The Miller and Fain families are renowned in Miami for their civic involvement. Time and again they’ve contributed their talent and treasure to the community, primarily to medical research and education.
Nowhere is their leadership more apparent than at the University of Miami, where the Miller School of Medicine is the leading academic health enterprise in the region, and the Fain family’s patriarch Richard D. Fain is serving as the current chairman of the UM Board of Trustees.
In a formal ceremony at the Watsco Center Fieldhouse Thursday, two endowed chairs named in honor of the Miller and Fain families were appointed to outstanding senior faculty—William Scott Green, senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, and John Quelch, dean of the Miami Business School.
“I am grateful to the Fain and Miller families for their generous support and investment in talented faculty, whose academic contributions are both distinctive and distinguished,” said UM President Julio Frenk. “Endowments are a reflection of our donors’ great confidence in the enduring role the University has to play today and well into the future.”
The University’s Roadmap to Our New Century, recently presented to the UM community by Frenk, sets a goal to establish 100 endowed faculty positions by its centennial in 2025. While the Miller chair has been established previously, the Fain endowed chair is new and part of the goal.
Green, who is also a professor of religious studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded the Fain Family Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies.
Green’s research focuses on the cultural evolution of ancient Judaism. He said the endowment “will complement and enrich” UM’s established programs in the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies and the George Feldenkreis Program in Judaic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“This endowment is an extraordinary gesture to sustain and strengthen the future of Judaic Studies and the academic life of our University,” Green said. “It gives us much to be grateful for.”
The donors, Richard Fain, chairman and chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., his wife Colleen, and the Fain Family Foundation, are active supporters of many charitable causes, including the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System.
“Dr. Green is a celebrated scholar, educator, and administrator whose work is having an important effect at UM,” said Richard Fain. “Our family is proud to recognize his impact on higher education through the Fain Family Endowed Chair. We are pleased that the fund will enable future researchers to pursue new discoveries and promote greater understanding in a field that resonates with us and many students at the University.”
Quelch, who is also vice provost of executive education and professor of public health sciences at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, was awarded the Leonard M. Miller University Chair. His expertise and recent work focuses on the intersection of business and health care, and he is the author, co-author, or editor of 25 books.
Quelch said that endowed chairs such as the Miller University Chair bestowed on him “are a very important vehicle for continuity in the life of a university. Individuals who hold endowed chairs are temporary stewards of an intellectual bloodline that, in some universities, may go back centuries.
“To be appointed to this University chair is an honor and a responsibility,” Quelch said. “It is both stimulating and humbling.”
The Miller family endowed the Leonard M. Miller University Chair in honor of the late founder of Lennar Corporation, who was a long-serving trustee and chair of UM’s Board of Trustees from 1995-99. His son Stuart Miller, J.D. ’82, who is executive chairman of Lennar Corporation and has served as a University of Miami trustee since 2002, was also board chair from 2014-16. The Miller family and business has contributed generously to UM, including a $50 million gift from The Lennar Foundation to help build the Coral Gables campus medical facility that bears the foundation’s name.
"John Quelch is a visionary leader whose expansive experience is a perfect fit for the University of Miami,” Stuart Miller said. “He’s already made a big impact on the Miami Business School, expanding its reputation and global reach. He and his forward-facing faculty are preparing UM students to become prominent leaders and entrepreneurs in wide-ranging professions. My father would be very pleased that Dean Quelch is the Leonard M. Miller University Chair.”
Frenk was joined by Jeffrey L. Duerk, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, in officiating the endowed chair ceremony for Quelch and Green, which included presentations of traditional wooden armchairs with engraved plaques, as well as commemorative medallions.
The University of Miami’s total endowment now exceeds $1 billion for the first time in its history. Financial sustainability is a top priority for the University as it aims to expand its distinctive capacity and hemispheric influence by its centennial in 2025.
