UM to Welcome Scholars from Hurricane Hit Areas

UM to Welcome Scholars from Hurricane Hit Areas

The University of Miami is offering professors and graduate students a place to continue their work.
The University of Miami is offering professors and graduate students a place to continue their work.
by UM News

The University of Miami announced Thursday that it is welcoming professors and eligible graduate students from Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other Caribbean territories impacted by the recent hurricanes to continue their research and scholarship.

The decision comes after careful consideration of the financial viability of those higher education institutions already negatively impacted by the storms. Agreements will be made at no cost, allowing institutions in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other affected Caribbean islands to keep the tuition revenues they might otherwise have lost due to the transfer. Further, the university has agreed to ensure that all students who study at UM return to their home universities, as was done with students displaced after Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to professors and graduate students, UM is also working on details to provide academic opportunities for a few hundred undergraduate students and other graduate students from the affected areas throughout the University of Miami. UM expects to have further information on those details in the near future.

Where possible in some areas, the University will offer access to laboratories, libraries and other core facilities, as well as research supplies and equipment.

The professors and graduate students from the impacted areas will have use of UM facilities until their institutions reopen and classes resume.

“The University of Miami has strong ties to the Caribbean, and we want our colleagues and friends to know that our doors are open to them,” said Jeffrey Duerk, UM’s executive vice president and provost. “We hope to serve as a model for University engagement in the region, and will do everything possible to provide assistance while their universities and their islands rebuild and recover from the devastation caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.”

The two hurricanes cut a deadly swath through the Caribbean in September, first Irma in early September and then Maria, considered one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, just two weeks later.

The University of Miami is a global University with a distinctive hemispheric advantage. With its 11 schools and colleges, the University can provide assistance across a wide range of disciplines from the arts and humanities to the social and natural sciences.

Interested professors and graduate students may contact graduateschool@miami.edu for additional information.



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