Category Archives: U.Miami

The highly reliable folks at US News have given the University of Miami another bump in the rankings, raising it to 47, and vaulting it above its in-state rivals. The local booster rag, the Miami Herald, duly pens a very favorable local story, Once derided, University of Miami basks in now-lofty status.

For all the USN rankings' lack of science, there is something real going on here. In fact, there are two sets of things.

Locally, “the U” has made enormous strides in the past decade — new faculty being hired in the departments are smart and industrious, SAT scores are way up, there is a great sense of optimism.

Equally significantly, the cash-poor state of Florida has been starving its public universities, and that as much as anything may account for their declining USN scores.

Indeed, the parlous condition of public higher education around the country is, I suppose, another argument for the legitimacy of private education if the private schools are better able to weather hard times: they keep us from eating all the seed corn. Of course, the counter-argument is that if elites had to send their children to the state system then they would take better care of it….

The Israeli press describes it as, American VIP humiliated at airport:

Donna Shalala, who served as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services for eight years under Clinton and is currently the president of the University of Miami, was held for two-and-a-half hours at Ben Gurion Airport during which she underwent a humiliating security debriefing because of her Arab last name — all this despite the fact that her hosts notified the airport ahead of time that she is a VIP.

The fact that Shalala arrived in Israel as part of an official delegation of the heads of universities fighting against the academic boycott against the Jewish State also seemed not to help her.

Shalala, 69, was born in the US to Lebanese immigrant parents.

Steve Clemons has some thoughts about this at The Washington Note.

As he points out, what Shalala says she went through is what many panic-ridden conservatives in the US want to inflict on our travelers — ethnic and racial profiling.

The law school has done an effusive writeup announcing my (temporary) chair: UM Law Awards Silvers-Rubenstein Endowed Distinguished Professorship to A. Michael Froomkin.

The following popped up when I logged into UM’s employee website yesterday:

Members of the University community are asked to read these important new safety guidelines.

As part of efforts to help ensure the safety of the UM community, the University has adopted a new protection strategy for on-campus incidents with the potential for loss of life or bodily harm. After extensive research among peer institutions, the
University of Miami Police Department has recommended a “STAY in Place” approach as the best safety practice, as opposed to a campus-wide lockdown.

The key components of the STAY strategy are:

S: Secure your area, lock doors and windows, close blinds, prevent suspect from accessing victims.

T: Take cover, hide, stay out of sight.

A: Advise others so that they can take steps to protect themselves; await further information.

Y: You must take measures to protect your safety. Police will be busy with the actual response to the incident and will not be able to direct your personal actions unless you are actively involved.

Under the STAY strategy, all buildings and organizational units would use existing emergency plans and, at their discretion, allow others to access their facilities to seek shelter. It is expected that a large number of people would seek shelter-in-place in classrooms and major buildings on the campuses. Any decision to lock down buildings would be made on an individual and localized basis within the framework of managing the overall incident. There are special situations, such as clinical care facilities on the medical campus, for which lockdown would remain a clearly defined strategy that can work in conjunction with STAY guidelines.

Individuals who are outdoors on campus in an emergency situation need to make the best personal safety decision they can based on common sense, situational awareness, immediacy of the threat, and availability of nearby facilities that may
provide shelter-in-place options.

Translated into English, I think this means I, other faculty and staff, and all the graduate and undergraduate students (almost all of whom are also adults), are on our own in an emergency, but at least the cops won’t be distracted by trying to shoot me if I don’t stay under my desk. Given that they push the emergency button fairly often, I think I’m just fine with that.

I do find it a little ominous how the phrase “lockdown” has migrated from prisons to K-12 and is now it seems common parlance for treatment of staff and students in universities. I guess neighborhoods are next.

Today is, was, graduation day for the class of 2010. The ceremony went well. We had excellent speeches from Larry Tribe, and student speaker Brandon Thompson. If you want, you can view the video.

I went, marched and sat, and now I'm home resting up from my labors. Sitting is hard work.