Café Bustelo & Pilon announce $1.25 million gift to FIU Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and FIU CasaCuba

Café Bustelo, FIU CasaCuba, FIU Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and FIU Foundation executives and students from the FIU student club The Coffee Guild share a cafecito in celebration of $1.25 million dollar gift.
By Ivonne Yee-Amor Café Bustelo & Pilon, coffee brands in The J.M. Smucker Co. portfolio, have announced a $1.25 million gift to Florida International University benefiting student scholarships, the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and the construction of FIU CasaCuba. The gift marks a deepening of the relationship between FIU and the brands. Café […]

Kenneth A. Jessell selected as FIU’s sixth president

Kenneth A. Jessell
Today the Florida International University Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name Kenneth A. Jessell the university’s sixth president. The selection of Jessell, who has served as FIU’s interim president since January, is pending confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors. “In Dr. Jessell we have found the best possible leader for FIU at this moment in […]

Longtime university supporter gives back to help save the bay

One of FIU's Institute of Environment buoys
By Kenneth Setzer MA ’97 Longtime FIU supporter Elliot Stone cares deeply about the health of the environment. The founder of Royal Castle Builders, LLC, Stone is a Miami native who sees the powerful, positive results of serving his community. That’s why when FIU’s Institute of Environment needed to add a buoy to its Biscayne Bay […]

Professor gives back to support first-generation scholarships, Fostering Panther Pride

In 2020, Professor Chang won the FIU Faculty Award for Teaching.
As a Panther, professor of criminology and a life-long learner, Rosa Chang ’99, ’21 believes in the transformational power of education so much that she’s making it a part of her legacy. By giving a part of her estate—a significant gift for FIU—Chang ensures that first-generation scholarships and Fostering Panther Pride, a vital college access program for […]

FIU and Jain community launch $3 million campaign to fund new institute

Members of the Jain Education and Research Foundation (JERF) and others from the Jain community join interim FIU President Kenneth Jessell and other university leaders for the launch of a campaign to raise funds for an Institute for Advanced Jain Studies.
–By Amy Ellis In 2010, FIU made history by launching the first Jain Studies Program in North America. Since then, the university has pioneered Jain studies as an academic field and established the largest Jain studies library in the Southeast United States. Now, FIU and the Jain community have taken another important leap forward, embarking on a […]

Cooke Foundation awards FIU $2.5 million scholarship gift to benefit nontraditional and veteran/military students

Joanne and Douglas Heydon
Florida International University has received a $2.5 million gift from the George and Bernice Cooke Scholarship Foundation for Women to establish an endowment to provide scholarships to nontraditional and veteran/military FIU students. More than $1.87 million of the gift is for The George and Bernice Cooke Scholarship Endowment, which will award scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students […]

Physician believes in paying it forward, sets up scholarship for medical students

The Loewenherzes on a recent visit to FIU with College of Medicine Interim Dean Dr. Juan Cendan and Dr. Yolangel Hernandez Suarez, interim executive associate dean for Student Affairs.
–By Ileana Varela Growing up in Chicago, Dr. James Loewenherz spent his entire childhood around water– quarries, rivers, and lakes. By age 12, he was sailing across Lake Michigan. “The only place I couldn’t go safely is underwater, and I wanted that freedom.” Scuba diving provided that freedom and, eventually, his entry into the world […]