University of Miami

         

University of Miami

The University of Miami (informally referred to as UM, U Miami, Miami and The U) is a private, nonsectarian research university located in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. As of 2014, the university currently enrolls 16,774 students in 12 separate colleges/schools, including a medical school located in Miami's Civic Center neighborhood, a law school on the main campus, and a school focused on the study of oceanography and atmospheric sciences on Virginia Key, with a research facilities at the Richmond Facility in southern Miami-Dada County. These colleges offer approximately 115 undergraduate, 104 master's, and 63 doctoral of which 59 are research/scholarship and four professional areas of study. Over the years, the University's students have represented all 50 states and close to 150 foreign countries. With more than 14,000 full and part-time faculty and staff, UM is the sixth largest employer in Miami-Dada County.A group of citizens chartered the University of Miami (UM) in 1925 with the intent to offer "unique opportunities to develop inter-American studies, to further creative work in the arts and letters, and to conduct teaching and research programs in tropical studies."

 They believed that a local university would benefit their community. They were overly optimistic about future financial support for UM because the South Florida land boom was at its peak. During the Jim Crow era, there were three large state-funded universities in Florida for white males, white females, and black coeds in this accord, UM was founded as a white, coeducational institution.The University began in earnest in 1925 when George E. Merrick, the founder of Coral Gables, gave 160 acres  and nearly $5 million, ($67.2 million, adjusted for current inflation) to the effort. These contributions were land contracts and mortgages on real estate that had been sold in the city. The University was chartered on April 18, 1925 by the Circuit Court for Dade County. By the fall of 1926, when the first class of 372 students enrolled at UM, the land boom had collapsed, and hopes for a speedy recovery were dashed by a major hurricane. For the next 15 years the University barely remained solvent.

 The construction of the first building on campus, now known as the Merrick Building, was left half built for over two decades due to economic difficulties. In the meantime, classes were held at the nearby Anastasia Hotel, with partitions separating classrooms, giving the University the early nickname of "Cardboard College The Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine campus, located in Miami city proper in Civic Center, trains 1,000 students in various health-related programs. It consists of 68 acres (280,000 m2) within the 153 acres (620,000 m2) University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center complex. The medical center includes three UM-owned hospitals: University of Miami Hospital, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Anne Bates Leach Eye Hospital. Jackson Memorial Hospital, Holt z Children's Hospital, and the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center are also a part of the medical center and are affiliated with UM, but are not owned by UM.[64] The heart of this campus is "The Alamo" – the original City of Miami Hospital, which opened in 1918, that is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2006, UM opened the 300,000 sq ft (28,000 m2), 15-story Clinical Research Building and Wellness Center. In 2009, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, nine-story Bio medical Research Building, a 182,000 sq ft (16,900 m2) laboratory and office facility, opened to house the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute and the Miami Institute for Human Genomics. UM has started to build a 2,000,000 sq ft (190,000 m2) UM Life Science Park adjacent to the UM medical campus.

These additional Gold LEED certified buildings are being built by Oxford Science & Technology, a private developer, on land leased from UM. The Medical campus is connected to UM's main campus by the Miami Metro rail with direct stations at University Station for the main campus, and Civic Center Station for the medical campus.On December 1, 2007, the University purchased the Cedars Medical Center, renaming it as the University of Miami Hospital. Situated in the Miami Health District, the hospital is close to the Jackson Memorial Hospital, which has been used by the UM students and faculty to provide patient care for many years.Starting in 2004, the Miller School began offering instruction on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. MD candidates were admitted to either the Miami or Boca Raton programs and spent the first two years studying on the selected campus and the last two on the main campus in Miami. In April 2005, the Boca Raton program was expanded to include a third clinical year in Palm Beach County. In 2010, when Florida Atlantic University made plans to establish their own medical school, no future classes of the regional campus were accepted.

 The last class to complete the first three years of training in Boca Raton is the Class of 2013.There is no on campus housing for students of the Miller School of Medicine in Miami or Boca Raton. The Miami and Boga Ramon campuses charge identical tuition, with a lower tuition for in-state students.Since 2005, UM has a "Green U" initiative which includes LEED certification for buildings and the use of biofuels by the campus bus fleet. UM established the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. As a part of the Abess Center, UM launched the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program to educate students on the importance of protecting the marine environment.In 2008, UM replaced the chiller plant on its Virginia Key campus to improve its carbon footprint. UM also planted mangroves, sea grape trees, and other dune plants on Virginia Key to protect its sand dunes and to protect the campus from storm damage. UM received a "C+" grade on the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card and a "B-" for 2010 for its environmental and sustainability initiatives.