Hosted by the University of Miami Institute for the Americas (MIA) and the Miller School of Medicine, the third in-person meeting of the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Control (GAPCPC) took place from August 1-3 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Fourteen commissioners, including UM President Julio Frenk and ten members of the Commission’s Scientific Advisory Committee, attended the meeting, with representation from Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

A joint project with the Harvard Global Equity Initiative and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the commission has made strides in ensuring that the world has access to palliative care and pain control by integrating these treatments into universal health coverage and increasing global recognition that their provision is an essential element of health systems. The commission’s work is leading toward a featured report in The Lancet, one of the world’s most influential journals.

For additional information on the commission, please visit http://www.as.miami.edu/mia/lancet-commission-palliative-care–pain-control/.

UM News

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (August 22, 2016) — Quiet and calm for most of the summer, the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus bustles with activity once again as thousands of new and returning students have now moved into the residential colleges for the start of the 2016-17 academic year.

About 1,900 freshmen and more than 300 transfer students—many of them accompanied by their parents—moved into Hecht, Stanford, and Eaton residential colleges last week, carrying bags, boxes and other personal belongings. UM President Julio Frenk, beginning his second year in office, as well as Sebastian the Ibis and top administrators were on hand last Wednesday to greet them.

Meanwhile, nearly 2,000 upperclassmen have moved into Mahoney, Pearson, and Eaton as well as the University Village apartments.

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Among the new offerings for students in the residential colleges this year:

• “Meet Your Faculty” hours in the residential colleges, allowing students to connect with residential faculty to discuss academic and intellectual topics and engage in mentoring opportunities;

• a new engagement model implemented by resident assistants and first-year fellows that will provide students with various opportunities to learn, connect with fellow students, and discover University resources;

• Residential Life Night Managers, who will provide outreach regarding safety and serve as a resource to residents in need.

Some residential college areas will sport a new look for students, with the study lounges at Hecht and the exteriors of Eaton and Pearson currently undergoing refurbishment.

Classes on the Coral Gables campus start today.

Annual conference at UM nurtures voices that open minds and deepen human understanding

By Meredith Camel
UM News

UM’s M. Evelina Galang, front left, who helped move the two-week conference to UM last year, meets up with VONA/Voices students for a faculty reading at Books & Books in Coral Gables.

MIAMI, Fla.—Through all the joy, fanfare, and soul-stirring power of a VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation) literary reading, there remains a palpable pain body—one festered through experiences of exclusion as writers of color.

“In the seven layers of your skin are seven centuries of damage that brought you here,” reads author Minal Hajratwala, describing her “wound theory” to a packed theater in Miami’s Little Haiti in June during a VONA/Voices faculty reading. “What’s exhausting is to always cover up the wound.”

Faculty readings were among several free events open to the public during the two weeks that UM hosted VONA/Voices, the only multi-genre conference in the country for writers of color. M. Evelina Galang, director of the UM Creative Writing program and a long-time VONA/Voices faculty and board member, helped move the annual conference to UM from California last year.

“This year, we had a record number of applicants, so Miami, Miami, Miami!” says Diem Jones, who cofounded VONA/Voices in 1999 with fellow authors Elmaz Abinader, Junot Diaz, and Victor Diaz.

Of this year’s 520 applicants from around the world, 150 were selected for workshops in fiction, poetry, memoir, LGBTQ narrative, young adult, and more. All VONA/Voices faculty are “high profile writers committed to social justice, excellent teachers, and who mirror the population we’re trying to reach,” Abinader explains. Among this year’s 14 faculty members was poet John Murillo, a VONA/Voices student in 2003 and visiting assistant professor in the UM Creative Writing program from 2011 to 2012.

In addition to strong writing, VONA/Voices seeks students who think deeply about what it means to be a writer of color as well as those with limited options for craft development. The greatest impact of the conference, Abinader says, is having “a place to feel safe, where no one is judging them based on the stories they access.”

“It’s supportive and nurturing, it builds trust, and it digs deep into their soul,” says Jones, noting that each workshop typically goes through a full box of tissues in a week. “We tell them, ‘Don’t come if your wall is up.’ ”

In his first trip outside of Cuba, Oscar Elias Biscet received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President George W. Bush and the keys to Coral Gables from Mayor James Cason, formerly the chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba.

By Barbara Gutierrez
UM News

Noted Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet holds a copy of Cuba’s 1940 constitution, which the Castro regime abolished.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (June 30, 2016)—Holding a black and white photo of President Barack Obama shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro, noted Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet condemned the U.S.’s rapprochement with the Cuban government, saying countries that “defend democracy should serve as examples.”

“How can you shake hands with an assassin?” Biscet asked at a June 29 press conference held at the University of Miami, referring to Raul Castro’s bloodied history, which includes ordering hundreds of firing-squad executions at the onset of the Cuban revolution led by his brother.

“When you see the faces of Fidel and Raul Castro you are not only looking at their faces, but at the faces of Stalin and Hitler, and they symbolize terror and death,” said Biscet, a physician who spent years in Cuban prisons for his advocacy.

During the hour-long press conference at UM’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, the founder of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights reiterated his longstanding belief that the Cuban regime was a dictatorship built on “illegitimacy.” As he noted, the Castro government abolished the 1940 Cuban Constitution, which, inspired by the U.S. Bill of Rights, granted basic human rights and freedoms to its citizens.

“The Cuban people want a complete change,” he said. “They do not want an evolution with this dictatorship. They want to be free.”

Biscet was introduced by Coral Gables Mayor James C. Cason, who, in presenting Biscet with the keys to the city of Coral Gables, called him “the true hero, one of the most principled, determined members of the opposition in Cuba.”

As head of the Cuban Interest Section in Havana during the early 2000s, Cason met Biscet and his wife, Elsa Morejon, and often tried to intercede on his behalf with the Cuban government.

Now 54, Biscet made his first trip abroad to speak out against the repression in Cuba, and to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President George W. Bush for his dedication to advancing human rights and democracy in Cuba. Bush awarded Biscet the medal in absentia in 2007, while he was in prison. Biscet accepted the nation’s highest civilian honor at a ceremony at the George W. Bush Center in Dallas on June 23.

Although repression in Cuba persists, Biscet said he felt the dictatorship is nearing its end because internal opposition is well defined and most Cubans are beginning to lose their fear of the government.

As a sign of the changing times, he noted that his Project Emilia, a petition initiative calling for the end of communism on the island, was gaining momentum. In what is a risky act in Cuba, about 3,000 Cuban citizens have signed the petition, giving their names, addresses, and identity card data.

UM News

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (June 3, 2016) — The Frost Wind Ensemble is one of nine ensembles from around the country selected through a blind audio recording adjudication process to perform next March at the College Band Directors National Association Conference in Kansas City’s renowned Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. “This year was particularly competitive in part due to the location,” said Robert Carnochan, the ensemble’s director and conductor. Guest solo artists, including Frost School of Music faculty Margaret Donaghue, on clarinet, and Svetoslav Stoyanov, on percussion, will join about 60 students for their performance.