By Catharine Skipp
Special to UM News

CORAL GABLES, FLA. (February 6, 2015)—Lawyers involved in the case that determined the due process rights of more than 33,000 Cuban rafters who were intercepted at sea in 1994 and detained at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, will discuss its historic significance during a panel discussion at the Richter Library, Cuban Heritage Collection, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Monday, February 16. The case, Cuban America Bar Association v. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, laid the legal groundwork for the use of Guantánamo to detain enemy combatants after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“With all the seemingly endless talk of whether to close the detention centers at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, it is worth remembering that now is not the first time the base has held a group of people the United States wanted to contain in a ‘rights-free zone,’” said Christina Frohock, a scholar on Guantánamo and detainee issues and a faculty member at the School of Law, who will moderate the discussion.

“The panel will cast a current eye on events before 9/11, exploring two contrasting outcomes of the U.S. government’s housing in Guantánamo camps of more than 33,000 Cuban rafters intercepted at sea in August 1994,” Frohock said.

The participating panelists were all lead counsel in the CABA v. Christopher case in 1994 and 1995 before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami and the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. Haitian refugees, picked up at sea prior to the Cubans, were already housed in Guantánamo camps and later intervened as additional plaintiffs in the case.

• One panelist will be Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, who is one of the country’s leading experts in public and international law, national security law, and human rights. He previously served as legal advisor to the U.S. Department of State, for which he received the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award. He is past dean of Yale Law School, and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor. Koh argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case on behalf of Haitian refugees.

• Joining Koh will be Roberto Martinez, adjunct professor at Miami Law and partner at Colson Hicks Eidson, who successfully served as co-lead counsel in several anti-terrorism cases, including a $188 million wrongful death judgment in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down by Cuban Air Force MiG fighter aircraft. A former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Martinez has extensive expertise in the public and private sector.

• Also participating will be Marcos Jimenez, J.D.’83, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Miami and New York, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida just after September 11, 2001, and on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys; and former president of the Florida Bar and the Cuban American Bar Association, Francisco Angones, J.D.’76, who  is a senior partner at Angones McClure & Garcia. Angones was lead counsel in the Brothers to the Rescue case.

“This is an opportunity for a unique insight into a historic event that helped shape U.S. immigration and national security policies,” said Jimenez.

A reception at 5 p.m. will precede the panel discussion. The event is free and open to the public. CLE credits are pending.

To RSVP, click here.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (December 9, 2014) – Solving differential equations, studying the applications of epistemology, and examining the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance and multidimensional spectroscopy can tax the brain circuits of even the brightest college kids. Fortunately, University of Miami students who have had their heads buried in the books for the past few days got a little relief last Tuesday from a few fury and friendly friends. During the popular Puppies on the Green event, adorable canines of all kinds fetched and frolicked with students, providing the perfect prescription to relieve the pressures and pain of final exams. UM’s Pre-Vet Society organized the K9 love-in, and One By One Dog Rescue, an organization dedicated to rehabilitating, training, and caring for mistreated and abandoned dogs, provided the pooches, all of which were up for adoption.

The pups weren’t the only de-stressors available to students. While some undergraduates and graduates found the solitude of the Richter Library to be the ideal study surroundings, others decided to do a little hanging out in the Palm Court area, relaxing in orange and green hammocks strung between trees while reading textbooks, writing final essays, or just catching a few winks. And on Friday, December 5, ’Canes Night Live, UM’s late-night programming board, held its final ’Canes After Dark of the fall semester—a Winter Wonderland-themed event featuring trucked-in, manmade snow on the Foote Green, hot cocoa, ornament making, and more. View the slideshow below.

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In University Archives, cheerleaders from another era sport an M rather than the now-familiar U.

University of Miami Libraries University Archives’ exhibition, Southern Suns and Sky Blue Water, is on display through January 2014 at the Otto G. Richter Library, and features photographs, fanfare, memorabilia, and publications that reflect student life at the University during the 1960s, 1980s, and early 2000s.

“There is a vibrant history here at UM,” says Koichi Tasa, University archivist and the exhibition’s lead curator. He notes that the exhibition’s title, the first line of the University’s Alma Mater, alludes to the timeless backdrop that unifies University athletics, student activities, and campus events across many generations.

Among the exhibition’s ’60s generation mementos is a vintage photograph of soul music pioneer Ray Charles performing at the UM Homecoming Concert in 1963, just two years after the University officially desegregated the campus. Research Services Supervisor Marcia Heath, a curator of the exhibition, said that Charles’s performance was a catalyst in raising morale among the student body during the racially charged period.

“These materials really show us where we’re coming from…how far we’ve come,” she said, also referring to the transformation in the University’s physical campus. One 1962 photograph of the Richter Library shows the completion of the main floors and stacks addition, which earned a design award by Florida Architect in 1964. The library now houses a print collection of more than four million volumes.

The exhibition, also curated by Education and Outreach Librarian William Jacobs and Special Collections Research Assistant Steve Hersh, includes IBIS yearbook spreads chronicling the evolution of traditions like Carni Gras, where students in the ’60s and ’80s strutted in high gear to embrace the Carnival spirit.

The exhibition even houses traditional fanfare such as a dink, once-required headgear freshmen sported until Miami’s first touchdown, and then tossed into the air. “Like the world, the University is changing daily,” said Cynthia Cochran, director of alumni programs. “The opportunity to visit some artifacts from those periods only enriches [alumni’s] visit back to campus, for some of whom it has been 50 years.”

Since he started at the University Archives in 2007, Tasa has worked closely with the UM Alumni Association. In 2010 artist Jacobina Trump created a mural at the Alumni Center, inspired by collection materials, conveying an unchanging horizon over the many generations to walk the campus. Like the exhibition, it also bears the words Southern Suns and Sky Blue Water. “Those words hit home for us all,” Tasa said.

Charles Eckman

Charles D. Eckman, who launched initiatives and programs that helped dramatically improve the research libraries at some of North America’s top universities, has been named the University of Miami’s new dean of libraries, a role in which he will provide leadership and management responsibilities for the institution’s vast holdings of books, journals, digital materials, and rare collections.

Eckman, who is currently dean of library services and university librarian at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, will assume his new role at UM on December 1. He replaces William D. Walker, who had held the post since 2003 before stepping down last May to rejoin the faculty. Read the full story

Composer, arranger, and pianist Aldemaro Romero was an innovator of Venezuelan music, contributing to its increased visibility on the international scene. Now his works have found a home at the University of Miami. The Otto G. Richter Library recently celebrated the acquisition of 100 original manuscripts and other archival materials from the legendary Venezuelan composer.

Held in May at the Roberto C. Goizueta Pavilion inside the University of Miami Libraries’ Cuban Heritage Collection, the event featured performances of the late composer’s work.

To learn more about the Romero Music Score Archive, which is housed in the Richter’s Special Collections division, please click here.

Pictured at the event are, from left, Esperanza B. de Varona, chair of the Cuban Heritage Collection; Ruby Romero-Issaev, Romero’s daughter; William D. Walker, dean of libraries and university librarian; and Cristina Favretto, head of Special Collections.