FOCUS: University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, Summer 1984

              Edward Thaddeus Foote, Il Inaugurated
James W. McLamore, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Nell Schiffand Charles E. Cobb, Jr., Vice Chairmen, participated in the installation of Edward T. Foote, II as the fourth President of the University of Miami. (Photo by Angela Muir Durruthy)
. . And so we gather at a University of astonishing accomplishment in a city of boundless opportunity astride a fulcrum of continents and peoples, perhaps of eras. There are times when cities take off. There are times when universities take off. When those times coincide, there is the stuff of combustible excitement. We here are at the threshold of such times ...”
(from the Inaugural Address)
On Friday, December 4, 1981, Edward Thaddeus Foote, II was
inaugurated as the fourth President of the University of Miami.
Those who attended the inauguration could not help but be moved by the pageantry. Hundreds of delegates and University of Miami trustees, faculty and administrators in colorful academic regalia marched across campus under bright blue South Florida skies to the tent erected near the Richter Library for the ceremony. This was a day when all members of the University family joined together to look briefly at our progress and to look hopefully to the
future. Students, faculty, alumni, trustees and friends seemed to be infected by the enthusiasm and ambition emanating from President Foote.
In his inaugural address, President Foote faced squarely the problems that threaten the future of our community and our University. However, he spoke also of the conviction that the “ . . .galvanizing of civic leadership and firm purpose in our city . . .” will enable us to overcome such obstacles and become a truly great city.
He spoke specifically of his plans for the University of Miami. He described visiting committees, comprised of trustees, faculty, nationally recognized experts, alumni and civic leaders who will help to evaluate what we are doing and how well we are doing it.
He spoke also of the uniqueness of our geographic location and of the rare opportunities for research, teaching and service provided by our climate and diverse culture.
He spoke of cooperation with the state university system to develop a
North-South Center “. . . devoted to exchanging ideas, technology, research and generally providing a disciplined intellectual focus for improved relations, commerce and understanding between North America and our friends to the south.”
And he spoke of a cooperative industrial research park through which the University can establish new relationships with industry for applied research of interest to high-technology and scientifically oriented companies.
Ambitious plans these, especially since President Foote plans to accomplish these goals while strengthening the core of the University of Miami, the undergraduate program and the College of Arts and Sciences. However, as you come to know the man, as you watch him work and encourage maximum effort from those who work with him, you also come to believe in the probability of their success.
Changes and Challenges
by Dean Arthur W. Brown
In The Education, Henry Adams describes himself as an American born in the nineteenth century with an eighteenth century education to prepare him for living in the twentieth. We may not all agree with Adams’ evaluation of his education at Harvard, but we can learn from his indictment of higher education something of what enters into the thinking of students today.
As an undergraduate leaving college in the heyday of the Great Depression, I had prepared for the good life by majoring in Latin and minoring in foreign languages. And happily so, because I promptly
FOCUS—Spring 1982, page 1