UM President Donna Shalala pushes university to environmental awareness, by gimleteye

This weekend the Society of Environmental Journalists was hosted by the University of Miami. The SEJ has a hard enough time getting its message through to media executives (no one attended, from the Miami Herald), but what seems notable is the way that under President Donna Shalala there is glasnost on the environment, a sense of the University of Miami picking up the environmental baton-- ignored by city's leaders for so many decades.

Historically in Miami, academics and scientists have shied away from taking stands that might appear to be overly "environmental". (It is too late, for scientists to hide behind the cloak of agnostic invisibility.) And that was a shame, during a time of desperate need.

Mayor Manny Diaz spoke at the SEJ dinner hosted by President Shalala. It was an OK speech, but what was more impressive was Shalala pacing in the background, uniquely engaged among a long list of past UM presidents who did nothing on the environment.

Like most of Miami, the university's leadership had been in the environmental dark ages for decades.

At UM, an anti-environment bias prevailed in places like the school of communications, for instance, mostly due a parochial, small town mentality that kept Miami and its university shadowed by powerful economic interests who profit from exploiting natural resources; whether sugar barons, rock miners or production home builders.

Scientists and faculty employed by the university knew better than to stick their necks out, towards advocacy. For the most part the attitude has been: to get along, go along. And going along meant, let's not stir things up where it involves the Everglades.

It's been frustrating that in South Florida, where the competition between exploiters and natural resources is so vivid, that the region's academic institutions have been so loathe to engage from the top, down.

In a press release on Earth Day last April, Shalala said, "The University of Miami is recognized for preparing students to be environmental thinkers and responsible citizens of the world." If it is recognized, Shalala bears most of the credit.

In its massive construction and operating budgets, UM is establishing green building principles as a core goal--including LEED certification for the UM Miller School of Medicine and the new Biomedical Research Building.

Who is to quibble, if advocacy for the environment is a project that President Shalala is pushing from the inside, out. In her leadership, she too is proving a force of nature.