Veritas, Vol. 22, No. 06, November 16, 1981

              The Inauguration
Days of mvolvemeut. • • times of tribute
The University of Miami will inaugurate Edward T Foote II as its fourth president on Friday, Dec. 4.
The ceremony culminates months of detailed planning by a University committee representing faculty, alumni, administration, trustees, students and the UM’s office of public affairs.
A three-day celebration, Dec. 3-5, includes an inaugural concert, a luncheon, the convocation with processional, several receptions and a dinner-dance, all on the Coral Gables campus.
The planning actually started in June of 1980 when Dr. Henry King Stanford, indicated he would retire by the end of the 1980-81 academic year after serving 19 years as UM president.
Cyrus Jollivette, director of public affairs at the UM, and Susan Bonnett, associate director, contacted their counterparts at Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve, American and Columbia universities, among others, where recent inaugurations had been held.
They discussed with them how best to plan for a successful event. Materials were solicited from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the American Council on Education and the Public Relations Society of America to assure that the most current literature was reviewed.
They were told inaugurations were difficult to plan but "well worth doing and worth doing well,” and that the biggest benefit to a school was the academic recognition it received from the event.
Inaugurations are not a tradition at UM. Only one of its three former presidents, J. EW. Pearson (1952-1962) had one. Neither Bowman E Ashe, the first president, nor
Stanford chose to have one when they took office.
At first, President Foote was hesitant about an inauguration, but he was persuaded that a pause for ceremony would benefit the University. President Foote agreed that "we could use the occasion to consider where we’ve been and where we re going.” He said he is "looking forward to it enthusiastically.”
Jollivette said, "This type of event has a distinct academic character It involves the whole campus community—students, faculty and alumni—in a very serious, meaningful way.”
The date was set after lengthy considerations involving the weather; other events in the community, examination schedules, and commitments of faculty and administrators. In August, the Committee set the date of Dec. 4—timed to coincide with the end of the first semester Classes will be suspended that day, the last day of classes. The ceremony will take place where President Foote wants it—in the academic area of the campus—on the green near the Ashe Administration building and the Otto G. Richter Library, just north of the Whitten Student Union.
The convocation and the Inaugural Dinner-Dance on Dec. 5 will be under a blue and white-striped tent, HO feet wide, 200 feet long and 30 feet high which can accommodate some 2,600 people. Following the formal ceremony on Dec. 4, the tent will be rearranged and decorated for the Saturday evening celebration.
Since it is traditional that delegates of sister institutions participate in college inaugurations, the UM invited colleges and universities from across the country and abroad to attend. At press time, approximately 150 institutions have appointed
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The buildings housing the School of Business Administration received the 1981 Excellence in Architecture award from the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects. The $5-million complex was designed by the firm of Boerema, Bermello, Kurki & Vera, Inc. Construction began on the building in March of 1979-The buildings are named for George W. Jenkins, founder of Publix Super Markets whose $2.5 challenge gift began the building fund and for Elsa and William Stubblefield. Mr Stubblefield served as a trustee of the University.
Music to tlicir ears
Invitations, reply cards and envelopes dominated the development affairs conference room as the Inauguration committee tackled the task of inviting hundreds of people to the Inauguration’s many events. Mrs. Dori Simpson and Mrs. Gwen Gain (standing) supervised temporary workers and volunteers involved in the project.
Photo by Angela Durruthy
Some 120 faculty and student musicians —like pied pipers—will draw marchers in the Inaugural Procession to the mammoth tent where Edward T Foote II will be invested as UM’s fourth president.
The 36-voice choir and the 79-member symphony orchestra under the direction of UM Conductor David Becker, will perform the processional, recessional and selections including the Alma Mater and National Anthem.
This outdoor musical scenario on the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 4, however; is not without its technical challenges. "Singing (and playing instruments) in a tent is like singing into a cotton ball,” explains Don Oglesby, choir director "The tent absorbs the sound and the performers cannot hear themselves, which poses an interesting challenge to stay in tune and in time.
"The folks at Florida International University and Miami Dade Community College have kindly loaned us their choral shells, sound baffles as they are technically called, which will envelope us and reflect sound out to the audience and back to us,” Oglesby adds.
On Thursday, Dec. 3, the Inaugural Concert will also salute President Foote at 8 p.m. in the UM’s Gusman Concert Hall. Some of the very best of the School of Music’s performing groups will team up to honor and entertain guests.
The 50-member Symphonic Wind Ensemble will perform under the direction of Dr Alfred Reed, who has invited the
Brass Choir; led by Jerry Peel, the Percussion Ensemble, headed by Fred Wick-strom, and the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonium Men’s Chorus, directed by Brian Busch and Oglesby, to join the Wind Ensemble in concert.
There will also be a guest conductor from Tokyo, Tbshio Akiyama. Robert Reinek will accompany the Men’s Chorus, students Carl Albach and Scott Thornburg, will perform trumpet solos, and Gloria Geer will be featured on clarinet.
Reed welcomes the occasion to herald President Foote and his family, as well as the Christmas season, with a Miami premiere of his recent composition "A Christmas Intrada.”
The one movement piece in five sections is the grand finale to a program which also includes "The Sinfonians,” by Clifton Williams, the late chairman of the UM department of music theory and composition; "Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” by Johannes Sebastian Bach; "Concerto for Two Trumpets and Winds,” by Antonio Vivaldi; "Dies Natalis,” by Howard Hanson, the late head of the Eastman School of Music, with Akiyama conducting; "Celebration Overture,” by Paul Crestón, with Orlando Cora-Zeppenfeldt, Ensemble assistant conductor; "Nocturne,” by Alexander Scriabin, and "Suite of Old American Dances,” by Robert Russell Bennett.
Altogether; more than 200 musicians from the UM School of Music—one quarter of its enrollment—:will participate in inaugural festivities.