Impact, innovation, excellence, resilience: These hallmarks are prominent in Florida International University’s pursuit of its mission to serve each student and generate knowledge-based solutions. Here are some of the ways philanthropy brings these qualities to life to further the university’s progress to the Next Horizon.
A pioneering program inspired by Alberto Garcia Marrero ’19, MBA ’20 is fostering a new, expansive culture of philanthropy at FIU – one that shatters the traditional perception of philanthropists being older, wealthy, established.
Marrero, a Worlds Ahead Graduate and current law school student (pictured to the right at his summer 2019 commencement ceremony), is the catalyst for and founding member of the Pathway to Philanthropist program. Marrero recalls an impactful experience that helped lead him on this path: how he felt when he was awarded a scholarship.
“I was going to have to take out loans,” he remembers. “I got to school, logged onto my computer and saw that I had this scholarship. It was this sense of relief.”
Marrero wanted to give other students the same feeling. Through the new, innovative program with its personalized approach to structuring an endowment gift, he achieved an impact of nearly $300,000 to fulfill his vision: pay it forward and support first-generation students in the Honors College majoring in international business, as he did. He hopes others will follow suit. “It was an opportunity to be able to start something new within my means that was going to have a tremendous impact.”
The program makes establishing an endowment more accessible by removing a minimum initial gift level, increasing the timeline to fulfill the total commitment, and providing additional flexibility. Donors can achieve a long-term legacy of philanthropy while making an immediate impact.
While the program was inspired by Marrero, it is not just directed to young supporters. The hope is that Panthers and friends of the university from a variety of backgrounds will realize they, too, are able to make gifts far greater than they thought possible through the Pathway to Philanthropist program.
“I want to look back ten or 15 years from now and say, ‘Look at our amazing alumni base, look at what everyone is doing and how they are giving back to FIU.’”
Scholarship support soars
During a record year for fundraising, FIU broke another record: scholarship support.
Fundraising efforts for scholarships have increased considerably over the past decade, growing from $2.65 million in FY09-10 to reach a ten-year high of $12.65 million this past year (including the State of Florida’s match on the First Generation Scholarship Program).
In addition, the number of endowed scholarship funds, which will exist in perpetuity to benefit FIU students, has grown from 185 in FY09-10 to 313 in FY19-20. Among these, endowments for first-generation scholarships, which support students who are among the first in their families to attend college, have increased from just one in FY09-10 to 43 in FY19-20.
The Next Horizon campaign is built on the pillar of student success, along with research excellence; it aims to achieve this, in part, by increasing scholarships and student support. Scholarships are among the most direct ways philanthropy bolsters students. The financial support allows students to work fewer hours and focus more on their studies; it helps them travel to conferences and competitions to present their work and network with professionals; and it provides them opportunities to expand their worldview through study abroad and other experiential learning activities.
Research
Advancing personalized cancer treatment
FIU is advancing the field of personalized cancer treatment through the work of Diana Azzam, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work. Supported by a $400,000 grant from the Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation and in collaboration with Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, the study involves 15 newly diagnosed pediatric patients with sarcomas, one of the most common, aggressive tumors in children and adolescents. Tumor tissue samples are used for functional drug screening and mutation profiling to assess the predictive value of this personalized approach and correlate it with patients’ clinical outcomes. “Our functional precision oncology platform is used to identify efficient drugs to treat childhood sarcomas as well as guide informed decisions for personalized treatment choices,” said Azzam.
Understanding the importance of mangroves
Selena Chavez, a PhD student in the Department of Earth and Environment in the College of Arts, Sciences & Education, wants more people to know mangroves are essential to the health of the Everglades. Her research, funded in part by the Everglades Foundation’s FIU ForEverglades Scholarship, aims to fill important gaps in what is known about these important trees and how they respond to hurricanes. A first-generation American of El Salvadoran parents, Chavez’s work gathers data from the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research program led by FIU to understand how quickly mangroves recover after storms and where they were hit the hardest.
Expansion
Innovating media education
Lee Caplin, founder of Picture Entertainment Corporation, has his eye on innovation at the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts. With a significant gift to the college, Caplin and iSTAR Enterprises created the Immersive Studio for Altered Reality (iSTAR). FIU iSTAR is a state-of-the-art facility that will provide students experiential learning and internship opportunities in extended reality (XR), an industry projected by Goldman Sachs to generate $100 billion in sales by 2025.
FIU iSTAR combines the expertise of research and teaching faculty; the energy and ambition of students; and the knowledge, application, and entrepreneurship of private industry professionals in an incubator-instruction-service model. The program will train FIU students to be the future leaders and visionaries in XR.
Co-founded by Caplin and Travis Cloyd – a film producer, tech entrepreneur, and CARTA faculty member – the facility is currently under construction and will be housed at the Biscayne Bay Campus, home of the School of Communication + Journalism.
Transformational initiative to realize true equity
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other incidents of racial injustice, university senior leadership quickly decided that FIU would take comprehensive steps to combat inequity at the university – a renewed commitment to play a key role in social justice and equal opportunity.
President Mark B. Rosenberg asked El pagnier Hudson, senior vice president for Human Resources and the university’s first vice provost for diversity, equity and inclusion; Delrish Moss, FIU police captain and former chief of the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department; and Valerie Patterson, clinical professor in the Department of Public Policy and Administration and director of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program within the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, to lead the Equity Action Initiative, a core advisory group that consulted with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community leaders to recommend initiatives to enhance equality, dignity, inclusion, and belonging.
In September 2020, the group released its recommendations in a comprehensive report. It proposes a wide range of measures designed to identify and eliminate manifestations of racism, bigotry, and implicit bias, with recommendations to foster enhanced diversity and inclusion for members of FIU’s Black community.
Building for preeminence
The Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs progressed in its evolution to preeminence when groundbreaking was held on October 15, 2019, for phase two of its facility. The new, 80,000-square-foot, multi-story building will house most of the school’s departments and centers under one roof, providing students and faculty more opportunities to connect and collaborate.
The school was named with a landmark gift of $20 million from Ambassador Steven J. Green, his wife Dorothea Green, daughter Dr. Kimberly Green, and the Green Family Foundation. A $12.7 million allocation from the State of Florida enabled building plans to be finalized. It is hoped that the new building will help the school achieve full membership in the prestigious Association of Schools of International & Public Affairs, whose 39 member institutions are considered the world’s leading schools of international education.
“I’d like to see the Green School become a globally recognized school, and I’d like to see the students from the Green School around the world in positions of leadership,’’ said Ambassador Green.
The changing face of campus
A rendering of the Alumni, Conference Center and Hotel
State-of-the-art facilities complement and strengthen first-rate teaching and cutting-edge research – and the Next Horizon campaign is helping to construct new buildings that will drive academic excellence and vibrant campus life.
New structures that will change the ever-evolving face of campus include:
The Alumni, conference center and hotel, featuring a 13,700-square-foot alumni center, will enable expanded programming and services for alumni and students alike. More than 1,000 donors have already made a gift to the Alumni Center Building Fund.
The College of Engineering & Computing will build a technologically advanced, 258,000-square-foot facility with active learning classrooms to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curricular reforms, laboratories to accelerate cross-disciplinary research, and spaces to spark innovation and entrepreneurial activity. The state has appropriated $38.9 million toward construction of the building.
The Trish and Dan Bell Chapel will be a nondenominational gathering place for worship, contemplation, spiritual strengthening, and understanding. The 13,000-square-foot facility is named after the generous philanthropists who conceived of and made the lead gift for the chapel.
CasaCuba, a cultural center and think tank, will attract scholars, policymakers, business leaders, students, and the community. The forthcoming 50,000-square-foot facility will be a singular venue for the discussion and study of Cuban affairs and celebration of the Cuban experience.
