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Convocation 2018:Let's celebrate the best of MiamiIt’s only a few days until first-year students arrive and move in, classes start and we’re launched into another exciting semester. I hope you’ll join us on Friday morning, August 24, as we pause for what I hope will be one of the highlights of recent years at Miami – Convocation 2018. Wil Haygood, acclaimed author and journalist and Miami Class of 1976, will debut his new book, called Tigerland, anchoring the first-year reading program for the Class of 2022. Following Convocation at 9am, Renate and I will host a reception at Lewis Place from 10:30am-12:30pm. All are welcome, and please register if you plan to join us at the reception. I have been looking forward to August 24 for months; now it is here. Let’s make Convocation the first of many great Miami moments this year. We’ll have a lot of special visitors on campus, so please arrive on Western campus next to Kumler Chapel by 8:45am.
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Three things I want you to know ...Creating action from campus climate survey: At the end of spring semester, we received the initial findings of a comprehensive campus climate survey from Rankin & Associates, our consultant. We have now received the full report and I am pleased to start assembling a task force of members of the Miami community who will curate the findings. I will charge the group with identifying three areas where Miami can take targeted actions that will address specific concerns and improve the experience for students, faculty and staff. We will announce the members of the group soon. Thank you to everybody who participated in the climate survey. I value your input and your contributions that make Miami a special place. Remember – you are Miami.
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| Enhanced Career Services coming this fall: Miami’s Center for Career Exploration & Success stands ready to partner with our students as they think about their careers and professional development. As you know, Miami has long excelled in preparing students for productive careers, but we are expanding our efforts to adapt in this fast-changing, technology oriented global marketplace. From the day this first-year class arrives on campus, we are offering more services earlier to enhance a lifelong partnership with our Miami students.
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| Let's celebrate 50 years for Miami Regionals: Five decades after starting to offer classes in Hamilton, Miami Regionals will celebrate the occasion September 15 with a series of community events on the Hamilton campus green. We are One Miami – strong connections across our Oxford campus and regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown, plus the Voice of America Learning Center in West Chester – all dedicated to one mission and purpose. We are innovating to give students the skills and academic background they need to become workforce and civic leaders, and we are partnering with local governments, businesses and non-profit institutions to supplement the talent and technical expertise they need to thrive.
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Now let's meet a few members of our Miami family
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Staff - Erik SorensenErik Sorensen has lived in student residence halls for years (he lives in Etheridge Hall now), and occasionally still gets a knock on the door late at night.
“I see students at their best, and I see students at their worst,” says Sorensen, assistant director of residence life, who has been at Miami for seven years. “For most of our students, the academics aren’t the problem. It’s the personal stuff. It’s trying to figure out who you want to be. Are you the person you want to be?”
Sorensen – sorry, Dr. Sorensen – grew up in Oregon and just completed his Ph.D. at Miami in Student Affairs and Higher Education. He’s one of a legion of Miami staff ready to welcome students back to campus this week.
“I thought I was going to teach history,” he says. “I realized that this was an opportunity to help students connect and get accustomed to college.”
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Student - Adrian TexidorAdrian Texidor arrived in the United States to play junior college baseball in 2014. Today, he is one semester short of graduating from Miami in Sports Leadership & Management, and hoping for a career in coaching.
“That was my dream, to play college baseball, Division I,” says Texidor between workouts at the Hayden Family Baseball Complex this summer. “I knew it was going to be a good opportunity to keep playing baseball.”
Texidor is doing a lot more than that. With the help of his teammates, he’s worked to raise money and supplies for people in his hometown of Guayama, Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact in 2017. The power is back to most of the island, but not all.
And thanks to his support system at Miami, his English skills are good and getting better.
“A lot of my teammates, my professors, my academic advisers, they helped me a lot,” he says. “They also taught me how to grow as a person. I know it’s going to help me in the future too.”
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Faculty - Robin VealeyRobin Vealey remembers one tournament early in her stint as a college basketball coach in Oregon, with a trophy at her feet, wondering, “How did that happen?”
“I was just so interested in studying that,” says Vealey, now into her 35th year at Miami as a professor of Sport Psychology. “Coaching was fun, but it wasn’t enough, and I got so intrigued by the mental aspect of sports.”
Vealey is working with three undergraduates on the effects of self-confidence, burnout and mental skills training on athletic performance over 25 years.
“To the lay person laying on their couch, they attribute all the success to raw talent,” Vealey says. “That’s just not true.”
Vealey often speaks on the “The Achieving Mentality,” including a trip to South Africa later this fall to talk about lessons to be learned from American youth sports. She says mental performance training can be valuable for people in professions from the military to performing arts to business.
“These mental skills I’m talking about now,” she says, “they really are life skills.”
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