A Momentum2 gift from T. Kendall “Ken” Hunt, B.B.A. ’65, will endow a full scholarship in perpetuity for the running back position on the UM Hurricanes football team.

To read the story, click here.

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This past fiscal year was the University of Miami’s second-biggest fundraising year ever. Strong support from the ’Cane community totaled $180 million, with year-over-year increases at every school and college and a ten percent increase overall. Widespread engagement is also a hallmark of UM’s Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami. As of January 9, 2014, the campaign reached $1,240,444,816, now at 77.5 percent of its $1.6 billion goal. Donor counts reached 133,684, including 38,570 alumni who have given $218 million. UM parents have given $102 million, while $205 million has come from planned giving and $30 million from UM faculty and staff, proving that those who work at the U give to the U. Already Momentum2 contributions have enabled 44 endowed student scholarships, 20 endowed chairs and professorships, and 17 new or renovated facilities to advance research and enhance the campus experience.

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Planned simulation hospital could lead to safer practices

State-of-the-art simulation exercises are already part of the curriculum at the School of Nursing and Health Studies. The R. Kirk Landon Challenge will help fund a top-notch nursing facility devoted to such training.

A prominent challenge gift from a South Florida philanthropist will help the School of Nursing and Health Studies build one of the nation’s first education-based facilities dedicated to simulation training. The R. Kirk Landon Challenge will match all donations of $50,000 or more, up to a total of $1 million, toward the construction of a five-story, 39,000-square-foot facility to be used to replicate the real-life flow of activities in a clinical practice and hospital setting.

Landon and his life partner, Pamela Garrison, share a dedication to UM’s nursing school and its innovative health care education and research. Garrison, a retired recovery room nurse, is the school’s Momentum2 campaign co-chair and has volunteered in multiple leadership roles at the school. “The School of Nursing and Health Studies has a powerful vision for improving health care through advanced education and research,” says Landon. “What we accomplish together will have widespread impact today and for generations to come.”

The simulation hospital will enable students and professionals to work with standardized patient actors and simulators that mimic detailed symptoms and respond to interventions. Interdisciplinary teams of nurses, physicians, physical therapists, and other health care professionals also will use the facility to research patient safety protocols and test new health care products. Celebrating its 65th anniversary, the nursing school continues to be at the forefront of health care innovation. Most recently the school received a federal grant to launch Florida’s first anesthesia doctoral degree—one of only 16 such accredited programs in the nation aimed at addressing a national shortage of nurse anesthetists. For more information call 305-284-1892 or email [email protected].

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UM Dedicates Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence

The Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence had its dedication in October 2013.

Renderings of the Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence were like Xs and Os on a chalkboard to Maurice Hagens when he first saw them in 2010 as a high school football recruit out of Riverview, Florida.

Today, those renderings are a gleaming new reality, and Hagens, now a senior fullback for the Miami Hurricanes, couldn’t be more ecstatic. “During my recruitment, the coaches would tell us about the Schwartz Center and show us drawings,” recalls Hagens. “Now, to finally see it come to fruition, it’s just amazing.”

Dedicated on October 4, 2013, the 34,000-square-foot Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center, part of the Isadore Hecht Athletic Center, will serve the University of Miami’s more than 400 student-athletes with expanded training facilities and resources such as a new academic center with computers, study rooms, and a 140-seat auditorium.

A lead gift directed by father and son pair Theodore G. and Todd G. Schwartz from their family foundation made the $14.7 million center possible; so did the generosity of many other donors, including 400 who made gifts to a Schwartz Center brick campaign.

“It takes your breath away,” lead donor Todd G. Schwartz says of the Paul J. DiMare Gallery of Champions. “It’s really a grand entrance to a grand building.” Photo by Jenny Abreu

Father Theodore’s passion for the U dates back to 1964, when by chance he came across a UM football game on a Chicago-area TV station. “I grew up in a sea of Notre Dame fans. One day, for some reason, they televised a University of Miami game, and I was captivated at 10 years old by the old Orange Bowl, and seeing the palm trees by the scoreboard,” he says. “I’ve been a Hurricanes fan ever since.” Two decades later he watched in person as the Hurricanes won the first of five national football championships. Though he never attended the U, he considers it a “very unique place” that embodies the values his family holds dear.

In 1999 he and his wife, UM trustee M. Christine Schwartz, made a similarly transformational gift to build a new facility for UM’s nursing school.

Son Todd thinks the new athletic facility brings UM toe-to-toe with larger, state schools. “We thought it was imperative that for Miami to compete going forward in the future, it would need a facility that was representative of the University of Miami,” Todd says.

Designed by AECOM and built by Moss Construction, the Schwartz Center sits on the north side of the Hecht Athletic Center, a facility that also ushered in a new era for the ’Canes. Blake James, director of athletics, considers the Schwartz Center “an investment in our student-athletes that will pay dividends for years to come.”

It has already helped recruiting efforts, says men’s basketball coach Jim Larrañaga. Prospects who see the facility “realize that they’ll be in a very healthy and safe environment to do their studies,” he says.

Football offensive line coach Art Kehoe, B.B.A. ’83, calls the Schwartz Center “the Taj Mahal” of college athletic facilities. “That it helps our recruiting is the understatement of the century,” says Kehoe, a 2002 inductee in the UM Athletic Hall of Fame. “It’s just spectacular.”

—Robert C. Jones Jr.

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Citizen ’Cane

Bullish on Books in the Internet Age

Photo courtesy Books & Books

Some might consider Mitchell Kaplan, M.S.Ed. ’80, a sort of Warren Buffett of the book world. The independent bookseller has survived and even thrived in an industry that has felled corporate giants like Borders.

The Miami native is the first to admit his entrepreneurial path defied conventional wisdom. “I took no business courses,” he says. Instead, after attending law school, Kaplan earned a master’s degree in education and became a public school teacher. But he says the lessons learned from teaching 250 10th graders for three years were invaluable to his future ambitions—all of the planning and strategizing, in particular, plus, “to be a teacher is to be somewhat of a salesperson.”

Of course, another key ingredient was passion. “We have a quote in our stores by [the author Jorge Luis] Borges that reads, ‘I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books,’” says Kaplan. “I feel that way.”

Launching a flagship Books & Books store in Coral Gables in 1982, he worked to create a place where communities of book lovers could congregate. There are now six stores, including one in the Cayman Islands and the Hamptons. Books & Books hosts 700 author readings each year, while another 400 writers appear at the Miami Book Fair International, the festival Kaplan co-founded 30 years ago and whose board of directors he chairs.

An active alumnus and parent, Kaplan also co-chairs the Momentum2 UM Libraries Campaign, and he and his wife have twin sons attending the U.

Though a leader in his field—Kaplan has served as president of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and received the National Book Foundation’s 2011 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community—he admits there have been plenty of obstacles. In the early days, one big challenge was convincing prominent publishers that Miami was about more than prescription drugs and sunbathing. These days, it’s a different struggle. “When I started in 1982, 50 percent of books were sold in [independent] stores like mine. Now it’s only 8 percent,” Kaplan says. “There were 7,000 ABA members; now there are 1,400.”

But despite the numbers, Kaplan remains as bullish as ever on the power of the word. “I think we are going to go through a golden age of writing,” he says, “and a golden age of book buying as baby boomers retire and have time to read.”

—Robin Shear

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At $1 billion and rising, Momentum2’s impact is building University-wide

The Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, the Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center expansion, and the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Orbital Vision Research Center (renderings clockwise from top) are just a few of the exciting projects funded by Momentum2’s 100,000-plus generous donors.

Just over a year from its public launch, Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami is indeed breaking through. It passed the $1 billion mark toward its $1.6 billion goal in October, with contributions reaching every corner of campus. Recent highlights include a $10 million gift to create a vision research center, a pledge to dramatically expand the Toppel Career Center, and a matching fund to give law scholars a boost.

The gift from Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid, founder and chairman of Rashid Engineering, who lost vision in one eye as a child, is the largest the nation’s top-ranked ophthalmology program has received during Momentum2. It will establish the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Orbital Vision Research Center in the Miller School of Medicine’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Vision Research Center.
The Bascom Palmer Eye Institute surgeon Al-Rashid credits for preserving the sight in his other eye, David T. Tse, M.D. ’76, professor of ophthalmology and holder of the Dr. Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid Chair in Ophthalmic Plastic, Orbital Surgery and Oncology, will be the center’s director.

The Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center will be housed in a new building on the Gables campus that doubles its current 6,000-square-foot size, thanks to a gift from UM trustee Patricia Toppel, B.Ed. ’58, M.Ed. ’59, along with a significant Parents Council contribution. “I am honored to continue to support the important legacy Harold and I created 17 years ago,” Toppel said. “The new center will be much more integrated into the overall learning experience and help prepare our students for a globally competitive job market.”

As chair of the School of Law’s Momentum2 and Visiting committees, UM trustee Wayne Chaplin, B.B.A. ’79, J.D. ’82, launched the Chaplin Challenge. The dollar-for-dollar match on donations to new or existing Miami Law scholarships through 2016 has raised $500,000 to date, with 13 new scholarships created.

The sweet sound of student support is also in play at the Frost School of Music. Groundbreaking took place in February on the Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, made possible by longtime UM philanthropists Patricia Louise and Phillip Frost, the latter a UM trustee. The state-of-the-art, environmentally sound complex will include 82 chamber music and teaching studios, replacing the antiquated Foster Building practice rooms, which have needed updating since the 1970s, Patricia Frost said at the event. “Well, we’re doing more than updating,” she added. “And I’m proud to have my name on your educational building.”

For more information about the campaign, visit miami.edu/momentum2.

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Young Alumni Program encourages recent grads to ‘be a force’

Ian Chambers, B.S.M.A.S. ’12, left, is among the many UM graduates of the past decade passionate about contributing to his alma mater’s new Young Alumni Program. Photos by Jenny Abreu

With the University of Miami’s newest graduates blazing a trail toward bright futures, the UM Alumni Association wants them to know it is keeping pace. In January it launched the Young Alumni Program.

“We want to create a reciprocal relationship with young alumni,” explains Kate Lake, director of Alumni Programs, Young Alumni, and Student Advancement. “We’re excited to engage this unique group in ways that both are relevant to them and position them for future alumni leadership roles.”

UM alumni of the past decade, typically ages 21 to 35, now number around 23,000 and represent a new era—all earned undergraduate degrees during President Donna E. Shalala’s tenure, which began in 2001. This year Shalala is embarking on a first-ever national tour devoted to them.

Internet-savvy sisters Adrienne, B.B.A. ’09, and Stephanie, B.B.A. ’11, Vendetti, founders of HowtoBeaRedhead.com, see value in this targeted outreach. “As students we were trained to think outside the box,” they say. “This program allows young alumni to continue innovating, networking, and building relationships together.”

One of the first Young Alumni initiatives is the GOLDstein (Graduates Of the Last Decade) Family Challenge. Sandy, B.B.A. ’81, M.B.A. ’85, and Cindy, B.S.N. ’79, Goldstein will give $25,000 to need-based scholarships if 2,013 young alumni like their son Sean Goldstein, B.B.A. ’12, make a gift to UM by May 31. Plans for a regional challenge are also under way between young alumni in Boston and Washington, D.C. And one anonymous ’Cane has pledged $20,000 to the Schools of Communication and Architecture if the number of gifts designated to those schools from their young alumni goes up 25 percent and 33 percent, respectively, over last year.

“With this challenge, young alumni have the chance to be a real force in the University’s Momentum2 capital campaign,” says Gabe Trieger, B.L.A. ’10, assistant director of Annual Giving, Young Alumni, and Student Philanthropy.

Prominent ’Canes are also taking the lead in developing benefits, services, and events for their millennial peers through the newly formed Young Alumni Leadership Council. “We look forward to bringing meaningful programs, leadership opportunities, and networking outlets to young alumni around the world,” says council member Danny Carvajal, B.B.A. ’08, a former Student Government president. “It’s so important that young alumni become the next generation of alumni leaders—supporting and preserving the future of the U.”

Ian Chambers, B.S.M.A.S. ’12, agrees: “The Young Alumni Program is allowing me to encourage my classmates to support the U, from the sports stands to the far reaches of social media.”

For more information, visit miami.edu/youngalumni.

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