Veritas, Vol. 46, No. 07, April 2004

              3A noted tribal law professor urges
presidential candidates not to ignore Americas native people.
4 Students at the College of Engineering
are using cutting-edge technology to invent new tasks for robots.
5 Six faculty members in fields ranging
from medicine to communication are honored for their scholarly activity.
Volume 46 ■ Number 7 ■ April 2004	For the Faculty and Staff of the University of Miami
www.miami.edu/veritas
UM LAUNCHES PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE WEB SITE
The University has launched a comprehensive presidential debate Web site that features information on everything from UM’s Debate Lecture Series to faculty
analyses and comments on the upcoming event.
The site,
“A Celebration of American Democracy and Diversity: The Presidential Debate at the University of Miami,” also includes information for debate-related events, a student involvement section, visitor information, a calendar of events, and links to such sites as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, the University’s primary underwriter for the event.
The site also teaches visitors about the history of political debates, featuring facts such as the first presidential debate to be televised nationally. See it at www.miami.edu/debate04.
A NEIGHBORLY ‘FIT’:
UM DONATES FITNESS EQUIPMENT TO SOUTH MIAMI
City of South Miami residents will find it a lot easier to stay fit, thanks to the University of Miami.
UM has donated $100,000 worth of fitness equipment to the city’s new Multipurpose Center at Murray Park, 5800 S.W. 66th Street. The equipment includes cardiovascular, weighttraining, and total body conditioning machines to help residents achieve their complete physical fitness goals.
During a recent dedication ceremony at the center, President Donna E. Shalala received a proclamation from South Miami Mayor Mary Scott Russell in recognition of UM’s contribution. UM mascot Sebastian the Ibis, Hurricanes cheerleaders, and UM wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson also were on hand.
Shalala and friends dedicate UM’s gift of fitness.
May commencement exercises will recognize University’s graduating students
Nobel, Pulitzer Prize winners to be honored at UM
Two Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalists, a Nobel Laureate, a physician who fights diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor, and a former astronaut who was nearly marooned in space are among the five distinguished individuals who will be honored at the University’s May commencement ceremonies.
A graduate commencement ceremony will take place on May 13 at 7:30 p.m., while three separate undergraduate exercises will be conducted on May 14, the first starting at 8:30 a.m. The Schools of Medicine and Law will hold their graduation exercises on May 15 and May 16, respectively.
All ceremonies will take place at the Convocation Center, except for the medical school commencement, which will be held at the James L. Knight Center. Here are brief descriptions of the honorees:
Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former director of the National Institutes of Health, will receive an honorary Doctor of Science Degree at the May 14, 8:30 a.m. commencement ceremony for the College of Arts and Sciences.
Varmus shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with J. Michael Bishop for their work at the University of California, San Francisco, on the genetic basis of cancer. Varmus and Bishop demonstrated the cellular origins of the oncogene of a chicken retrovirus, and their discovery led to the isolation of many cellular genes that normally control growth and development and are frequently mutated in human cancer.
In 1993 Varmus was named by President Clinton to serve as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he helped to increase the NIH budget from under $11 billion to nearly $18 billion. Today he is the president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
James A. Lovell, Jr., who will receive an honorary Doctor of Science Degree at the May 14, 12:30 p.m. ceremony for the School of Business Administration and the College of Engineering, became the first man to journey twice
Countdown to commencement: The UM Convocation Center will be the site of the May commencement ceremonies, which will honor five distinguished individuals.
to the moon. He once held the record for time in space with 713 hours and five minutes until it was surpassed by the Skylab flights.
But it is the 1970 Apollo 13 mission to the moon for which he will always be known. The mission was
originally planned for ten days, but the flight plan had to be modified en-route to the moon after a service module oxygen tank exploded, wiping out the crew’s main supply of life-sustaining oxygen and power. Working closely with Houston ground controllers, commander Lovell and fellow astronauts John Swigert and Fred Haise converted their lunar module, Aquarius, into an effective lifeboat to help the spacecraft return safely to Earth.
Lovell’s book, Lost Moon—The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, became the basis for the 1993 movie Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Goldberger will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the May 14, 4 p.m. commencement exercises for the Schools of Architecture, Communication, Education, and Nursing, and the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music. An internationally recognized expert in the fields of architecture, design, and urbanism, Goldberger is the architecture critic for The New Yorker, where he writes the magazine’s celebrated “Sky Line” column.
Previously, he spent 25 years with The New York Times, where he served as architecture critic, cultural news editor, and chief cultural correspondent. In 1984 he won the Pulitzer Prize Continued on page 3
Partnership to enhance Civic Center area
In a move to improve the economic vitality and quality of life in one of Miami-Dade’s largest urban regions, the University and the City of Miami have launched a new initiative to revitalize the Civic Center area.
The initiative, called the Miami Partnership, would transform the Civic Center—an area that features vast medical centers and a courthouse—into a place where people come not only to work, receive world class medical care, and seek help from government agencies, but also to live, raise families, and enjoy a wide range of new amenities and services.
Located just two miles northwest of downtown Miami, the Civic Center has about 30,000 people working at Jack-son Memorial Hospital, the UM School of Medicine, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cedars Medical Center, the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, the State Attorney’s Office, and several other institutions and businesses.
A civic idea: About 30,000 people work in the Civic Center area, including approximately 5,000 UM employees.
“We already work here. It’s living and playing here that’s important to us in creating a community,” UM President Donna E. Shalala said at a news conference announcing the Miami Partnership.
The partnership would pool resources to boost the economic leverage in the area and create jobs. It includes something as simple as laundry service. For example, the School of Medicine’s laundry is currently sent out Continued on page 3