Veritas, Vol. 37, No. 07, March/April 1995

              Ryder System commits $9 million to new convocation center
A view of the proposed facility. The Ryder Center will be a venue for a variety of events.
University of Miami President
Edward T. Foote II and Ryder System, Inc. chairman, president, and chief executive officer M. Anthony Bums announced this month that Ryder System, Inc. has committed approximately $9 million to the development of the Ryder Center, an on-campus, multipurpose facility.
“This gift ranks among the top ten in the University's history and will enable UM to move forward and begin planning for additional fundraising, design, and construction for the facility,” says Vice President for University Advancement Roy. J. Nirschel, Jr. The center will seat approximately 9,000 for basketball.
“We are grateful for this splendid gift,” says Foote. “A campus convocation center has been a dream here for a long time. Ryder’s generosity brings that dream much closer to reality. On behalf of the University, I express my deep appreciation to Tony Bums, one of our trustees, and our other friends at Ryder.”
Many University events are currently held outdoors or off campus. The
Ryder Center, to be valued at $25-30 million, will provide the University and the South Florida community with new opportunities to present major indoor events while upgrading the current facilities to improve the quality of education for students.
“The Ryder Center will be the largest such facility in South Dade. Beyond its obvious contribution to the University’s athletic program,” says Bums, “the center will be used for a variety of campus activities and conferences, and it will also provide the community with a much-needed facility for a variety of other purposes.”
The Hurricanes are currently one of the few Division I athletic programs in the nation that plays both football and men’s basketball games off campus.
“The Ryder Center will be an important venue for Big East basketball,” Nirschel says.
Men’s basketball head coach Leonard Hamilton appreciates the show of support. “The Ryder Center will be a tremendous boost and guarantee us continued success.”
Adds Feme Labati, head coach of
the women’s basketball team,
“The Ryder Center is the last piece of the puzzle to make Miami basketball among the best in the nation.”
The new convocation center will be built near the Greentree Practice Field and Mark Light Stadium, convenient to Metrorail, the new parking garage, student residences, and current athletic facilities. A site will be selected in a few months.
“By the end of the decade we will have a new facility on campus,” says Nirschel. Currently, there is no university center that hosts a variety of university-wide events. When completed, the Ryder Center could be the future site of commencement, orientation, convocation, lectures, conferences,
NCAA men’s and women’s basketball games, cultural events, career days, and much more.
“This is another wonderful chapter in the University’s continuing partnership with Ryder,” Nirschel adds. Says Ryder’s Tony Bums: “As we look ahead, the Ryder Center will stand here as an enduring reminder of the relationship between the two organizations. ”
Influence of peers key predictor of future drug abuse, sociology researchers find in wide-ranging study
Researchers from the Department of Sociology sounded an alarm to parents in Dade County when their recently concluded study found that the influence of peers is one of the best predictors of experimental substance use among middle school-aged students.
The three-year longitudinal study found that 66 percent of boys entering their freshman year of high school in Dade County have used alcohol,
45 percent have smoked cigarettes, and 17 percent have tried marijuana.
“One of our most important findings was the profound impact of peers,” says Professor of Sociology George Warheit, one of the three principal investigators of the study. “Peer factors are the best predictors of substance use, while family structure was not,” he adds. “Family members have a sense of pride—they respect each other, they confide in each other.” Researchers believe these statistics are a bad sign for the future. Sociologists fear that children who experiment with drugs may grow up to be adults who abuse drugs.
“It conditions kids into believing it’s okay to try more,” says William Vega, a former sociology professor. “The earlier they start, the more progress they make into illegal activity. If we can cut down on early use, presumably we can make a difference.”
The five-year-long project began in 1989 and was funded with a $5 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The project, the largest epidemiological study of its kind ever conducted in the United States, looked at the factors associated with the risk for substance use among children in the sixth to ninth grades. It included all 48 Dade County middle schools and 25 high schools.
The study also involved a broad range of issues including psycho-social development in adolescents, depression, parental conflict, self-esteem, and acculturation.
Warheit, director of the South Florida Youth Development Project, worked with Vega and Rick Zimmerman, another former sociology professor, on the project. Vega and Zimmer-
man left the university over the course of the study.
Among their other findings:
•	During their middle and junior high school years, African-American students were least likely to initiate cigarette smoking, alcohol use, marijuana, and other drug use.
•	Conversely, white non-Hispanic students had the highest usage of drugs in all categories. By ninth grade, 74 percent tried alcohol, 47 percent smoked a cigarette, 22 percent tried marijuana, and 20 percent tried other drugs.
•	Rates of alcohol, cigarette, and other drug use increased dramatically between eighth and ninth grades.
•	No significant gender differences were found for any of the racial/ethnic groups. In fact, a comparison in four middle schools found that girls were experimenting at the same rate as boys.
•	Researchers found no connection to childhood drug use and single parent families. The same held true
Sociology Continued on page 2
Honorary
degrees
announced
Six notables will be conferred with honorary degrees at the University’s general commencement exercises on May 12. They are: Florence Schust Knoll Bassett, award-winning interior designer; Gerald Maurice Edelman, Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist; Carrie P. Meek, U.S. Congress-woman; Gary Stanley Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Cesar Gaviria-Trujilio, Secretary" General of the Organization of American States; and Chaim Potok, award-winning author. Representative Meek will be the commencement speaker. More than 2,200 students are expected to receive degrees, including 1,200 undergraduate, 572 graduate, 309 law. and 138 medical degrees. The commencement site is located on the university" green, just south of the Otto G. Richter Library".
Plan to be there at 7:30 a.m.