Miami Hurricane, October 22, 2015

              DIG IN: Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs Sergio Gonzalez, President Julio Frenk, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Stuart Miller, President and CEO of Coastal Construction Tom
Murphy Jr., School of Architecture Dean Rodolphe el-Khoury, and Executive Vice President and Provost Thomas LeBlanc break ground Wednesday afternoon for the construction of the Thomas P. Murphy Design Studio
Building. This building will be the result of a donation by Coastal Construction, a major South Florida builder, and will be LEED-certifi ed and feature studios to accommodate more than 120 students.
Giancarlo Falconi // Assistant Photo Editor
T he groundbreaking
ceremony for the
Thomas P. Mur-phy
Design Studio
Building, highlighting the
building’s function and trans-formative
significance to the
School of Architecture, was
held on Wednesday afternoon.
The building is the result
of a $3.5 million gift from
Coastal Construction and
is named after the father of
the company’s president and
CEO, Thomas P. Murphy Jr.
The building will be Leader-ship
in Energy and Environ-mental
Design certified and
feature about 20,000 square
feet of space, including out-door
workspaces. The space
will fit more than 120 stu-dents
and will have a fabrica-tion
lab, state-of-the-art work
stations, a student lounge, a
computer lab, presentation ar-eas
and review spaces.
According to the School
of Architecture’s dean, Ro-dolphe
el-Khoury, the new
building will bring students
together and change the way
professors in the School of Ar-chitecture
teach.
“Through learning by
making, this building will be
the catalyst for the school’s
evolution,” he said.
Groundbreaking
launches School of
Architecture studio
construction
By Jorge Chabo
Contributing News Writer
Former student sues
university, renowned
philosophy professor
By Isabella Cueto
Assistant News Editor
A former graduate student at
the University of Miami is
suing the university for al-legedly
violating her Title IX
rights when handling sexual harassment
allegations she brought against a profes-sor
in September 2012. Monica Morri-son’s
lawyer filed the lawsuit in Miami-
Dade county on Oct. 15 and is also
suing two former university employees,
philosophy professors Colin McGinn
and Edward Erwin.
The lawsuit contains 13 counts
brought against the three defendants,
respectively, and includes civil assault,
breach of fiduciary duty, retaliation and
sexual harassment charges. McGinn’s
attorney, Andrew Berman, said in a
Huffington Post article from Oct. 16
that the professor “denies the claims and
we will vigorously defend against them
in the appropriate forum.” The article
also said Erwin “declined to comment,
citing advice from his lawyer.”
The lawsuit claims that Morrison’s
sexual harassment allegations were first
brought to the university’s attention in
2012, when she was a Ph.D. student in
the Department of Philosophy. Mor-rison
began her studies at UM in the
fall of 2011 and took a class taught by
renowned philosopher McGinn in her
first semester.
As the semester came to a close in
December, the lawsuit claims McGinn
asked Morrison to be his research assis-tant
for the spring semester and she ac-cepted.
The lawsuit states that the two
met frequently throughout the semes-ter,
in addition to their required meet-ings
every Tuesday and Thursday, and
formed a working relationship in which
they sent email and text messages to
each other.
According to Morrison’s account
and message records in the lawsuit, Mc-
Ginn’s messages became increasingly
sexual in nature; he made reference to
his sexual arousal, Morrison’s body and
the novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabo-kov,
in which a teacher has a sexual rela-tionship
with his student, who is a child.
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