University of Miami - History

History

A group of citizens chartered the University of Miami in 1925 with the intent to offer "unique opportunities to develop inter-American studies, to further creative work in the arts and letters, and to conduct teaching and research programs in tropical studies." They believed that a local university would benefit their community. They were overly optimistic about future financial support for UM because the South Florida land boom was at its peak. During the Jim Crow era, there were three large state-funded universities in Florida for white males, white females, and black Americans (UF, FSU, and FAMU, respectively); in this accord, UM was founded as a white, coeducational institution.

The University began in earnest in 1925 when George E. Merrick, the founder of Coral Gables, gifted 160 acres (0.6 km2) and nearly $5 million dollars ($66.3 million, adjusted for current inflation) to the effort. The University was chartered on April 18, 1925 by the Circuit Court for Dade County with an initial Board of Regents chaired by William E. Walsh, a Miami Beach municipal judge. By the fall of 1926, when the first class of 372 students enrolled at UM, the land boom had collapsed, and hopes for a speedy recovery were dashed by a major hurricane. In the next 15 years the University barely remained solvent. The construction of the first building on campus, now known as the Merrick Building, was left half built for over two decades due to economic difficulties. In the meantime, classes were held at the nearby Anastasia Hotel, with partitions separating classrooms, giving the University the short-lived nickname of "Cardboard College."

In 1929, Walsh and the other members of the Board of Regents resigned in the wake of the collapse of the Florida economy. UM's plight was so severe that students went door to door in Coral Gables collecting funds to keep it open. A reconstituted ten-member Board was chaired by UM's first president Bowman Foster Ashe (1926–1952). The new board included Merrick, Theodore Dickinson, E.B. Douglas, David Fairchild, James H. Gilman, Richardson Saunders, Frank B. Shutts, Joseph H. Adams, and J. C. Penney. In 1930, several faculty members and more than 60 students came to UM when the University of Havana closed due to political unrest. UM filed for bankruptcy in 1932. In July 1934, the University of Miami was reincorporated and a Board of Trustees replaced the Board of Regents. By 1940, community leaders were replacing faculty and administration as trustees. The University survived this early turmoil. During Ashe's presidency, the University added the School of Law (1928), the School of Business Administration (1929), the School of Education (1929), the Graduate School (1941), the Marine Laboratory (1943, renamed in 1969 as the Rosenstiel School), the School of Engineering (1947), and the School of Medicine (1952).

During World War II, UM was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a Navy commission.

One of Ashe's longtime assistants, Jay F. W. Pearson, assumed the presidency in 1952. A charter faculty member and a marine biologist by trade, Pearson retained the position until 1962. During his presidency, UM awarded its first doctorate degrees and saw an increase in enrollment of more than 4,000.

The social changes of the 1960s and 1970s were reflected at UM. In 1961, UM dropped its policy of racial segregation and began to admit black American students. African Americans were also allowed full participation in student activities and sports teams. After President Stanford pressed for minority athletes, in December 1966, UM signed Ray Bellamy, an African American football player. With Bellamy, UM became the first major college in the Deep South with a Black football player on scholarship. UM established an Office of Minority Affairs to promote diversity in both undergraduate and professional school admissions. With the start of the 1968 football season, President Henry Stanford barred the playing of "Dixie" by the University's band.

Historically, UM regulated female student conduct more than men's conduct with a staff under the Dean of Women watching over the women. UM combined the separate Dean of Men and Dean of Women positions in 1971. In 1971, UM formed a Women's Commission which issued a 1974 report on the status of women on campus. The result was UM's first female commencement speaker, day care, and a Women's Study minor. Following the enactment of Title IX in 1972, and decades of litigation, all organizations, including honorary societies were open to women. The Women's Commission also sought more equitable funding for women's sports. The University of Miami was the first major American college to award an athletic scholarship to a female athlete; Terry Williams of Homestead, Florida received a golf scholarship in 1973.

From 1961 to 1968, UM leased buildings on its South Campus to serve as the covert headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency's JMWAVE operation against Fidel Castro's government in Cuba. In 1968, after Ramparts magazine exposed CIA operations on other campuses, JMWAVE was moved off the UM campus out of concern for embarrassing the university.

Henry King Stanford became UM's third president in 1962. The Stanford presidency saw increased emphasis on research, reorganization of administrative structure and construction of new facilities. Among the new research centers established were the Center for Advanced International Studies (1964), the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Evolution (1964), the Center for Theoretical Studies (1965), and the Institute for the Study of Aging (1975). Under Stanford, in 1965, UM began to recruit international students.

In 1981, Edward T. Foote II became the school's fourth president. Under Foote's leadership, on campus student housing was converted into a system of residential colleges. In addition, Foote initiated a five-year $400 million fundraising campaign that began in 1984 and raised $517.5 million. He saw the endowment expand from $47.4 million in 1981 to $465.2 million in 2000.

Foote was succeeded by Donna Shalala, who assumed the UM presidency in 2001. Under Shalala, Miami has built new libraries, dormitories, symphony rehearsal halls, and classroom buildings. The university's academic quality and student quality also have improved as a result. During Shalala's leadership of the University of Miami, Miami hosted one of three nationally televised U.S. presidential debates of the 2004 U.S. Presidential election.

Starting in 2002, UM conducted a fundraising campaign titled "Momentum: The Campaign for the University of Miami" that ultimately raised $1.37 billion, the most money raised by any college in Florida as of February 8, 2008 (2008 -02-08). Of that amount, $854 million went to the medical campus. On November 30, 2007, UM acquired the Cedars Medical Center and renamed it the "University of Miami Hospital", giving the Miller School of Medicine an in-house teaching hospital rather than being merely affiliated with area hospitals.

See also: University of Miami 2006 custodial workers' strike

On February 28, 2006, custodial workers at the University of Miami, who are contracted to the university by a Boston, Massachusetts-based company, UNICCO, began a strike prompted by allegations of unfair labor practices, substandard pay, lack of health benefits, and workplace safety. After students began a hunger strike and on-campus vigil, the strike was settled on May 1, 2006. The settlement resulted in a card count which lead to the recognition of the first union-represented bargaining unit at UM. UM raised wages from $6.40 to $8.35 per hour and provided health insurance.

In 2008–09, UM responded to the economic slowdown by tightening expenditures. While its endowment lost over 26.8% of its value, impacting endowment income, the school receives more than 98% of its operating budget from other sources.

In 2011, UM was ranked the nation's most fiscally-responsible nonprofit organization by Worth magazine, in a report issued in collaboration with nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator.