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Pegues to speak at CommencementWe are delighted that Jeff Pegues '92, three-time Emmy Award winner and CBS News correspondent, will speak to 2019 graduates at our spring commencement May 18. Jeff is a proud Miami alumnus who has applied the core values learned at Miami to his life and career. We hope you will join us May 18 to welcome Jeff back to Miami.
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Three things I want you to know ...Board approves budget plan to invest in Miami's future: At its regular meeting February 22, the Board of Trustees approved a five-year budget plan that refocuses our investments to enhance our academic excellence, launch innovative programs that respond to student demand, keep pace with scholarship growth and retain and attract the best faculty and staff. While our financial stewardship remains strong, we must act now to address downward trends that impact enrollment and budgets at many universities. The recommendations of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will set a dynamic course, and we will act together to sustain our historic strengths around our liberal arts foundation and teacher-scholar model, while investing in new ways to prepare our students for the future. The board also approved a new master’s degree program in data and analytics. Enhanced services at the Center for Career Exploration and Success: The Center for Career Exploration and Success is expanding to provide opportunities for first-year students to begin their personal and professional development exploration. This includes online job tools and “career clusters” that expand the horizon of careers for different majors. The center is intensifying opportunities for internships and immersive high-impact experiences, including job shadowing, career trips, alumni events and industry networking. It is funding professional development sessions led by faculty to elevate Miami’s career community. This year, I have partnered with the center to launch the annual Presidential Career Leadership Series, exposing students to workplace topics such as innovation. Just last week, we hosted "Elevate: Diversity & Inclusion Career Institute" to help broaden participants' cultural awareness and career knowledge.
Let's do breakfast: To help move even more great ideas to the forefront as our strategic plan emerges, I am establishing “Breakfast with the President" for small groups of faculty and staff, starting this spring. We are working out the details and will share them soon. We will have an informal agenda around one or more themes to discuss Miami's strategic initiatives and to learn about new ideas, visions and aspirations. Thank you for participating and collaborating. I look forward to discussing our future together.
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Now let's meet a few members of our Miami family
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Student - Christie CurrieTaking advantage of opportunities that life presents has been a hallmark of Miami students. Few have embraced those opportunities as courageously and openly as Christie Currie.
The senior marketing and entrepreneurship major has battled since high school against a rare form of cancer that affects her salivary glands. After surgery and treatment, she is healthier now. Check out this video to see how she is using those experiences to benefit others. She formed Zandaland, a digital platform to help children navigate their own cancer treatments. She has participated in a launch class at the Cintrifuse incubator in Cincinnati, and the idea was a winner at the recent Venture Pitch Competition at the Farmer School of Business.
“It’s all about empowering people through knowledge,” says Currie, who still undergoes a scan several times a year. “I was older than most pediatric patients, and I could barely understand it all … Now I’ve taken these smalls steps, and somehow they've all come together to turn it into this huge opportunity."
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Faculty - Paula SaineWhat will teaching look like in the future as technology advances? Whatever the evolution, Paula Saine is making sure her students are prepared by virtually mentoring students in diverse K-12 classrooms, and in after-school or summer programs.
Saine, a professor of teacher education, has focused her research on digital teaching technologies, including a new book, “Virtual Mentoring for K-12 Literacy Instruction.” She says virtual teaching won’t replace face-to-face instruction anytime soon, but new teachers must adapt to these new and growing teaching platforms.
“They need to learn how to become an effective virtual teacher, as well as how to deliver face-to-face instruction,” says Saine, who has been at Miami for 20 years. “As we find and use different platforms to teach online, the instruction can get better and better.”
Technologies include current standards such as videoconferencing and online chats, with new platforms sure to emerge in coming years. Miami must help lead the important work of developing a network of “virtual teachers,” Saine says.
Saine’s research will continue to investigate the experiences of teacher candidates who use virtual mentoring to help students learn, plus the diverse K-12 virtual field experiences that should be embedded in the curriculum of teacher education programs nationally.
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Staff - Susan HurstThe basics of Susan Hurst’s job as a business librarian in the B.E.S.T. Library in Laws Hall haven’t changed much. Hurst may now receive the request in an online chat room, and deliver the material digitally. But when students need reference material, she helps them find it.
“I still really like helping people,” says Hurst, who graduated from Miami in 1984 and has worked here since 1992. “It’s great when you can find something they need. The assignments change and the resources change, but I continue to help them.”
Hurst started at Miami as a baker in Shriver Center, after arriving here with her husband, management faculty member David Walsh. She eventually earned her master’s degree at Indiana University and returned to Miami libraries. Now she and her colleagues speak to all first-year business students, plus more than 40 sections of upper-level business courses. As the Farmer School of Business has grown, so have her duties.
“It’s just gotten busier and busier,” she says. “I guess we’re a victim of our own success.”
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National champions! Congratulations to Miami's collegiate synchronized skating team for winning the 2019 national championship - that makes 19 national championships! Also, congratulations to the men's swimming and diving team for winning the MAC championship, and to our newest MAC coaches of the year, swimming coach Hollie Bonewit-Cron and diving coach KongRong Li. Bonewit-Cron becomes the first-ever female coach to lead a Miami men's team to a conference championship.
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