Dear Colleague:
As the President of the Board of Directors of the International Council for Innovation in Higher Education, I am most proud to announce our impending plans to meet in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale from July 31st through August 4th, 2011, for the XXIX International Conference
When and Where and How?
Conference Details
The conference will begin at 7 p.m. on Sunday, July 31, 2011. The conference hotel is the Mandarin Oriental Miami Hotel & Spa, an award winning luxury hotel located on prestigious Brickell Key, overlooking Biscayne Bay, with a private beach, and a 5 Star, 15000 square foot spa, the only spa in Florida to receive the distinguished 2010 Forbes Travel Guide Five Star Award. The hotel is located near popular destinations such as South Beach, Downtown, and Coconut Grove.
The hotel is ten miles, approximately 15 minutes, from Miami International Airport and approximately 25 miles, about a 35 minute drive, from the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale Airport. The rooms are offered to ICIE delegates at the special conference rate of $139 per night, double occupancy, until 15 June 2011 (It should be noted that seasonal room prices at this hotel are regularly offered at $500 per night, with the lowest summer discount at $250 per night!). Please contact the hotel and mention the conference code, ICIE August, when reserving a room. Subject to availability, the hotel will provide an additional three day stay at the conference rate (August 4 to 6, with checkout on August 7).
The early bird conference fee of $350 expires on 15 June 2011; this includes one full tour, transportation to university centers each day, a reception on our first evening (at 1800 or 7 p.m. in the hotel lobby, and a dinner on our first and final evenings, Monday, August 1st and Wednesday, August 3rd. The conference will end on Thursday, August 4th at noon. You may make payment online at the Conference Page at icie.net or you may send a check or money order to the post office box address at the bottom of this page. Family members may receive the same benefits as the student registration fee (see icie.net). Please register for the conference, choose the payment method, and submit your research proposal online, all from the same link, at the Conference 2011 Page.
A list of delegate names will be provided to the hotel reservation desk at check-in.
Transportation
In securing the least expensive flight, we suggest that you try kayak.com, Southwest.com, and Airtran.com. The closest airport is the Miami International Airport; the hotel is located only 15 minutes by taxi. The hotel is also approximately one half hour from Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale Airport. If you desire to rent a car, it is much less expensive to rent a car after arriving to the hotel than from the airport. Enterprise Rental Car will drive to the hotel to provide a rental car on site.
What?
Our conference theme is Information and Communication Networks: Innovations in Education.
Multiculturalism in Higher Education
- Social Networks and their Impact on Education
- New Perspectives in Distance Learning
- Transformative Communication
- The Impact of Media Communication on International Relationships in Higher Education
- Intercultural Dialogue: Approaches and Outcomes for Higher Education
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
- Research Perspectives; Promoting International Collaboration
- Teaching and Learning Abroad
- Collaboration and Partnerships to Improve the Quality of Instruction
- Technological Resources used to Improve Teaching and Learning
- Emerging trends in Research Methodologies
Global Economic Challenges: Strategies for HIgher Education
- The Environment and Social Sustainability
- Funding and Budgeting Challenges in Higher Education
- The Challenges of International Admissions
- Collaboration and Partnerships
- Facilities Management in Higher Education
Host Institution: ST.Thomas University: A History of Innovation in Higher Education
ICIE is proud to honor St. Thomas University, Miami, Florida, on its 50th Anniversary in 2011, as its host institution for the XXIX Conference. The University traces its roots to the Universidad Católica de Santo Tomás de Villanueva, founded in 1946 in Havana, Cuba, named after Saint Thomas of Villanova, by American Augustinians with assistance from European Augustinians. Villanova University, founded in 1842 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also by the Augustinians, was long considered a “sister” institution.
When the Castro government expelled the Augustinians from Cuba in 1961, several of the American Augustinians came to Miami, where they founded Biscayne College in 1961. The college was accepted as a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and first accredited by the Commission on Colleges in 1968.
The Miami Dolphins NFL team trained at St. Thomas University for over two decades, from 1970 until 1993. The head coach and NFL Pro-Football Hall of Famer, Don Shula, who holds an honorary doctorate from St. Thomas, made countless charitable and community contributions which led to the Don Shula Scholarship at St. Thomas University.
In the early years of training at St. Thomas, the Miami Dolphins became the first team in the NFL to compete in the Superbowl for three consecutive seasons. (The Superbowl is among the most watched athletic events in the world, second only to the European Cup). In 1972, the team became the NFL’s first, and, even now, four decades later, the only team with a perfect season. It was during this period that university scholars had the remarkable vision to recognize sports administration as an academic discipline.
In 1973, St. Thomas University pioneered the first undergraduate Sports Administration program in the United States, which has served as the model and inspiration for academic programs in this discipline around the globe; notable alumni include Michael Kensil, a Vice President of Operations for the New York Jets, having served the team for thiry years, and now Director of Football Operations at the National Football League; Tim Gleason, author of From Black to Gold: The Pittsburgh Steelers (for which the foreward was written by the President and owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Art Rooney), developer of Operation Good Sport, a nationally acclaimed program that received the Jostens Community Service Award in 2004, and selected as a Sports Ethics Fellow by the Institute for International Sport in 2005; the current head coach of the Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy; the Major League Baseball players Kiko Calero and Vinnie Chulk; and former NBA Basketball player Kenny Anderson.
Through continued growth and development, Biscayne College earned university status in 1984 after the addition of 10 Master degree programs and the opening of the School of Law. The St. Thomas University School of Law is one of only three accredited Roman Catholic law schools located in the United States that is south of Washington, D.C.. At that point, its name changed to St. Thomas University. The University came under the sponsorship of the Archdiocese of Miami in 1988, conferring upon St. Thomas the distinction of being the only Catholic Archdiocesan sponsored university in the state of Florida.
St. Thomas University offers B.A., M.A., M.S., M.B.A., M.Acc., J.D., Ed.D., and Ph.D. programs through its college and various schools. The university offers several joint degree programs and an accelerated B.A./J.D.
Among many notable alumni of St. Thomas University are Mike Fitzpatrick, the U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania; Kenneth Donohue, HUD Inspector General of the United States; John Zarrela, CNN’s Miami correspondent; Miguel Diaz, the Ambassador of the United States to the Holy See (Vatican) nominated by President Barack Obama;; the former mayor of Miami-Dade County Alex Penelas; John J. Dooner, Chairman & CEO, McCann Worldgroup; and the actor and comedian, Dom Irrera.
Why?
Our Board of Directors chose Miami/Fort Lauderdale as our destination this year because we believe that this region provides harmony among many international cultures; Miami is the county seat of Dade County, where over half the population is foreign born and about 70% speak another language at home, other than English (2009 U.S. Census). According to Forbes in 2008, Miami was ranked as "America's Cleanest City" for its year-round "good air quality, vast green spaces, clean drinking water, clean streets, and city-wide recycling programs." In 2009, in a UBS study of 73 world cities, Miami was ranked as the richest city in the United States and the world's fifth-richest city, in terms of purchasing power. South Florida is home to the largest concentration of international banks in the United States, and is a major center for hospitals, research institutes, medical centers, and biotechnology industries.
It is our goal to provide delegates the opportunity to learn how this region and others overlap and share progress, tolerance and diversity, sophisticated research, and scholarly activity. We offer academicians, business leaders, government officials and entrepreneurs the opportunity to join to discuss technological developments, transfer ideas, pursue scientific excellence, and seek solutions to health, education, business, environmental and social issues of interest as part of a global effort of affiliation, discourse and study.
Who?
Our Introduction
Please allow me to introduce myself and the Council.
The Council is a growing network of academicians, educational administrators, scholars and government and industry practitioners who are most interested in sharing innovation in education, both pedagogically and administratively, to the international community. The organization was founded in 1980 and over the past several years, has met in such locations as Rome, Honolulu, Belfast, Panama, Beijing, Prague, St. Johns, Newfoundland, and this past year, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Although the organization is now based in Washington, D.C., our delegates represent colleges and universities of distinction from all over the world. Although I am the president of this organization, I am on the faculty at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, USA, as a faculty member of the School of Business (Marketing and Management Department) for over thirty years, and have held the administrative posts of Associate Provost, Director of the MBA program, and many others, over that time period. I have collaborated in research and directed management strategy and training for industry, government and education with the first Vice-President of ICIE, Professor Maureen Sheehan Paparella, and the Director and a faculty member in the Information Technology Academic Program for the School of Science, for now seventeen years. Recently, we coauthored a third edition of a university textbook (Current Topics in Technology, social, legal, economic and ethical implications of technology). Our university is a private, comprehensive masters institution of approximately 6000 undergraduate and graduate students and is ranked as a first tier institution (of a 4 tier ranking system) in U.S. News and World Reports (Masters, North category), and ranked among the best colleges and universities in the United States by the Princeton Review (Best 371).
Our ICIE delegates also regularly represent doctoral universities, such as Columbia University, in New York, American University, in Washington, D.C., also ranked Tier 1 (National Universities) and University of Ottawa, Canada, (Princeton Reviews Best Medical and Law Schools in Canada, with AACSB International Accreditation, representing the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide). Our delegates also represent public universities, such as Marshall University in West Virginia, also ranked Tier 1 (Masters, South Category). Indeed, our delegates have represented institutions from Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to those teaching at universities in Thailand. As those named represent only a few among a list of prestigious institutions, I should also mention that our conference is also well attended by delegates from universities interested in advancing distance learning within the global community as a primary medium for higher education.
Opening Key Presenter:
ICIE is honored to present Franklyn Casale, President of St. Thomas University as the keynote speaker to open the XXIX Conference.
Rev. Monsignor Franklyn M. Casale became President of St. Thomas University in April 1994. Prior to joining the university, the Monsignor was the Vicar General, Chancellor and Moderator of the Curia of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, where he also served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Seton Hall University; Governing Board of Fair Oaks Hospital, Board of Trustees and Executive Committee at Bloomfield College.
He is active in a wide range of community organizations and has been a significant presence in Miami since his arrival. He serves on the Board of Governors for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and continues to serve on the Board of Directors for the Carrfour Corporation, an organization that establishes permanent housing for the homeless. His involvements also include Palmetto General Hospital; Catholic Community Foundation, Archdiocese of Miami; Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Inc.; Board Member for the Orange Bowl Committee and Fonkoze USA, an organization to enable the economic development of Haiti's poor. He was appointed by former Governor Jeb Bush to serve on the Governor's Haiti Advisory Group. Recently, he addressed the NAICUSE (National Association of Colleges and Universities), attended the HACU meeting with US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in Washington, D.C., and Chaired the Search Committee for the Superintendent of Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Miami, a position which oversees the 48 Catholic elementary schools and nine high schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties.
In higher education, his leadership positions include the Executive Council, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges; Governing Board, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Presidents Council of Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida; Florida Association of Colleges & Universities; and Haiti-Tech, an organization he helped found that organizes and maintains a vocational/technical school in Haiti and educates over 700 Haitian students yearly.
Monsignor Casale holds degrees from Seton Hall University in New Jersey, from the Catholic University in Washington D.C., and from the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Darlington, New Jersey.
I implore you to consider joining us for the conference on July 31st, 2011. Like our conferences in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Newfoundland, Prague, Beijing, Belfast and Panama, to name a few, this event promises to act as a life-altering event, providing renewed energy and enthusiasm, as we each continue to contribute, with innovative strategies, to achieve the very best that higher education has to offer our students.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eugene S. Simko, President, ICIE
Professor Maureen Sheehan Paparella, First Vice-President, ICIE
Monmouth University
West Long Branch, New Jersey
USA