Veritas, Vol. 27, No. 03, December 1986

              VOL. 27 NO. 3	FOR THE FACULTY AND STAFF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI	DECEMBER 1986
Professor of Finance William Heusott, followed by President Edward T. Foote (left) and Board of Trustees Chairman James W. McLamore, leads the academic procession.
TheUMat60:
A look back and to the challenge ahead
Editor’s Note: The University’s celebration of its sixtieth anniversary included a special Convocation on the Green Dec 4. Salutations were given by Francis Houghtaling first enrolled student at the UM; Charlton W. Tebeau, Florida historian and professor of history emeritus; Audrey’ Finkelstein, alumna and UM trustee, and President Emeritus Henry King Stanford.
The date also marked the fifth anniversary of Edward T Foote as president of the University. President Foote’s Sixtieth Anniversary Address is reprinted below.
The early morning, then as now, was lumi
nous in that wondrous way of the sub-tropics, the humidity hanging in the still-cool breeze, as this young man, our friend, Francis Houghtaling, left Northwest 95th Street and 12th Avenue in his 1926 Model T Ford sedan after a breakfast, he still recalls, of two eggs, two pieces of white toast and lemonade, drove across town to Coral Gables and arrived early to become the first student to enroll in the University of Miami. It was October 15,1926.
Mr Houghtaling was on time for the historic opening. The University almost was not. Beginning a series of adversities that afflicted its early days, the disastrous hurricane of 1926 had devastated Miami a month earlier. And a few months later, the Florida land boom, on the crest of which George Merrick and his Coral Gables had ridden to feme, burst. It was the harbinger of the Great Depression.
What days those must have been! Led by its first president, Bowman Foster Ashe, the University of Miami, then only a handful of teachers and students, began its legendary trajectory: What guts and drive, as well as vision, those founders had. The history of the University is summarized in your programs, but a few brief highlights will serve to remind us of the exceptional contributions of exceptional people long ago.
On these 260 acres, most donated by Mr Merrick, the founders began constructing the University’s first building, the Merrick Building over there, but. like millions of other Americans in those days, ran out of money and had to stop with just a skeleton completed, settling temporarily instead on Anastasia Avenue in what became proudly known as the Cardboard College.
Through the dismal, fiscally' desperate 1930s the University survived, just barely: Professor Tebeau. from whom you have just heard, reminds us in his fine book on the history' of die University that for 15 years, from the opening in 1926 until the Second VCbrid War it was a “struggle for survival.” Indeed it was. Reading that chapter and other chronicles of the 1930s is a moving reminder to us all never to give up never—and President Ashe never did.
With the Second VCbrid War came the first quickenings of a major true university The Merrick Building still stood as a skeleton, but the University tripled its size. Despite still uncertain times, it opened the Graduate School in 1941 and soon after graduate programs in English, history; botany and zoology; then the marine laboratory' that
was to become in time the world famous Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
In 1944, the University and the City of Miami began discussing the possibility of collaborating to use the Jack-son Memorial Hospital for medical education, a medical center now' the fourth largest in the United States and recently' ranked in a book. The Best in Medicine. as 16th among the top 25 medical centers.
President Ashe’s extraordinary 26 years of leadership ended in 1952, followed by the appointment of the University’s second president. Jayr EW. Pearson, who served during a period of rapidly’ escalating growth until 1962.
By' 1956. half the University’s life ago. the University
with new* buildings. The faculty grew' rapidly' during the 1950s and 1960s, gaining increasing distinction from every comer of the world.
From 1962 until 1981. my distinguished predecessor Henry' King Stanford, led the University through politically turbulent, booming times of national expansion in higher education as it grew and settled and strengthened to become the largest private research university in the southeastern United States.
And so, when the telephone rang in my office in St. Louis. Missouri, almost exactly' six years ago. Trustee Mel Greenberg, with whom I first spoke, and a day' or so later Chairman of the Board Jim McLamore, represented an institution of incredible accomplishments. As the
comprised eight colleges and schools, including the fledgling School of Medicine. This campus blossomed
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