Spotlight On: Julio Frenk, President, University of Miami

Spotlight On: Julio Frenk, President, University of Miami

2022-11-09T13:06:43-05:00November 9th, 2022|Education, Miami, Spotlight On|

2 min read November 2022 Invest: spoke with Julio Frenk, president of the University of Miami, who discussed how the institution is implementing a number of innovations, from academic incubators to cost-saving scholarships. “We will continue to be efficient and sustainable so that money is never a barrier for a student to attain their education goals,” he said.  

What is your perspective on the state of higher education in Florida?

Perhaps outside of healthcare, no industry has seen more long-term structural disruption since the pandemic than higher education. The fact is that many of these changes were already underway, but 2020 accelerated them. The rise of online learning in higher education really took hold in the 2010s, which brought about the innovation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and gave more people more access to top-end professors and courses than ever thought possible. With students learning to work from home, we’ve adapted our face-to-face environment so that classroom time is spent on teamwork and collaboration. In a way, while many universities are bringing technology into the 21st century, the classroom setup is still very traditional, but we are looking to change that. We want our instructors to be less of a “sage on a stage” and instead a “guide on the side” to allow students the opportunity to engage learning materials more critically and independently.   

What is your analysis of the progress of affordability in higher education?

It is one of our biggest challenges. We must continue providing financial aid in the form of scholarships for students of low- and middle-income households. Tied to that is having strong philanthropy to fund those scholarships. It’s our goal by 2025, our school’s centennial anniversary, to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all our students. Now, this doesn’t mean free college, per se. Our scholarships will cover the gap between what the full cost of attendance is and the maximum contribution a family can make. This gives more talented people the opportunity to fulfill their potential and have a great educational pathway that can lead to a rewarding career. So many costs in higher education are fixed, especially labor costs, and it is a stark economic reality for us. So, we will continue to be efficient and sustainable so that money is never a barrier for a student to attain their education goals. 

What are the most exciting initiatives happening at University of Miami right now?

We are at the threshold of an educational revolution and the University of Miami wants to lead that. The university has established the New Century Educational Incubator to try out new practices, evaluate and assess them, and if they prove to be better than our current methods, we adopt, mainstream, and scale them up. One example is our piloting of a bachelor’s degree in innovation, design, and technology. It’s an intensive three-year program partnering with a number of startups and established tech firms, which will provide students with immersive professional development experiences in any field from day one.

The university is also creating new programs for interdisciplinary research to tackle big problems. For fall semester 2022, we have opened the Frost Institute for Chemistry and Molecular Science, which is the first of five STEM institutes we are establishing across campus. This will have transformational outcomes for things like therapeutics and nanotechnologies. We are also very proud of the Climate Resilience Academy, which collaborates with a diversity of academic fields, including marine and animal sciences, architecture, engineering, and communications. They are tackling existential questions around climate change both globally and especially locally where climate disasters and rising sea levels are becoming an everyday reality. We are translating science into solutions.

We have a very strong health system. This includes Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only such center in South Florida that has been designated by the National Cancer Institute. We’re at the cutting edge of healthcare and will continue making investments that will positively impact growth in South Florida.

What is your outlook for Miami over the next few years?

Every innovation hub in the world has a university at its core. We are and intend to continue to be that university. The pandemic inspired more people to move here and they’re realizing it’s an exciting place to be. We’re seeing phenomenal talent come in from all over the country. As a university, we want to be “of” Miami and not just “in” Miami. As the city grows, we will be here to ensure a talented, highly qualified research workforce grows to support the innovation that has exploded here. We are keen to take advantage of this Miami movement. 

For more information, visit:

https://welcome.miami.edu/ 

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