersand Magazine.

“Our creative director is Austrian, our publisher is

Indian, and I’m Cuban,” says Arauz, editor in chief. “We went through our respective languages trying to find a relevant name, and the word and kept coming up—because there’s always more.”

Unable to register the magazine as only a symbol and unable to use the name ampersand, which was already licensed to a nowdefunct magazine published out of England, Andpersand was born. The magazine publishes four editions, each one covering the region in which it is headquartered as well as international news, events, places, and personalities. The circulation of the American edition alone is 50,000 in the United States, available at Barnes and Noble, Borders, and airports.

With the majority of the

payroll doled out to UM alumni, Andpersand embodies the pool of publishing talent

emerging from the University. “Every person on the Andpersand core staff is someone I worked with at some point during my time at The Hurricane,” Arauz says. “They each impressed me through performance and a creative approach to

Sebastian Soars

W

a group of local artists crafted it. hen Steve Etter, B.B.A. ’75, For Etter—son of David Etter, decided to participate in a B.S. ’49, and father of current Unisummer-long exhibition celebrating versity of Miami student Lindsay, the science and art of kites, his class of 2007—UM spirit is always in immediate thought was: “This would the air. In addition to sharing Hurribe a great place for Sebastian to cane pride, father and son share sucspread his wings!” cess as chairman of the board and The exhibition, which benefited president/CEO, respectively, of the Whitaker Center for Science and Harrisburg News Company. Serving the Arts in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, more than 2,000 retail stores, showcased hundreds of kites on Steve Etter brings Sebastian to Harrisburg News Company distriblampposts in public and commercial Harrisburg skies. utes books, magazines, and newspacenters, as well as in “sky galleries” pers throughout central Pennsylvania and parts of in prominent public atria throughout Harrisburg and surrounding communities. Etter designed the kite, and New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia.

36 Miami magazine Winter 2007

getting things done in the same out-of-the-box manner I lean toward editorially.

UM taught us to hunger for diversity and flaunt global experiences to the max.”

Well trained in the nuts and bolts of journalism from their UM classes and newspaper experience, the Andpersand team has had to take an on-the-job crash course in magazine promotion.

“Buzz creation is essential in this business,” says Arauz, whose cover release party on Hibiscus Island in Miami drew an unexpected 2,000 guests and kept him tending to the parking lot all night.

“To us, everyone’s a VIP. You never know who’s who, or who can open a door for you down the road.”

Not likely to rest on their laurels, the MaXposure principals have mapped out plans for a modern design magazine tentatively called Forms, a fashion line, a promotions company, book publishing—and then some.

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RAISING ’CANES

The Next Generation n some families, becoming a Miami Hurricane begins at birth.

“We weren’t allowed to say the words Gator or Seminole in our home,” says Gregory Cesarano, J.D. ’76, president of the University of Miami Alumni Association and son of Patrick Cesarano, B.B.A. ’35, and Beryl Cesarano, A.B. ’33.

Launching a new University of Miami tradition, Greg Cesarano and the UMAA

Attendees of the UMAA’s first Legacy Reception included, left to right, Julio Egusquiza and his mom, Vicky, B.S. ’83, Bill Pruitt, B.B.A. ’66, Milda Puig, B.Ed. ’77, and her son, Enrique, Nancy Rodriguez-Beauchamps, A.B. ’00, M.A.L.S. ’04, M.B.A. ’06, and her son, Jonathan.

hosted its first Legacy Reception to embrace incoming students who grew up as the daughter or son, granddaughter or grandson of UM graduates and to recognize their families. The August reception welcomed 160 legacy freshmen and 70 legacy transfer students. They take their

place among a total 800 legacy students within the undergraduate population.

Since 2003 the UMAA has partnered with the Office of Admission to offer a Legacy Admission program that delivers personal service to children and grandchildren of alumni throughout the admission process. The best compliment to an institution, after all, is when alumni feel strongly enough about their alma mater to encourage their children and grandchildren to attend.

“Alumni loyalty is a fundamental com-

Good on Paper

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PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS

I

ponent of this institution, and we celebrate another generation joining the UM family,” says Donna Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, associate vice president of alumni relations.

If you have a child or grandchild interested in applying to the University as a legacy student, visit www.miami.edu/legacy, call 1-866-UMALUMS, or contact legacy admission counselor Jim Sullivan at 305-284-5477.

Irving, A.B. ’37, and Sylvia Genet, seated, with their children, from left to right, Philip, A.B. ’71, Donna, A.B. ’65, M.A. ’69, and Lenny.

iving a block from the Coral Gables campus, Philip Genet, A.B. ’71, was “a UM rat. I used to jump the fence, dying to watch football practice. One time I fell and cut my leg, and one of the trainers took me in and stitched me up. He said, ‘If you want to be here that badly, why don’t you help out the team?’”

But long before Genet started fetching towels and water, setting up hurdles on the track, and tending to the baseball scoreboard, he knew he wanted to attend the University of Miami. Among his fondest memories are sitting on his father’s lap, twirling the UM class ring around his father’s finger, and going to Hurricane games at the Orange Bowl with him and Uncle Saul, J.D. ’48.

In total, there are 11 Genet relatives who have graduated from the University of Miami. The Hurricane lineage begins with Philip’s father, Irving Genet, A.B. ’37, who came to Miami from New York in 1936 with his parents and three siblings—Martin, Florence, and Saul.

In 1939 Irving and his father founded Dade Paper Company in Miami, a wholesale distributor of disposable food service packaging. Starting the business depleted family funds, so Irving bartered with the University of Miami—towels, facial tissue, and napkins in exchange for tuition for his siblings.

Irving’s brother, Martin, J.D. ’40, was the first in a line of School of Law graduates, including his two sons, Sandor and Benjamin, and grandson Solomon. “It was wonderful to go through so similar an experience as my father and grandfather—the same law school with the same professors,” says Solomon, J.D. ’99. Solomon’s brother, Martin, graduated from UM with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2003.

Celebrating his 90th birthday this February, Irving Genet still heads to work at Dade Paper every day at 5:30 a.m. Philip Genet, who “grew up in two places—Dade Paper and the fields of the University of Miami,” has lived in San Francisco for 30 years, where he owns a wholesale disposable food packaging business. Philip and his sister, Donna, A.B. ’65, M.A. ’69, last year announced a $100,000 gift from the Irving and Sylvia Genet children—Philip, Donna, Lenny, and Julian—to create an endowed scholarship in the School of Education.

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AlumniDigest

T

he maitre d’ gives his wrist a half twist to prevent nature’s fermented nectar from spilling anywhere but in your glass. The color: a seductive burgundy red. The temperature: a perfect 66 degrees. Your colleagues at the table describe the flavors as cherry, chocolate, and buttery, but all you know is that it’s good.

If you had participated in the University’s Master Wine Appreciation program, an eight-week evening course on the Coral Gables campus, you would know the differences between a meritage and a merlot or a vouvray and a chardonnay,

and you would be able to articulate them with confidence. Twenty-four students enrolled in the inaugural eight-week course last semester, offered through the Division of Continuing and International Education. Jeffrey Wolfe, proprietor of Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe and former general manager and wine buyer at Norman’s restaurant in Coral Gables, is the guide on a savory tour of wines primarily from Spain and South America, culminating in a blind taste test at his shop as the final exam.

The Master Wine Appreciation course is one of

COCO MASUDA

Uncork Your Potential

many certificate programs available to University of Miami alumni at a discount through the Alumni Rate Program. Offered as part of

Alumni Answer the Call he percentage of alumni who give back to their alma mater is a pivotal factor in how publications like U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review rank schools and colleges. Just five years ago, the University of Miami’s alumni participation rate was 12 percent, less than the 13.8 national average at the time. This year more UM alumni than ever contributed to the Annual Fund, reaching an all-time peak of 18 percent amid a climate where the national average dipped to 12.4, according to the Council for Aid to Education.

The University of Miami Annual Fund is a major source of funding for student scholarships, academic initiatives, and other pressing educational needs. In addition to subsidizing textbooks, mentoring services, laboratory supplies, out38 Miami magazine Winter 2007

reach programs, and other expenses not covered by tuition alone, the Annual Fund is an important barometer of the University’s reputation and progress.

Whether it was through the Calling ’Canes, response to direct mail campaigns, or making online pledges—the generosity of alumni who answered the call in fiscal year 2006 generated $4.7 million for the Annual Fund. The total number of alumni donors this year—20,760—is nearly double what it was in 2001.

“More and more of our alumni are re-engaging with the University, and they’re responding to additional outreach and involvement opportunities,” says Donna Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, associate vice president of alumni relations and the Annual Fund and UMAA executive director.

DONNA VICTOR

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the University’s commitment to lifelong learning, these courses range from a brush-up on computer skills to certification in niche professional areas like human resource management, personal financial planning, Web publishing, and paralegal studies.

University alumni also may enroll in credit courses in the College of Arts and Sciences at a special rate.

From anthropology to theatre arts and everything in between, the UMAA’s Learn Again benefit enables alumni to take the courses of interest they may have missed while completing their degree requirements as students.

For more information on these educational opportunities, visit www.miami.edu/ learnagain, or contact the Division of Continuing and International Education at 305-284-4000.

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C l a s s

NOTES 1950s

Robert J. Bergenholtz, B.B.A. ’51, is retired from United Technologies Corp., where he was manager of fabrication planning. He lives in an active adult community in Connecticut.

Roger A. Saunders, A.B. ’51, is in the New England Hotels and Resorts Hall of Fame. He is a trustee of Newbury College and founder of the Roger A. Saunders School of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Marvin E. Segal, J.D. ’52, and Ira H. Wexner, J.D. ’53, retired from the Supreme Court of New York. In recognition of their service on the bench, their portraits were dedicated in the Supreme Court Building in Mineola, New York.

Alan M. Solomon, B.B.A. ’53, J.D. ’55, was honored by the State of Florida for his 50 years of membership in The Florida Bar. He practiced at the law firm of Solomon, Krupnikoff & Wieskel and at Hunter’s Ambulance Service in Connecticut before retiring at the end of 2001. His wife, Sheila, B.Ed. ’54, taught in schools in Florida and Connecticut before retiring to raise three children.

Edward Robin, B.S.E.E. ’57, and Nelson Hanover, A.B. ’57, just formed Blogosphere, a blogging division of Performance Resource Group in New York, New York.

Bill Keppler, B.S. ’59, is president and professor of public health at the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. He will retire in 2007 after serving in this role for five years.

1960s

Earl W. Powell, B.B.A. ’64, chief executive officer of Trivest Partners, LP, was elected to the board of trustees of the John S. and James

ALUMNI OF NOTE

Arielle Chikovsky Is Soaring above Illness L. Knight Foundation. Trivest is a private equity investment firm.

Powell also is chairman of Atlantis Plastics, Inc., director of Directed Electronics, Inc., director of several Trivest-related companies, and a University of Florida trustee.

F. David Halberg, B.Ed. ’66, M.Ed. ’67, retired last year after 38 years as principal of Gloria Floyd Elementary School in Miami, Florida. He now works part-time as an advocate in Region VI of the MiamiDade County Public Schools and in the Superintendent’s Urban Principal Initiative as a professional partner to the principal at North Miami Middle School.

Donald L. Walters, Ed.D. ’66, is enjoying retirement in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he serves as docent at President James Buchanan’s home, General Edward Hand’s home, and as a guide for Historic Lancaster Walking Tours.

Jerry Davies, A.B. ’67, is director of communications for Personal Insurance Federation, a lobbying trade association of insurance companies in Sacramento, California.

In 1985 he founded Davies Communications, through which he owns two radio stations and a newspaper. He also produces a monthly television program, Capitol Counterpoint. Davies earned his M.S. degree in technical journalism in 1969 from Iowa State University.

Nancy Allen, A.B. ’68, retired from the Florida Department of Education and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Cynthia Anne Leahy Belcher, B.S.N. ’69, has retired after 35 years as assistant professor of nursing at Clemson University. She has two daughters, one who is a veterinary medical student at North Carolina State and another who is a marketing major at Clemson.

Robert F. Wolin, B.Ed. ’69, completed scenic designs for the sum-

“M

y family loved watching me at the football games,” Arielle Chikovsky, A.B. ’02, says of playing trumpet in UM’s Band of the Hour. “The television camera always seemed to fixate on me. With my red hair and green band uniform, I was the embodiment of UM’s colors.”

A graduate of Thomas Cooley Law School, Chikovsky is an attorney in her father’s Hollywood, Florida firm, and has sky dived in New Zealand and scuba dived in Australia— all this despite extensive hearing loss since age 2 and night-blindness and loss of peripheral vision, or retinitis pigmentosa, since early in law school. Combined, these impairments led to a diagnosis of the hereditary Usher syndrome.

“My family and I dealt with the challenges of my hearing loss fairly successfully throughout my childhood, only to find out that I would face the double disability of deaf/blindness. This really changed my perspective on life.” Genetic testing reveals that Chikovsky’s three brothers and four sisters are not likely to develop Usher syndrome.

In May Chikovsky won $25,000 in American Eagle Outfitter’s Live Your Life contest, which she donated to Hope for Vision, “a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases like Usher.” Hope for Vision created “Arielle’s Dream Fund,” through which Chikovsky hopes to raise $1 million to promote research and awareness for blinding conditions.

Chikovsky’s parents, Fred Chikovsky, A.B. ’78, J.D. ’81, and Sara Chikovsky, A.B. ’78, J.D. ’82, and her sisters Danielle Chikovsky, A.B. ’05, and Samantha (Chikovsky) Wiener, have long supported Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit through Project: New Born and the Women’s Cancer League benefiting the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. Chikovsky says her sister, Honey, is likely the next ’Cane in the family, with brothers Max, Zack, and Rafe, and sister Liza soon to follow.

Athletic since childhood, Chikovsky says, “I had always wanted to sky dive and scuba dive but never seemed to make the time or the opportunity to do them. After my diagnosis, I ‘jumped’ at the chance.”

—Leonard Nash

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ClassNotes

ALUMNI OF NOTE mer 2006 shows at Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and is currently designing Fraulein Else for an Off-Off-Broadway production in October and for the Hershey Park Christmas show in November.

1970s

Wendy S. Unger, A.B. ’70, is membership services manager for the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Frank Angones, A.B. ’72, J.D. ’76, was awarded the 2006 Equal Opportunities in the Profession Award by the Equal Opportunities Law Section of The Florida Bar. Mark Colby, B.M. ’72, M.M ’75, released Speaking of Stan, a CD on Hallway Records that is a tribute to Stan Getz. Colby has been teaching jazz saxophone at DePaul University in Chicago for 24 years.

He also conducts clinics and concerts representing Selmer saxophones and Vandoren Reeds.

Robert A. Dulberg, J.D. ’72, a certified civil, family, and federal mediator and a principal of Salmon & Dulberg Mediation Services, was selected by Law & Politics as a Super Lawyer in the field of alternative dispute resolution.

David M. Goulet, A.B. ’72, was reelected to his third consecutive four-year term on the Glendale, Arizona City Council. He was a driving force behind the new sports and entertainment project that will culminate in the 2008 Super Bowl being played in Glendale.

Joseph A. Finley Jr., B.S. ’74, is principal of St. Mark Catholic School in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Beverly G. Kelley, A.B. ’74, retired from the U.S. Coast Guard this year after more than 30 years of service. During her career she served aboard six Coast Guard cutters and had command of three of them. In 1979 she was the first woman to command a U.S. military vessel—USCGC Cape Newagen in Maui, Hawaii. She now lives in

40 Miami magazine Winter 2007

Maryland and is the mother of 3-year-old Morgan.

Patrick J. Walsh, B.S. ’75, was appointed professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Health and Genomics at the University of Ottawa after serving on the faculty of UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science for 22 years. He also received the Award of Excellence in Fish Physiology from the Physiology Section of the American Fisheries Society.

Aletha Player, M.B.A.’76, an area manager for Florida Power & Light, was named one of Success South Florida magazine’s top 25 most prominent and successful black women.

Anthony Bello, B.B.A. ’77, was a first-place winner of the 2005 Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge for his product, satellite dish covers, through a company called Dish Rags, Inc. He is vice president of MasTec, Inc., in Coral Gables, Florida.

Cynthia Curry, A.B. ’77, M.A. ’78, special adviser to the county manager for Miami-Dade County, was named one of Success South Florida magazine’s top 25 most prominent and successful black women.

Darcy H. LaFountain, B.B.A. ’77, won the U.S. Masters National Distance Swimming Championship for age group 50 to 54 at Big Shoulders 5K in Lake Michigan this September.

Brian F. Spector, J.D. ’78, has been appointed by The Florida Bar to serve on the Standing Committee on Professionalism. He also was appointed by the Supreme Court of Florida to serve on its Commission on Professionalism and its Committee on Standard Jury Instructions—Contract and Business Cases. Spector is a lecturer at the UM School of Law. Kenneth R. Benoit, M.M. ’79, is an adjunct professor at Broward Community College. His “Five Flags Suite for Band” was published by Imagine Music.

Janet Bond Brill, B.S. ’79, M.S.Ed.

Aileen Ugalde Makes a Splash as UM’s Top Lawyer

S

hortly after being appointed chief of staff for President Donna E. Shalala in 2001, Aileen Ugalde, J.D. ’91, went to the Miami Seaquarium with her daughter, who insisted on sitting in the front row of the dolphin show—the splash zone. “At first I couldn’t understand why,” Ugalde says. “And then I realized it’s kind of delicious to get splashed in August, and it’s the best seat in the house. Sitting next to President Shalala is kind of like that. And now I get to be the lawyer sitting next to her.”

A Miami native who earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard University, Ugalde’s decision to return home for law school was clinched when the UM School of Law offered her the prestigious title of Harvey T. Reid Scholar. On the first day of class she met Joe Garcia, A.B. ’87, J.D. ’91, whom she would marry upon graduation. “The University of Miami gave me my legal education and now my legal career. I’ve been the recipient of endless gifts from the University, not the least of which is a lovely family,” she says.

Fresh out of school, Ugalde practiced employment law at Akerman Senterfitt & Eidson in Miami. She joined the University as assistant general counsel in 1994, was promoted to associate general counsel in 1998, and served as executive director of the search committee that recruited President Shalala in 2000.

Ugalde helped smooth President Shalala’s ascension to office, and Shalala followed up with a proposal: “How would you like to be my chief of staff? I know you’re a lawyer, but this is going to be infinitely more interesting.”

The president’s office was a wild ride for Ugalde, part of which was spearheading the University’s preparations to host the first 2004 Presidential Debate. This fall the University named Ugalde vice president, general counsel, and secretary to the Board of Trustees. She is the first woman in University history to hold the position, succeeding Robert Blake, who retired after 12 years of service. Though she is still learning all that her new job entails, Ugalde is convinced that being a lawyer and having the University of Miami as her client is still the best seat in the house.

—Meredith Danton

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’86, Ph.D. ’01, is a nutritionist, health and fitness consultant, speaker, and author of a new book, Cholesterol Down: Ten Simple Steps to Lower Your Cholesterol in Four Weeks—without Prescription Drugs (Three Rivers Press, 2006).

Mary Kontz, B.S.N. ’79, M.S.N. ’85, Ph.D. ’92, was appointed associate dean of nursing at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She was previously the director of the School of Nursing at Miami Dade College.

Cara (Cohen) Pasquale, A.B. ’79, M.B.A. ’83, is director of business development at Miller Legg, a Florida-based consulting firm.

She graduated from Leadership Broward Class XXIV, in which she chaired the project group, The Creative Economy.

Howard Talenfeld, J.D. ’79, of Colodny Fass Talenfeld Karlinsky & Abate, has been named a Florida Super Lawyer and one of Florida Trend magazine’s Florida Legal

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Elite. He specializes in civil law and resides in Plantation, Florida.

1980s

Gloria Lerma Lopez, B.B.A. ’81, opened Sona MedSpa in downtown Coral Gables after spending 20 years in the corporate world.

Sona offers minimally invasive cosmetic medical and aesthetic services. UM alumni receive discounts.

George A. Poveromo, A.B. ’81, is in his seventh season as host of the ESPN2 show George Poveromo’s World of Saltwater Fishing. Married with two grown children, he also is a senior editor for Saltwater Sportsman magazine.

Mitch Spero, M.S. Ed. ’81, received the 2006 Broward County Chapter of the Florida Psychological Association’s Lifetime Achievement award, the organization for which

he serves as treasurer. He is director of Child & Family Psychologists, a psychology group practice with offices in Plantation and Weston, Florida. He also is a court-appointed family mediator for the Supreme Court of Florida.

Hunting F. Deutsch, M.B.A. ’82, joined BankUnited as executive vice president of wealth management.

Spencer Levine, J.D. ’82, is director of the Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Attorney General, where he manages 230 attorneys, investigators, analysts, and staff throughout the state of Florida. The unit is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of criminal and civil violations of provider fraud, self referrals, and patient brokering, as well as abuse and neglect in long-term care facilities.

Daniel A. Swietilik, B.F.A. ’82, is working in New York City with Michael Moore as lead editor on

Sicko, a film about health care in the United States. He also worked as editor of An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary with former Vice President Al Gore.

David C. Jones, A.B. ’83, B.S. ’83, returned from a deployment in Iraq, where he served as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon from the Vermont Air National Guard. In June he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He also is director of the Fetal Diagnostic Center and associate professor of OB/GYN at the University of Vermont.

Gilbert Santos, B.S.E.E. ’83, was named chief operating officer of SunGuard Public Sector, which provides software and processing solutions to the public sector.

Santos previously served as director of operations for wireless communication firm Motorola.

Sheryl Hartman, Ph.D. ’84, professor of psychology at Miami Dade College, has been recognized with

L

ooking for an elegant furniture item that’s also a

’Caneversation piece? With the new Official

University of Miami Old Havana Rocker by Camilo Furni-

ture, you and your guests can be cradled by comfort while also honoring your University. Hailing from Spain, the Camilo family has been known for fine office furniture for more than three generations. The family’s masterful craftsmanship and legacy of pride in working with wood are evident in the rocker’s design. A brass University seal accentuates the rich, stained mahogany wood that frames an intricately woven cane seat and back.

Cost is $750, with all proceeds benefiting the University of Miami Alumni Association.

Quantities are limited, so order today by calling the Office of Alumni Relations at 305-284-2872 or 1-866-UMALUMS.

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ClassNotes

The Dr. Eduardo Padrón Endowed Teaching Chair. This is the third time she has been honored with this award. She is a licensed psychologist, a State of Florida Supreme Court mediator, a disaster mental health counselor for the American Red Cross, and a consultant for the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

Ervin A. Gonzalez, J.D. ’85, is an attorney specializing in civil trial law and business litigation at Miami firm Colson Hicks Eidson who has succeeded in obtaining 23 verdicts in excess of $1 million during his 21-year legal career. He was named one of the “100 Most Influential Hispanics” by Hispanic Business magazine in October 2006.

Nicolas J. Gutierrez Jr., A.B. ’85, a partner at Borgognoni & Gutierrez LLP, is a Gaming Board member of the South Florida Water Management District and president of the National Association of Sugar Mill Owners of Cuba. He and his wife, Mari, have two sons, Nicolas Eduardo and Carlos Felipe.

Renaldy J. Gutierrez, J.D. ’85, of the Miami law firm Gutierrez & Associates, was elected first vice president/president-elect of the Inter-American Bar Association, which comprises more than 60 bar associations, 40 universities and law schools, and 2,000 individuals from the Americas and Spain.

Ginny (Desterle) Rorby, A.B. ’85, has published Hurt Go Happy (Tor Books, 2006), a novel based on the real-life fate of a chimpanzee raised as if she were human.

Dionisio Bencomo, B.S.N. ’86, is chief executive officer for Select Specialty Hospital in Miami.

Antonio N. Fins, A.B. ’86, was named editor of the editorial pages for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

David C. Champouillon, B.M. ’87, is associate professor of trumpet and jazz studies and executive director of the Tri-Cities Jazz Fest at East Tennessee State University.

He will be returning to Miami in April 2007 for a performance at the Arturo Sandoval Jazz Club in

42 Miami magazine Winter 2007

Miami Beach.

Sunitha Narain Bellino, B.M. ’89,

lives and performs in the Albany, New York area with her husband, Peter Bellino, B.M. ’88, and son Anthony.

Diane “Toni” Parras, B.S.C. ’89, M.A. ’99, is the communication specialist for the Locally Managed Marine Area Network, working on various marine conservation projects

in the Asia-Pacific region. She has won an Environmental Leadership Program Fellowship for 2006-2007.

1990s

Lynn (Jurkevich) Cohen, A.B. ’90, M.B.A. ’91, has married Barry Cohen, B.S. ’89. She is director of human resources for Birks and

Mayors Inc. (Mayors Jewelers).

Howard P. Wade, A.B. ’90, was promoted to associate professor of history at Bluefield State College in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Carlos J. Martinez, J.D. ’90, chief assistant public defender for Miami-Dade County, is this year’s recipient of the Florida Public Defender Association’s top honor, the Craig Stewart Barnard Award.

PRINTING PRESS

The Swing of Things

A

professional philosopher and avid baseball fan, Raymond A. Belliotti, M.A. ’76, Ph.D. ’77, explores the intriguing parallels between these two passions in his new book, The Philosophy of Baseball: How to Play the Game of Life (Edwin Mellen Press). Belliotti, distinguished teaching professor and chair of the philosophy department at the State University of New York College at Fredonia, credits the initial inspiration for the book to his stint as a Little League coach while his son was young. In a series of chapters called (naturally) innings, Belliotti mines the wisdom of Western philosophers from Plato to Camus, Socrates to Sartre, to explore how playing, coaching, and viewing America’s national game with greater attention to timeless virtues and values can enhance both enjoyment of the sport and the richness of daily life.

Layers of Lore

B

renda Serotte, M.F.A. ’97, grew up in a rambunctious clan that baked baklava, adored belly dancers, and made good luck charms from garlic cloves and ground foreskins. In the Bronx of the mid-’50s, her extended family of Sephardic Jews (who hailed from Turkey via Spain) was a “minority among minorities” that reveled in its lively lore and fabulous food. Serotte’s colorful

childhood was shadowed by a diagnosis of polio at age 8, eerily fulfilling her fortunetelling grandmother's prophecy of serious illness.

Yet her memoir, The Fortune Teller’s Kiss (University of Nebraska Press), is both humorous and heartfelt—a poignant portrait of a nearly vanished world and an affectionate tribute to the exotic traditions and eccentric personalities that shaped her life. Serotte, a poet and adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University, also is the author of a book of poems, The Blue Farm (Ginninderra Press).

Prayerful Poetry

T

he human side of the holy days is movingly explored in Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas (iUniverse) by Geoffrey Philp, A.B. ’83, M.A. ’86. Philp finds fresh resonance in this ofttold drama by poetically depicting its well-known characters, from Mary and Joseph to the Three Kings, as flesh-and-blood people whose personal and spiritual struggles are as urgent and immediate as our own. The poems are juxtaposed with the holiday season tale of Raymond Allen, a Miami musician and family man who must face down both financial difficulties and false pride to achieve redemption.

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ALUMNI OF NOTE Scott J. Brook, J.D. ’92, is the

Melanie E. Damian, J.D. ’96, a

mayor of Coral Springs, Florida.

He earned 58 percent of votes, defeating the incumbent of ten years and becoming the first Jewish mayor of the city.

Celia Lisset Alvarez, A.B. ’94, M.F.A. ’96, M.A. ’99, has a collection of poetry, The Stones, now available from Finishing Line Press. Her Shapeshifting is the winner of the winter 2005 Spire Chapbook Contest and will be available soon from Spire Press.

Adam J. Ball, B.S. ’94, M.D. ’99, is a physician specializing in robotic surgery at Gulfstream Urology Associates P.A. in Port St. Lucie, Florida. He and his wife, Cristina R. Ball, A.B. ’95, M.Ed. ’97, have two children, Ethan James and Caroline Sofia.

Brian H. Bieber, J.D. ’94, has been named one of Florida’s Super Lawyers for 2006, an honor bestowed to 5 percent of Florida attorneys.

Wendi Rickman, B.S.C. ’94, is a rock disc jockey for two channels on Sirius Satellite Radio. She has appeared on the Howard Stern and Jim Breuer shows.

Serona Elton, M.M. ’95, has joined the faculty of the University of Miami Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music as assistant professor in the Department of Music Media and Industry. While a UM student, she helped found the student-run label ’Cane Records.

From 1995 to 2003 she worked for EMI Recorded Music, North America, in a number of capacities.

In 2000 she received a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School.

Roger A. Hamilton, B.B.A. ’95, is a firefighter in Vermont.

Darren Zemnick, M.B.A. ’95, is human resources director at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells, California.

Christopher M. Coleman, B.B.A. ’96, M.Pr.A. ’97, has joined Avaya Corporation as manager of finance planning and analysis in the Corporate Finance Department in Morristown, New Jersey.

partner with the firm Damian & Valori LLP, was appointed vice chair of the Communications Committee for the Business Law Section of The Florida Bar. Earnest DeLoach Jr., A.B. ’96, announces the opening of his law firm, DeLoach Law LLC, in Orlando, Florida. The firm specializes in serving the needs of businesses, including commercial litigation, business formation, business contracts, commercial leases, and construction law.

Jill Levy, J.D. ’96, was elected a Broward County Court judge. She also is a traffic court magistrate.

Frank M. Auer, B.S.C. ’97, launched 185 Creative, LLC, in New Jersey to produce promotional and training videos. Recent projects include the 150th anniversary of the YMCA and the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Jay D. Dorfman, B.M. ’97, M.M. ’03, received his Ph.D. in music education from Northwestern University and is assistant professor of music education at Kent State University in Ohio.

Pedro Valente, B.B.A. ’97, M.B.A. ’00, and James Robertson, B.B.A. ’98, M.B.A. ’01, run Valente Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, a martial arts academy in Miami with more than 700 students. They recently trained soldiers of the Florida National Guard in techniques to safely approach civilians in Iraq without pointing a gun.

Daniele Gordon, A.B. ’98, M.B.A. ’01, is president of PrePaid Mortgage Group Inc. Julie D. Luengas, B.S.N. ’98, is an R.N. consultant for the electronic medical record department at Vitalize Consulting Solutions, Inc. Sean M. Sullivan, B.S. ’98, has joined Williams Mullen in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Environmental Section, focusing on compliance counseling and auditing, judicial review of government agency regulations, challenges to actions by government entities, environmental due diligence, and

Stern’s Silver Is a Crown Jewel

A

rt historian Jewel Stern, A.B. ’54, M.A. ’78, grew up in a Miami Beach resonating with zigzags and the sweeping curves of Art Deco design. “It was the dominant aesthetic of my childhood,” she says.

During the mid-1980s, Stern fully asserted her modernist taste at home by disposing of her traditional wedding silver, an act that left her awkwardly bereft of serving pieces at a subsequent dinner party she and her husband hosted.

She was window-shopping on New York’s Second Avenue when an Art Deco-era sterling silver hors d’oeuvre tray caught her eye—the piece that marked the beginning of what would become one of the world’s most significant collections of modern American mass-produced silver spanning the years 1925 to 2000.

This November the Jewel Stern American Silver Collection arrived at The Wolfsonian–FIU in an exhibition called Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, organized by the Dallas Museum of Art (which acquired her collection in 2002). Because few scholarly references existed, Stern built her collection and accompanying archive like a veteran gumshoe: interviewing industry leaders, searching manufacturers’ records, and thumbing through magazine advertisements and patent books. Stern’s award-winning catalog, published by Yale University Press, provides a summary of her meticulous research. “I love the detective work,” she explains.

After receiving her master’s degree in art history, Stern achieved success as a visual artist, photographing, among other things, the hotel towers in Miami Beach as the portfolio Project Skyline. Her work has been exhibited at the Lowe Art Museum and is held in the permanent collection. She recently parlayed her master’s thesis on architect Ely Jacques Kahn into a book coauthored with John A. Stuart, an associate professor of architecture at FIU, published this summer by W. W. Norton.

Stern has personally seen almost every example of modern American silver ever produced. Among the few elusive ones: a pair of “Dorian” candlesticks by the Watson Company, made in 1935. “Maybe one of these days….” For this silver sleuth, it’s only a matter of time.

—Leslie Sternlieb

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ClassNotes

ALUMNI OF NOTE permit transfers for large corporate transactions.

Maria Luisa Taleno, B.B.A. ’98, was hired as controller at G & G Holistic Addiction Treatment, Inc. Carlos A. Batlle, LL.M.E. ’99, was named Professional Advisor of the Year by The Key Biscayne Community Foundation. A partner with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P., Batlle focuses his practice on wills, trust and estate planning, probate and trust administration, and fiduciary litigation.

Luchy Garcia-Gerolomo, B.S. ’99, received a medical degree from Nova Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine. She recently married Dr. Louis Gerolomo and has been named chief resident at Northshore Hospital in New York City.

Rick J. Saggese, B.B.A. ’99, has been recognized as one of the top baseball instructors for developing young players from ages 6 through 18.

2000s

Ileana Espinosa, J.D. ’00, is an

associate at Katz Barron Squitero Faust in South Florida, where she practices commercial litigation, including real estate, construction, and employment law and corporate bankruptcy.

Alejandro Fernandez Jr., M.B.A. ’00, vice president of Remax Realty-Connections, has received the South Florida Business Journal’s “Heavy Hitter in Real Estate” recognition. He also is chief executive officer for Creative Mindworks, a full-service advertising and public relations firm.

Mark S. Bloom, J.D. ’01, M.B.A. ’03, is general manager of Realnet Services of Dallas, a privately held firm that deals in the location, assessment, and funding of investment-grade properties.

Daniel W. Courtney, J.D. ’01, the speaker of his graduating class, has opened his own practice on Brickell Avenue in Miami, specializing in

44 Miami magazine Winter 2007

civil and criminal litigation.

Previously he practiced law at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. He and his wife, Jessica, have two sons.

Elizabeth (Wyman) Mills, B.S. ’02, is a public outreach coordinator at Stonewall Farm, a nonprofit education center in Keane, New Hampshire. She is married.

Keith Bowermaster, M.A.’04, has married Veronica Navarro and recently became the manager of public affairs for Jackson Health System in Miami. He is responsible for the institution’s Web site and public outreach functions and for assisting with media relations, internal communications, and special events.

Zach Lezberg, B.S.C. ’04, has launched www.MY-IN.com, an entertainment career search engine and networking Web site that includes message boards, job postings, industry links, entertainment reviews, and more. Lezberg is one of the founders of UM student performance group Quantum Entertainment.

Jared Morgenstern, B.B.A. ’04, and Lauren Pearl, A.B. ’04, are planning a June 2007 wedding.

Javier A. Ramos, B.Arch. ’04, is vice president of Aaxis Architecture & Design, Inc., in Miami.

Morgana Rolle, B.S.C. ’04, was named public relations assistant for Sandals and Beaches ultra-inclusive resorts in Miami, Florida.

Douglas J. Yannucci, M.B.A. ’04, moved to Columbus, Ohio, to accept a new position as national account manager for R.G. Barry Corp./The Dearfoams Co. He manages Wal-Mart Stores and Dollar General, responsible for 35 percent of company revenues.

Brian Avello, A.B. ’05, is enrolled in law school at the University of Michigan. He previously lived and worked in Japan.

Melanie Rinaldi, A.B. ’05, got married and is training for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in the sport of springboard diving. She trained at UM under coach Randy Ableman.

Jonathan Lord Lives by the Power of Emergence

A

board-certified forensic pathologist who attended medical school on a U.S. Navy scholarship, Jonathan T. Lord, B.S. ’73, M.D. ’78, is now senior vice president and chief innovation officer for Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana. While on active duty in the Navy for 11 years, he served in many prestigious posts, including the Medical Command’s Quality Assurance Division in the Office of the Surgeon General. “When opportunities come by, take them,” he says. “You get so much further in conversations with people when you start out with a ‘yes’ instead of ‘maybe’ or ‘I’ll see’ or ‘no.’”

At Humana, Lord’s responsibilities include designing innovative health plan products that encourage wellness and empower people to navigate the health care system. He also helps create multifaceted research programs, such as the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine–Humana Health Services Research Center.

“People’s lifestyles, eating habits, and longevity are creating a whole host of chronic illnesses,” says Lord, noting “the paradox of abundance.” He says that medication can help but that behavioral changes are more powerful for “living the best life possible.”

Lord is widely published on various clinical and business topics and has received many awards, including the 2002 Karen Coughlin Individual Disease Management Leadership Award. His current board appointments include NeuroMetrix, Stericycle, Kentuckiana Works, and the Kentucky e-Health Board. Among their philanthropic interests, Lord and his wife, Alice, support Louisville’s public parks, the Salvation Army, and the Clifton Center in Louisville, and they have made estate bequests to the University of Miami and to Notre Dame, Alice’s alma mater. Avid golfers, the Lords have a blended family of three boys and three girls.

An adjunct professor of community and family medicine at Dartmouth Medical College, Lord recently guest lectured in University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala’s Health Policy course.

“I’ve lived by the power of emergence versus the power of planning,” Lord says about his transition from clinical practice. “The more comfortable you are making a change, the easier it is to make the next change.”

—Leonard Nash

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*

Virginia G. Jernigan, A.B. ’31 Luis Javier Montero, B.B.A. ’35 Isabel Hanson Mathews, A.B. ’36 Joseph F. Panker, A.B. ’37 J. Garland Wynn Jr., A.B. ’37 Donald Dohse Sr., B.B.A. ’38 Nona Ousley Campbell, B.S. ’40 Clifton E. Hendrick, A.B. ’40 Leland Morris Rees, B.M. ’42 Collins W. Swords Jr., A.B. ’44 Muriel Smith Marshall, A.B. ’46 Louise E. Ray, B.B.A. ’46, M.S. ’70 Charles D. Smith, B.B.A. ’46 Kornelia Taggart, B.M. ’46 R. Eugene Caldwell, B.B.A. ’47 Victor I. Eber, B.B.A. ’47 Nathan Gaines, B.B.A. ’47 Dorothy L. Brown, M.Ed. ’48 John T. Canfield III, B.B.A. ’48, M.B.A. ’69 William T. Frantz, B.Ed. ’48 Barbara Garfunkel, M.Ed. ’48 Stanley W. Platkin, A.B. ’48 Roger L. Saxon, B.B.A. ’48 Patricia Ann Uhlman, A.B. ’48 Sylvan B. Burdick, J.D. ’49 Thomas W. Egan, B.S. ’49 Phil C. Gallagher, B.B.A. ’49 Lt. Thomas Dow Roper, B.B.A. ’49 Roger K. Tallaksen, B.S. ’49 William K. Chester, J.D. ’50 Gordon D. Coventry, B.B.A. ’50 Mary Lou Crombie Porlick, B.S. ’50

Evelyn I. Deeves, B.Ed. ’50 William W. Evans Jr., J.D. ’50 John A. Hegarty, A.B. ’50 Norman E. Kumin, B.B.A. ’50 John S. MacLeod, B.S.C.E. ’50 Anthony P. Manginelli, B.B.A. ’50 Alice Ruth Meyer, B.Ed. ’50 Hon. William J. Piquette, J.D. ’50 Marjorie K. Plummer, M.Ed. ’50 Henry R. Schenerman, B.B.A. ’50 William Gerard Slater, A.B. ’50 Edwin H. Smith, B.Ed. ’50, M.Ed. ’51, Ed.D. ’62 Carolyn Sudakow Fyvolent, A.B. ’50 Henry L. Thomas, J.D. ’50 Frank J. Thomiszer, B.S.I.E. ’50 Robert H. Weber, B.B.A. ’50 Richard O. White Sr., B.Ed. ’50, M.Ed. ’62 Joseph Bern, J.D. ’51 Donald C. Biller, B.Ed. ’51, M.Ed. ’55 Leo M. Chadwick, B.Ed. ’51 Michael A. Constantino, B.B.A. ’51 Herbert W. Damstetter, B.B.A. ’51 John M. Dyer, J.D. ’51 Edward Nash Mathews Jr., A.B. ’51 Marco Piazza Jr., B.B.A. ’51 Edmund Andrew Preston, B.B.A. ’51 Marcel C. Schiess, B.S.E.E. ’51, B.S.M.E. ’51, Edward Tickner, B.B.A. ’51 Ann Callahan Carroll, A.B. ’52 Michael John Churella, B.B.A. ’52

Ann Nichols Doll, B.Ed. ’52 Paul B. Fink, B.B.A. ’52 Thomas Gillespie, B.B.A. ’52, M.B.A. ’57 Thomas L. Hanley, A.B. ’52 Stanley Haves, J.D. ’52 Herbert J. Muirhead A.B. ’52 James M. O’Grady, B.Ed. ’52 Sheldon H. Seamon, B.B.A. ’52 Richard L. Seidel, J.D. ’52 Gene Wesley Seyler, B.Ed. ’52 Norman Basil Smith, J.D. ’52 Gloria Joan Zimmerman, B.S. ’52 Patrick Vincent Cappello, A.B. ’53 Charles W. Duff, A.B. ’53 George Franklin Garver, B.B.A. ’53 Jerry Geraldi, J.D. ’53 Eugenia Horne Parker, A.B. ’53, B.S. ’56 J. Cail Lee, J.D. ’53 Joseph P. Lefere, B.B.A. ’53 John H. Payne III, J.D. ’53 Walter J. Rhodes, B.B.A. ’53 Wallace E. Richter, B.Ed. ’53 Carroll Shelor, B.B.A. ’53, M.S.P.H. ’82 Rita Speisman Robbins, B.Ed. ’53 Robert G. Tardif Sr., J.D. ’53 Hyman (Hank) Aronson, B.B.A. ’54 Donald I. Chinsky, B.B.A. ’54 Francis Anthony Happl, A.B. ’54 William C. Lesster Jr., B.B.A. ’54 Ellen Marshall Lyddane, B.Ed. ’54

Robert A. Rosof, B.B.A. ’54 Marvin P. Schneider, B.B.A. ’54, M.Ed. ’59 Humbert V. Arcamonte, A.B. ’55 Barbara Bannen Teel, B.B.A. ’55 Nan Buckland Johnson, B.Ed. ’55 Joseph G. Headley Sr., J.D. ’55 Donald G. Hiers, B.B.A. ’55, M.Ed. ’58 L. Philip Lizotte, A.B. ’55 Janet M. Martin, B.B.A. ’55 Jean E. Carlton, B.Ed. ’56 Leonard F. Case, B.S.M.E. ’56 Robert Everette Christie, B.Ed. ’56, M.A. ’60 Carolyn Lucille Grigg, B.M. ’56, M.M. ’57, Ph.D. ’77 William D. Groman, A.B. ’56, M.S. ’57 Herbert Clinton Hess Jr., A.B. ’56 Samuel W. Kreis, B.B.A. ’56 S. Frank Leis, B.B.A. ’56 Stephen Arthur Mundy, B.B.A. ’56, B.S.E.E. ’69 Claire Nelson Crosley, A.B. ’56 Robert Joseph Shea, A.B. ’56 Aaron Siegel, B.B.A. ’56 James C. Bayens, B.B.A. ’57 Mila M. Begun, A.B. ’57 William C. Coulson, B.B.A. ’57 Houston Crosley, A.B. ’57 John Hanlon, A.B. ’57, M.S. ’58 Charles Randall Leach, B.B.A. ’57

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Winter 2007 Miami magazine 45

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ClassNotes

Judith Suzanne Lopez, B.B.A. ’57 Roberta Gianni Molinaro, B.Ed. ’57 Alfred R. Pettengell, B.B.A. ’57, M.B.A. ’58 Doris E. Kennett Pomerko, B.M. ’57, M.M. ’63 Ferdinand Requate, A.B. ’57 Ronald S. Scherfer, B.B.A. ’57 Nick W. Stieglitz, B.S.C.E. ’57 Julian W. Bournier, A.B. ’58 Corneil V. Davidson, M.Ed. ’58 William R. King, M.B.A. ’58 Maj. Robert W. Burns Jr., B.S.E.E. ’59 Virginia D. Campbell, B.Ed. ’59, M.Ed. ’63 Mary Kathryn Hammock, B.S. ’59 Ellen Weicker Kummerlen, B.Ed. ’59 Emmett A. Moran, J.D. ’59 Robert L. Kelley, M.S. ’60 Lillian Phyllis Medler, B.B.A. ’60 Rocco W. Pace, B.S.A.E. ’60 Don Alan Richter, A.B. ’60 Robert J. Sax, B.B.A. ’60 Albert A. Simmons, M.Ed. ’60 Bruce Dean Thomas, B.S.E.E. ’60 Philip Lee Alexander, B.Ed. ’61 Donald E. Cunningham Jr., B.Ed. ’61 Flor Franklin Flook, B.Ed. ’61 Edson F. Gallaudet II, B.B.A. ’61 Bernard Goldstein, B.Ed. ’61 Robert James Rowlee, A.B. ’61 Mary J. Barkheimer, B.S.N. ’62 Alex Michael Bromir, M.Ed. ’62

James P. Hayes, A.B. ’62 Patsy Dale Mason, M.Ed. ’62 Theodore J. Maureau III, B.B.A. ’62 Helen G. Anderson, A.B. ’63 Paul Berger, B.B.A. ’63, J.D. ’66 Richard Fisher, B.B.A. ’63 Vincent J. Petti, M.A. ’63 Frank W. Rom, B.B.A. ’63 Earl F. Stout, A.B. ’63 Ruth Belknap Howard, B.S. ’64 Ingrid E. Friedman Bigman, B.B.A. ’64 Ollie Mae McQueen, B.Ed. ’64 Frederick M. Niebuhr, B.B.A. ’64 Selma Fisher Rubin, A.B. ’64, M.A. ’66, Ph.D. ’72 Walter J. Woodman, A.B. ’64 Morton R. Blau, A.B. ’65 Richard A. Hickox, B.Ed. ’65 Jerry Eugene Kendall, B.B.A. ’65 Sam Matlin, B.B.A. ’65 Allan A. Smith, A.B. ’65 Edward Thomas Udut, A.B. ’65, M.Ed. ’68, M.A. ’70 Ford F. Anderson, M.A. ’66 Ronald T. Coles, A.B. ’66 Robert J. Patterson, M.D. ’66 Robert B. Rubin, M.D. ’66 Evelyn J. Shea, M.Ed. ’66 Bruce E. Telander, J.D. ’66 Ann Marie Ackourey, Ph.D. ’67 Moses Alter, M.Ed. ’67 Bruce Warren Fader, M.D. ’67 Susan Rosenthal Laurence, B.Ed. ’67 Richard La Grange, A.B. ’67

Remembering Robert Kelley Robert L. Kelley, M.S. ’60, associate professor in the University of Miami Department of Mathematics, died on July 15, 2006, at the age of 69. Specializing in functional analysis and geometry, he joined the department in 1964 and was associate chairman since 1989. Kelley was an avid naturalist and environmental activist, as well as a dedicated supporter of music and the visual arts. More than 200 friends attended a celebration of his life on August 20 at the Tropical Audubon Society, of which he was a past president. On September 9 the University of Miami community honored him by planting a rare, native tree called the Mexican Alvaradoa in the Gifford Arboretum and hosting a harpsichord concert in the Maurice Gusman Concert Hall.

46 Miami magazine Winter 2007

Manuel F. Ledon, C.T.P. ’67 Larue Storm, M.A. ’67 Gerald T. Tracy, Ph.D. ’67 Isabel Alzola, C.T.P. ’68 Joanna T. Fenstermacher, M.Ed. ’68, Ph.D. ’72 Josefina Gonzalez-Machado, B.Ed. ’68 Samuel M. Hollander, B.B.A. ’68 Guillermo Sostchin, A.B. ’68, J.D. ’70 Patricia A. Thornburg, M.Ed. ’68 Harold Leroy Royer, M.B.A. ’68 Dennis Joseph Carney Jr., A.B. ’69 Georgia Esther R. Cash, A.B. ’69 Peter H. Evertz, A.B. ’69 Bruno Gavica Jr., B.B.A. ’69 Laura N. Reynolds, M.Ed. ’69 Richard Paul Sjostrom, B.S. ’69 Arleen Rosalind Williams, M.Ed. ’69 Hon. Linda Dakis, A.B. ’70, J.D. ’74 David Feldman, A.B. ’70, J.D. ’73, LL.M.I. ’77 Arthur D. Fried, M.B.A. ’70 Candido Hoyos, M.D. ’70 Marc Steven Orloff, B.Ed. ’70 Paul Stanley Osborn, A.B. ’70 Leandro Juan Ramos-Ledon, M.S. ’70 Rod L. Taylor, A.B. ’70, J.D. ’73 Ethel S. Gordon, M.Ed. ’71 Phyllis Paulson Hallberg, M.Ed. ’71 Albert Carl Hieber, A.B. ’71 Jeffrey Lee Sussman, A.B. ’71 Edwin Arno Toll, M.S. ’71 Jeffrey Joseph Mayer, A.B. ’72 Lorna Lucile Pettijohn, M.Ed. ’72 Charles James Roberts, A.B. ’72 Allan Eugene Ross, M.S. ’72 Douglas L. Stoudt, A.B. ’72 Calixto Maximo Acosta, B.B.A. ’73 Joseph Harvey Bayless, B.B.A. ’73 Otis Lee Boston, M.B.A. ’73 Samuel B. Hornstein, J.D. ’73 Hilda Celina Juan, B.S.Ed. ’73, M.S.Ed. ’79 Leslie Lynn Schreck, B.S. ’73 James A. Weck, LL.M.I. ’73 Jose Alvarez Jr., B.S. ’74, M.D. ’78 Dale Grover Ankney, M.B.A. ’74 Eric Laib Balter, B.B.A. ’74 Bart M. Behar, J.D. ’74 Paul Preston Hinkle Jr., LL.M.T. ’74 Georges P. Dremeaux, B.S. ’75 Debra J. Rosenblum, J.D. ’75 Todd Paul Herman, B.B.A. ’76 Richard Michael Barkett, M.B.A. ’77

Susan Elizabeth Grilliot, B.S. ’77 Donna J. Hildreth, B.B.A. ’77 Michael K. Mulford, M.B.A. ’77, LL.M. ’00 Michael Paul Swire, B.B.A. ’77 William E. Wright, Ed.D. ’77 Warren E. Dutton Jr., B.S.E.E. ’78 Gerald R. Porter, B.F.A. ’78 Randall Joseph Frank, M.B.A. ’79 Susan Jane Kurtz, B.F.A. ’79 Michael Noval, A.B. ’79, M.S.Ed. ’92 Frank J. Pita Jr., B.S.E.E. ’79, M.S.E.E. ’81, M.B.A. ’86 Sharon Saffron Robinson, A.B. ’79 Mark Clayton Taylor, J.D. ’79 William Ramon Lemos, A.B. ’80, J.D. ’83 Henry H. Leung, M.F.A. ’80 Laurette De Smet Wright, B.F.A. ’81 Ray Abbassi, B.S.A.E. ’82, B.S.C.E. ’82 Clifford R. Molina, M.B.A. ’82 Kenneth D. Elmo, B.B.A. ’84 Paul V. Costello, M.B.A. ’85 Wilma M. Willoughby, B.S.N. ’85 Pamela K. Murfin, M.S.Ed. ’86, Ph.D. ’89 Nancy M. Lechtner, J.D. ’87 Miguel A. Martin, J.D. ’88 Juan C. Rodriguez, B.B.A. ’88 Eric T. Anderson, A.B. ’89 Charlene F. Barr, A.B. ’89 John Carbo, J.D. ’89 Francisco A. Carvajal, M.S. ’89, Ph.D. ’92 Eleni A. Monas, A.B. ’89 Gerald M. Watkins, J.D. ’90 Jennifer L. Delphus, B.S.N. ’97 Joel D. Magnussen, M.B.A. ’97 Keith V. Kennelly, M.B.A. ’98 Marcel Lissek, M.F.A. ’98 Charles M. Johnson, A.B. ’99, J.D. ’02 Linda Ferrin Rogers, Ph.D. ’99 Peter J. Iacono, J.D. ’00 Stanley Antonio Phillip, M.B.A. ’00 Michael Andrew Soeldner, B.M. ’00 Glenn W. Edwards, M.S.Ed. ’01 Bruce H. Pasewark, Ph.D. ’01 Jessica Jacklyn Urizar, B.S.C.E. ’01 Benjamin Aaron Rosner, B.M. ’02 Sylvia S. Savitz, M.A.L.S. ’03 Christina Alexis Sabando, A.B. ’05 Michael Jon Barlin, B.S.Ed. ’06 *Based on submissions prior to October 1, 2006

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D a t e

Alumni Event Information 1-866-UMALUMS Sports Tickets 305-284-CANES or 1-800-GO-CANES www.miami.edu/alumni

BOOK December 2006

21-March 4 Jerry Herman Ring

2-January 28, 2007 Lowe

Theatre Brighton Beach Memoirs 22-March 3 Jerry Herman Ring Theatre Broadway Bound

Art Museum Humberto Calzada: In Dreams Awake January 2007 12 UMAA Board of Directors

Meeting, Coral Gables, Florida 29-February 2 Official Class Ring Program Ring Week February 2007 TBD Young Alumni Networking

Reception, Downtown Miami, Florida 9-10 Parents Council Meeting, Coral Gables, Florida 10-April 1 Lowe Art Museum Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum; Art of the People: Inuit Sculpture from the Permanent Collection 15-16 President’s Council Winter Meeting, Coral Gables, Florida 21 Spring Career Expo, Coral Gables, Florida

ALUMNI LEADERSHIP Executive Committee Gregory M. Cesarano, J.D. ’76, President Rudolph Moise, M.B.A. ’94, J.D. ’97, Immediate Past President Jacqueline F. Nespral, A.B. ’89, President-Elect Samuel Ballam, B.B.A. ’72 Vice President Patrick K. Barron, B.B.A. ’75, Vice President William D. Pruitt, B.B.A. ’66, Vice President David L. Wilson, B.B.A. ’82, Vice President Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A.’95, Executive Director

Alumni Trustees Dany Garcia Johnson, B.B.A. ’92 Randall C. Johnson, A.B. ’71 Michael R. Klein, B.B.A. ’63, J.D. ’66

Regional Directors Colin Campbell, M.B.A. ’86 Eric Cheng, B.S.B.E. ’95, M.S.I.E. ’01 Leslie A. Goldsmith, B.S. ’72 Denise F. Grimsley, M.B.A. ’03 Leslie J. Monreal, B.S.C. ’96 Humberto M. Reboredo, B.B.A. ’97 Karl J. Schulze, B.B.A. ’74

Directors Matthew Arpano, M.B.A. ’92 Elizabeth W. Davis, B.S.C. ’91 Wifredo A. Ferrer, A.B. ’87 G. Alex Fraser, B.B.A. ’97 Robert L. Hersh, A.B. ’75, M.Ed. ’77

March 2007 1-4 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament, Greensboro, North Carolina 8-11 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament, Tampa, Florida 14 UMAA Lecture Tour Featuring Provost Thomas J. LeBlanc, Washington, D.C.

Alina Tejeda Hudak, B.B.A. ’82, M.P.A. ’84 Carlos E. Lowell, B.S.M.E. ’94 Nan A. Markowitz, A.B. ’81 Stanley W. Papuga, B.B.A. ’67 Carmine Parente, B.S. ’86 Suzanne A. Perez, J.D. ’00 Irwin P. Raij, B.B.A ’92 Richard J. Roberts, B.B.A., ’74 Joshua B. Spector, J.D. ’02 Stanley B. Thornton, B.S.I.E. ’81

Student Representatives Annette Ponnock Jessica Gentile

Club Leaders and Alumni Contacts Atlanta Joy Rowland, B.S.C. ’91 404-367-6206, joy.rowland@fitzco.com

Baghdad/Operation Iraqi Freedom Lewis Byrd, A.B. ’04 sketch_um@hotmail.com and Raymond Lavado, B.B.A. ’92, M.B.A. ’96, rlavado@aol.com Bahamas Wendy Wong, M.B.A. ’96 242-362-4572 wwong@lyfordcay.com Boston Kelly Geisinger, A.B. ’01 857-998-1392 kelly_geisinger@yahoo.com Brasilia Luana Matos, A.B. ’00 (55)613244-2322 luanamatos@brasilia.com.br Broward County Shawn Everett, A.B. ’95 954-523-7043, psych1973flt@aol.com

Chicago/Northern Illinois Stan Papuga, B.B.A. ’67 312-236-6405, spapuga@kropik.net Dallas Lauren Kohn, B.B.A. ’04, 972-898-8266, dallascanes@gmail.com

14 Senior Showcase for the UM Department of Theatre Arts, Laurie Beecham Theatre, New York, New York 27 UMAA Lecture Tour Featuring Provost Thomas J. LeBlanc, Orlando, Florida 29 Frost School of Music Concert, Carnegie Hall, New York, New York

April 2007 5 Official Class Ring Ceremony,

Coral Gables, Florida 11 UMAA Lecture Tour Featuring Provost Thomas J. LeBlanc, Atlanta, Georgia 18-28 Jerry Herman Ring Theatre On the Town May 2007 3 UMAA Annual Awards and Recognition Reception, Coral Gables, Florida

Shaman Transforming into Mother Bear with Cubs, part of the Arctic Spirit exhibition at the Lowe.

Denver Alan S. Beshany, A.B. ’66 303-989-5901, abeshany@comcast.net

Detroit Paul Koch, M.D., B.S. ’73 313-274-6579 detroitcanes@yahoo.com Hartford Keri Gilford, A.B. ’93 860-679-6145 kerigilford@hotmail.com Houston Dawn Rodak, B.S.E.D. ’84, M.S.E.D. ’86, 281-897-8726 dawnrodak@letu.edu Jacksonville Adam Feldman, A.B. ’96 904-247-1770 afeldman@paf-lawfirm.com Kuwait Reyadh Alrabeah, B.S.I.E. ’87 965-245-3162, ralrabeah@yahoo.com and Nezar Hasawi, B.S.E.E. ’89 965-484-2075 hasawi@kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw Las Vegas John Knuth, M.B.A. ’98, M.S. ’02, 702-243-1064 john.e.knuth@us.hsbc.com London, U.K. Christian Hasenoehrl, M.B.A. ’95, M.S. ’95 114(0)207-950-4432 christian_hasenoehrl@gallup.co.uk

Los Angeles/Southern California Lee Kaplowitz, A.B. ’69 310-600-8393, lkaplow320@aol.com Louisville Michael Friedman, B.B.A. ’74 502-587-0399 mfriedman@scrapandwaste.com Melbourne, Florida Joseph Jenne, M.S. ’03, 321-752-9061 jjenne@earthlink.net Miami Roberto Castro, B.B.A. ’05 305-599-2600, rcastro@carnival.com

MARCH MADNESS: The Hurricanes gear up for the ACC Tournament.

4 UMAA Board and Alumni

Council Meeting, Coral Gables, Florida 10-11 Spring Commencement, Coral Gables, Florida 15 Blochbusta Golf Tournament, Poolsville, Maryland 24 UMAA and School of Communication Reception and Student Film Screening, Los Angeles, California

New Jersey Bonnie Solomon, A.B. ’73 Larry Solomon, B.B.A. ’71 732-422-8338, caniac329@aol.com New York Janis Block, B.B.A. ’85 516-349-7389, canes85@optonline.net North Carolina-Charlotte James M. Barnett, B.B.A. ’68, 704-227-3219 jim@jimbarnett.com North Carolina-Greensboro David Noble, J.D. ’01, 336-370-8820 dnoble@triad.rr.com North Carolina-Raleigh Daniel Smith, B.S. ’00, M.B.A. ’02 919-450-0532 daniel@coralreefproductions.com Orlando Mark McKay, B.Arch. ’95 407-671-3673, orlandocanes@aol.com Palm Beach Martin Springer, M.B.A. ’74 561-443-0453, marvyone@aol.com Philadelphia Norman I. Segal, B.B.A. ’61, J.D. ’64, 610-645-6358 nsegal@bigfoot.com Phoenix Ben Leis, B.S.C. ’04 480-313-3205, ben.leis@gmail.com Pittsburgh Gretchen Dimeling, B.B.A. ’04, 412-657-4271, gdimeling@yahoo.com Richmond Jan Light, A.B. ’69 804-746-1155 janlight@hotmail.com Rochester Mark Scuderi, M.B.A. ’85 mscuderi@rochester.rr.com San Diego Thomas G. Bauer, A.B. ’75 619-437-6689, bauertg@yahoo.com San Francisco Teka Thomas, B.B.A. ’97 415-515-2339, tekathomas@aim.com Sarasota Chris Clayton, B.S.C. ’94 941-586-7997, cclayton12@aol.com

Savannah Joe Romanowski, B.B.A. ’79 912-232-7979 joe@4collegefunding.com

Seattle Chander Chawla, M.B.A. ’99 425-443-6626 chander.chawla@gmail.com

Southwest Florida Randolph Cash, B.B.A. ’81, 239-262-8569, irnarow@aol.com Tallahassee Thomas Hall, J.D. ’80 850-894-7069, hall@flcourts.org Tampa/St. Petersburg Elizabeth Olson, A.B. ’82, 727-772-6557 canes5@tampabay.rr.com Washington, D.C. Catherine Mund, B.S.C. ’00, M.S. Ed. ’04 wdc.canes@gmail.com Alumni records of the University of Miami are kept strictly confidential.

Directory information is released only to other members of the alumni community unless an alumnus or alumna has requested complete privacy.

On a very limited occasion and only at the approval of the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors, directory information is shared with outside vendors who are in a joint relationship with the University. Should you wish not to release your name to any outside vendor and/or other members of the UM alumni community, please notify the Office of Alumni Relations in writing at P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410.

Winter 2007 Miami magazine 47

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B i g

PICTURE

Faculty Shine in a Whole New Light

Perry Is an All-Around Good Sport

TOM SALYER

S

et amidst a village of weight machines, elliptical treadmills, and schmaltzy exercise contraptions, the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences in the School of Education doesn’t house your typical academic offices. From an office in the far corner of the physiology laboratory, professor and department chair Arlette Perry is multi-tasking—typing an e-mail, advising a graduate student who leans into her doorway, and preparing for an upcoming hiking trip in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains. A lifelong athlete, Perry demonstrates remarkable dexterity in juggling numerous personal and professional pursuits.

“My students see me sweating on the elliptical machine at about a 15 percent incline,” Perry says. “For 45 minutes I’m going through my journals to keep up with the latest research. It’s really important to stay on top of things so I can say to my students: ‘Why don’t you look at the time-course changes in C-reactive protein while training; no one has done that yet.’ ” Most of Perry’s research centers on the health benefits of exercise, focusing on the underrepresented in women’s health and on obesity. She has been the principal investigator of several clinical trials examining the impact of pharmacological agents, including Meridia, on weight loss in both adults and adolescents. Her most recent project, Healthy Bodies, Higher Grades, a program designed to educate public school teachers about how to incorporate exercise into their curriculum, has earned kudos for its inclusiveness and ingenuity. Perry also is a recipient of the University’s 2004 May Brunson Award for her efforts to improve the status and lives of women and a 1989 Florida’s Governor Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of physical fitness.

Born into athletics, Perry’s mother was a swimmer, and her father was a competitive racquetball player. “One of the reasons I got into this field was that I was exposed to sports at a very early age. I performed well, received positive reinforcement, and thrived in so many different types of sports, so that was my ticket.”

Perry nearly won the national collegiate racquetball tournament in 1971, defeating a host of all-male competitors and becoming the first woman ever to enter, let alone reach the finals in an all-male sport. A student at the City University of New York at the time, she found herself in the spotlight on page five of the New York Daily News. “Being female, I was a little before my time. We didn’t get the money and support for women’s sports in those days, but it helped me to focus on exercise as a way to promote health.”

Nowadays Perry gets a rigorous workout from playing competitive singles tennis, a fitting metaphor for her work ethic. “When you’re tired after a rally, you have to start up again, and you have to really push ahead your recovery time—and keep working while you’re recovering.”

—Blythe Nobleman

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Robert and Judi Prokop Newman

ALUMNI CENTER UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

Make a Lasting Impression TOM SALYER

A

s a student at the University of Miami, you made your mark on the institution’s growth and character. Now you can do it again. Purchasing a stone paver inscribed with your message supports the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center Capital Campaign and creates a visible and enduring link between you and your University.

Personalized pavers will be showcased in the forthcoming Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center. They are a great way to celebrate a milestone, such as a birthday or graduation, or to honor a special person like a family member, classmate, or mentor.

Reserve your place in history today!

Choose from two sizes: a 4x8-inch paver with three lines of text for a $500 donation, or an 8x8-inch paver with six lines of text for a $1,000 donation. A limited quantity of pavers are available, so call the Alumni Association now at 1-866-UMALUMS or order online at www.miami.edu/alumnicenter.

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Oh, the Places You’ll Go When Sebastian tags along

In the sea of standard Florida license plates, yours can be one that turns heads. The UM plate is available at any Florida tag agency for just $25 above the cost of a regular plate. Best of all, the extra $25 funds University of Miami Alumni Scholarships for UM students. The only requirement is that you must be a Florida resident with a vehicle registered in the state.

So go ahead and let your tag tell the world you’re a ’Cane.

The University of Miami License Plate

University of Miami Division of University Communications Post Office Box 248073 Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1210

UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage P A I D Permit No. 930 Richmond, VA