No Zebras, a UM student organization dedicated to promoting awareness about sexual assault, is planning a series of events as part of Sexual Assault Awareness month. On April 3 at 6 p.m. in the Stanford Residential College master’s apartment, professionals from local rape treatment centers will lead a discussion and Q&A on the public health issue of sexual assault and what can be done to prevent it.

At the “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event on April 4 at 12 p.m. men and women will walk in heels to raise awareness about sexual assault, rape, and intimate partner violence. For more information, call 305-284-5646 or email Danielle Howard at [email protected].

Family Weekend with the Marlins will be much more than an opportunity to witness South Florida’s Major League Baseball franchise competing in its new ballpark. It will also serve as an occasion to honor the dedication and outstanding work of University of Miami employees.

Toward that end, the University is launching “Hurricane Champions: A Peer Recognition Program,” in which employees will have the opportunity to recognize outstanding colleagues who consistently go above and beyond in their service to the University in three categories: Service Excellence, Teamwork, and Innovation. Honorees and their good deeds will be posted on the “Hurricane Champions” website, a place for all of us to read their stories and share their successes. As an added bonus, all nominees will be entered in a raffle to win prizes during Family Weekend with the Marlins, April 27-29. Raffle prizes include first-pitch opportunities, Marlins memorabilia, and VIP tours of Marlins Park.

Nominations will be accepted through Friday, April 13. Visit www.miami.edu/champions to nominate your Hurricane Champion today.

Taking part in the ribbon cutting ceremony were, from left, Mark Diaz, associate vice president for budget and planning; UM President Donna E. Shalala; Thomas J. LeBlanc, executive vice president and provost; Joe Natoli, senior vice president for business and finance and chief financial officer; Sebastian the Ibis; Chef Rose, owner/operator of GOT Spot Featuring Rose’s Café.

Anxious to sample some of the cuisine from the menu of the University of Miami’s newest dining option, dozens of employees attended the café’s grand opening celebration on March 26, snacking on complimentary cuisine that ranged from mini wraps to small salads. UM officials hope the eatery becomes a popular place for enjoying good food and for making new friends.

“When you come here, I want you to pretend that you’re running for mayor and introduce yourself to each other,” UM President Donna E. Shalala told employees at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for GOT Spot Featuring Rose’s Café.

Read the full story

Women's Commission Breakfast attendees look on and listen as UM President Donna E. Shalala delivers the keynote address "Words of Wisdom for Women."

When University of Miami president Donna E. Shalala was a young college instructor in the early stages of her higher education career, the chair of the department in which she taught told her she would never be granted tenure and that she had embarrassed her male colleagues by publishing more scholarly works than they had produced combined.

Today, years after her first college presidency, a chancellorship at a Big Ten university, and a stint as the longest-serving U.S. secretary of health and human services in history, President Shalala said she still senses discrimination against women. Read the full story

Convincing speeches are central to campaigning for elected office, but do our voices affect how we select our leaders? A newly published paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences shows that men and women vote for male and female candidates with lower-pitched voices. Men and women with lower voices were also found to be perceived as more competent, stronger, and trustworthy. Each of these attributes is known to influence voters.

“Our study asks how voice pitch influences electability and to my knowledge is the first to examine the voices of both male and female candidates,” said Casey Klofstad, associate professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami and corresponding author for the study. “For example, we found that men and women perceive lower pitched female voices to be more competent and stronger. In contrast, only men perceive lower pitched male voices to be more competent and stronger.”

These findings suggest that men and women with lower voices may be more successful in obtaining positions of leadership. The results also raise the possibility that the electability of female candidates could be influenced by the fact that women tend to have higher-pitched voices than men. The study also demonstrates that while people are free to choose their leaders, these choices cannot be understood in isolation from biological influences, according to Klofstad.