University

New Leadership Team Moves the U Forward

Open house enables UM community to meet and mingle with new student and administrative leaders
Moving U Forward

UM President Julio Frenk welcomes new student and administrative leaders to the Hurricanes family.

 

In a welcome delayed a month by Hurricane Irma, UM President Julio Frenk celebrated the cadre of new leaders, both administrators and students, at the University last Thursday in the first of two Moving the U Forward Open Houses.

The new leadership corps joins the University's established team of distinguished leaders, many of whom attended the event, to comprise the engine of Moving the U Forward, a recently launched initiative designed to attract new talent, build on the U’s strong history of excellence and entrepreneurship, and advance the bold vision for the University’s centennial in 2025, outlined by the Roadmap to Our New Century.  

“This team is going to be a magnet for talent and to help us realize our vision,” Frenk said, adding that “we’ve already made a number of strides and substantial progress towards HERE (Hemispheric, Excellent, Relevant, Exemplary),” the aspirational facet of the Roadmap for the University’s future.

The president said he was inspired by the high caliber of candidates competing to fill the leadership positions. “It shows the high regard for the U from the community of higher education.”

Frenk also announced that new seed funding had been secured for the Lab for Integrated Knowledge (U-LINK), a university-wide platform for incubating ideas, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and providing funding to facilitate new approaches to difficult problems. He also said that “we’re right on track” with the 100 Talents initiative, one of the core components of the Roadmap.

Welcomed to the leadership team were: Jeffrey L. Duerk, executive vice president and provost; Jacqueline A. Travisano, executive vice president for business and finance and chief operating officer; María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad, vice president for global and hemispheric affairs; Edward Abraham, dean and chief academic officer of the Miller School of Medicine; Cindy Munro, dean of the School of Nursing and Health Studies; John Quelch, dean of the School of Business Administration and vice provost for executive education; Ryan C. Holmes, associate vice president for Student Affairs and dean of students; Chris O’Toole, president of the Graduate Student Association; Alessandria San Roman, student representative to the Board of Trustees and president of the Student Bar Association; and Adrian Nuñez, president of the Student Government Association.

The next Moving the U Forward Open House is at the Miller School of Medicine’s Schoninger Research Quadrangle on Friday, November 17, from 1 to 3 p.m.