Alumnus recognizes Osher Lifelong Learning Institute with impressive bequest

Ed Cutié, B.A. ’70, says, “In your 20s, you pretty much think you know everything—by your 70s, you realize you didn’t know squat.” Now, he’s spending his retirement at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, learning all the things he wanted to when he was too busy working.
Alumnus recognizes Osher Lifelong Learning Institute with impressive bequest

Ed Cutié and his family arrived in Miami from Cuba in 1960. The move left them “pretty much broke,” so they worked hard to do well in their new country.

Cutié earned scholarships to attend Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Day School in Coconut Grove and then boarding school at Saint Andrews in Boca Raton. By the time he was looking at colleges, his mother wanted him closer to home, so he applied to the University of Miami.

He was able to attend with the help of financial assistance through the Cuban Loan Program, but he still had to work a full-time job to help pay the bills.

“I worked my way through college parking cars at a hotel on Miami Beach,” Cutié recalled. “While everybody else was going to the beach on Saturday mornings, I’d be out there parking cars, and when everybody else went to play golf on Sunday mornings, I’d still be out there parking cars.”

“I did not have the college experience that the majority of people have because of my job,” he said. “I also didn't have the best grade point average in the world, again, because I was working full-time.” 

He graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1970 and found an entry-level position at a bank. He was initially attracted to the position because of its promise of $600 a month and the use of a company car (a Chevy Impala).

By the time he retired in 2014, he said he had worked his way up “from the very bottom” to retire as the head of the bank’s loan division.

“A lot of the things that I learned in college were not things that necessarily helped me to make a living, like the way a doctor might study to become a neurologist, but my broad, liberal arts education helped me to sound knowledgeable, even witty sometimes, at cocktail parties, and it taught me how to write, which helped me a great deal in life,” Cutié said.

With the newfound freedom of retirement, Cutié wanted to return to academia and become a student again—this time without the distraction of financial stress. 

He enrolled at the University of Miami’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), which provides educational, intellectual, and social enrichment to individuals 50 years old and above looking to add dimension to their lives in a university setting.

In his ten years of studies at OLLI, he has taken classes in art, history, music, and literature—"All the things that I wanted to learn about when I was too busy working,” he said.

Cutié found new friends, passions, and stronger connections to his community and alma mater.

“My wife used to have season tickets to the Miami opera, and she would take me to the performances, but I would just fall asleep,” he said. “I took a class on opera at OLLI, which analyzed different operas each week, and I’ve become a lot more interested in it.”

His studies have also helped him to learn more about his own history.

“I took a course on the history of Cuba from Columbus through the 1959 Revolution,” he said. “There were things I had learned about as a child in Cuba that I understand so differently as a 70-year-old.”

With profound gratitude to the institution that has helped shape his retirement, Cutié decided to include OLLI in his estate plans.

“OLLI has gone to great efforts to make its members feel like part of a family, so I liked the idea of reciprocating that idea by including OLLI in my will,” he said.

To those interested in OLLI, Cutié says this: “Join, you’re going to have a lot of fun. There’s a lot to learn, and learning is fun.”

“One example comes to mind, an acting and improvisation class taught by Randy Letzler, a volunteer at OLLI who performed on Broadway,” Cutié said. “You can often hear people laughing all the way down the hall.”  

“Not only is it a good time, but for some it’s a reason to get dressed and out of the house.”

To current undergraduates at the University, Cutié says, “In your 20s, you pretty much think you know everything—by your 70s, you realize you didn’t know squat. Keep learning, even if you think you already know it all.”

To learn more about OLLI, visit https://olli.dcie.miami.edu/.



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