All Ivy+ / Yale and Stanford are sponsoring a Day of Service, Saturday, May 12, with the Urban Paradise Guild (UPG). The event includes a Nature Walk & Butterfly Monitoring. It’s a great event for the family to attend, check out the details below! See attached flyer for contact info.

Sponsoring Club: All Ivy+, Yale Club of South Florida and Stanford Club of South Florida

Date and Time: Sat, 05/12/2012 – 9:00am – 12:00pm

Parking Location: Miami Museum of Science Lot
3280 South Miami Ave. – Miami, FL 33129
**please see separate map below

Web site: http://www.urban-paradise.org

Description: Hammock Habitat Planting Project

Urban Paradise Guild (UPG) has been conducting education and protecting and restoring Vizcaya’s unique and fragile Hammocks since 2008.

For 2012, we will be planting Hammock species to restore areas in the Vizcaya Village Hammock, including rare and endangered plants and trees.

Background: for YDOS 2011, UPG had a Seedling Safari (collecting rare seedlings) and Organic Stewardship (removal of exotics). These activities helped prepare our planting area in 2012! Seedlings collected in 2011 will be planted in 2012!

The UPG Nature Walk / Project Orientation will take people through the areas where they worked during YDOS 2011, and will work in 2012, to experience the difference that a year’s Organic Stewardship makes.

The optional Butterfly Monitoring & Nature Walk begins at 12:15. UPG re-introduced the Atala Butterfly (listed as Threatened) to Vizcaya. This tour leads the Volunteers through the Old Growth Hammock and through the Vizcaya Formal Gardens into the Old Growth Mangroves by the Bay. It is great for families.

Vizcaya, a historic mansion, contains priceless biodiversity protected by the vision that guided its design and construction. It contains the largest old-growth remnant of the Brickell Hammock, a unique hardwood ecosystem found nowhere else in the world.

UPG is a high-impact Native Habitat and Sustainability organization with 5 Locations around Miami-Dade, with 5 Volunteer Opportunities every week. Activities include Native Habitat, Urban Agriculture and Nursery.

All Ivy+ YDOS Flyer

**Map for parking.

Barbara J. Riesberg earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh, where she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in Business / Political Science. She then commenced her legal studies at Cornell Law School, where she obtained her Juris Doctor in 1992. At Cornell Law, Barbara was a finalist in the Moot Court Competition.

Barbara is an experienced litigation lawyer with nearly 20 years of experience. She focuses her practice primarily on complex commercial litigation in State and Federal Courts, including trials and appeals. She also arbitrates before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Her past and present clients are corporations, public entities, and individuals.

Barbara is very active in the South Florida community. She was the President of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Miami-Dade County in 2011, continues to serve as the Chapter Director of IvyLife – Miami, and has organized fundraising efforts on behalf of Educate Tomorrow (www.educatetomorrow.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to the education and mentoring of disadvantaged children aging out of the foster care system.

Alumni,

I am pleased to announce that 267 students applied to Cornell from Miami-Dade County.  An astounding 30% (80 applicants) were admitted!!!  This is in large part due to the efforts of Rodrigo Tsutsumi, CAAAN Chair, and his wonderful committee that conducted the Cornell contacts.

Please take a minute to let the applicants know why you choose to attend Cornell.  Over 25% will be at our Admitted Student Reception on Saturday.  If possible, please come out to personally meet them and answer any questions they may have.

Donell Hicks

CCM President

Alvin Ailey All Ivy+ Cultural Series Updated

Come Fly Away All Ivy+ Cultural Series Updated

Lion King All Ivy+ Cultural Series

Frank P. Scruggs II is a shareholder / partner at the law firm of Berger Singerman, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  He performed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he graduated summa cum laude as a Government major in 1973.  Frank then obtained two graduate degrees, from Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania respectfully, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1977.

Frank Scruggs advises employers regarding compliance with federal and state employment laws, using a distinctive combination of experiences: commercial litigator; executive in the public and private sectors; and member of the governing boards of major corporations.  Frank served as Secretary of Labor and Employment Security for the State of Florida.

Frank advises companies regarding compliance risks in day-to-day operations and litigates cases that threaten the enterprise and brand.  He uses preventive counseling to help employers avoid charges of discrimination, claims that misclassification of employees violates the Fair Labor Standards Act,  the determination of independent contract status, and myriad other employment law issues.  In addition to litigating employment law cases, he also tries complex commercial disputes.

Frank has penned many legal articles and has given presentations to organizations such as the American Bar Association and the Broward County Women Lawyers Association.  He is also heavily involved in community service, as he has been a member of the Board of Directors for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, a member of the Board of Directors for Office Depot, Inc., a member of the Board of Regents for the State University System of Florida, and a Chair for the Florida Supreme Court Racial and Ethnic Bias Study Commission.

Click below for details!
Lion King All Ivy+ Cultural Series Final

John Morales is the Chief Meteorologist for NBC-Miami.  He performed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he graduated with a degree in Atmospheric Science in 1984.  While at Cornell, John was a member of the Crew Team and was also a disc-jockey for WVBR.

John has been a familiar face and reassuring presence in South Florida for 20 years. His accurate weather predictions aided viewers during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Irene in 1999, and throughout the numerous hurricane landfalls in the mid 2000’s. In 2005, John was honored with the second of his three Emmy Awards for his coverage of Hurricane Wilma. In what could be considered his most important scientific recognition, John earned the 2007 American Meteorological Society Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology Award. He is one of very few broadcast meteorologists elected to be a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Among his many credentials, John holds the National Weather Association and the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Radio and TV weathercasting, and has won the Broadcaster of the Year Award from both organizations. In addition, he is accredited by the American Meteorological Association as a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist.

John, his wife Carmen and their family reside in Miami. In his free time, he enjoys piloting his Cessna 210.

Laurie Jennings performed her undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where she graduated with honors. She then earned her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Laurie is a three-time Emmy award-winning reporter and the main anchor on the highest-rated news station in South Florida — Local 10 News.

Since arriving in South Florida in 1998, Laurie has been very involved in the community through Voices For Children, Holtz Children’s Hospital, the American Red Cross, Baptist Children’s Hospital and Community Partnership for the Homeless. She gives the majority of her time to United Way of Miami-Dade County as a board member and active volunteer at United Way’s Center for Excellence in Early Education. After giving birth to extremely premature twins in 2006, Laurie learned a lot about the work of March of Dimes to battle prematurity. For the past four years, Laurie and her family have served as hosts for the annual March for Babies to help infants lead longer, healthier lives.

You can catch her every weeknight on Local 10 News at 5, 6 and 11, and reporting live from major world news events including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti; the death of Pope John Paul II in Vatican City; the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks at Ground Zero; the funeral of John F. Kennedy, Jr in New York City; the restart of peace talks in northern Ireland in 1997; and the beginning of NAFTA from Matamoros, Mexico.

Svante Myrick (Mayor of Ithaca and Cornell Alum) & Donell Hicks

I was truly amazed by the level of engagement I personally witnessed in January and February by our alumni and Cornell staff. Almost 1,000 people came together during the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference!!! During CALC, we were provided with beneficial tools to use on the local level to make your experience in the region better than it has ever been before. Alex Miranda, Nick Diaz, Sasha Cohen, Jonathan Kracer, and I attended CALC in various capacities in addition to our service as Board members for CCM. I encourage you to take the time to read the Ezra Update from CALC and to consider watching President Skorton’s Saturday speech which can be located on the CALC website.

I recently had the opportunity to have dinner with Chris Marshall, Association Vice President of Alumni Affairs; Mindy Hillenbrand, Association Director of Regional Programs; Chris Madden, President of the Cornell Club of Eastern Florida; Locksley Rhoden, President of the Cornell Club of Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton; as well as many other alumni leaders. Together, we represent the 3,600+ alumni living in South Florida. Over the next few months, our goal is to increase awareness of regional programs and to provide our alumni with bigger and better events.

Have you ever considered volunteering for Cornell? Do you know how many opportunities there are to volunteer? Cornell recently created a Big Red Book of Volunteer Opportunities that consists of 80 pages of potential ways you can be involved as an alumni volunteer. I highly encourage you to take 5 minutes to click through the document to see if any positions may be right for you.

Diversity is a top concern for the Cornell and the CCM. We hope you take a minute to read the Diversity Statement from President Skorton. I had the opportunity to meet with some of the Cornell staff during the Cornell MOSAIC meeting. Their vision is inspirational and will have far reaching effects that will be seen from Ithaca to Miami. We hope to see you at the Cornell Latin America Alumni Symposium 2012 in April.

If you are new to the club, or a seasoned member, we hope you continue to find our organization valuable and directly meaning to you in your personal and professional endeavors. If you have suggestions for how we can improve our organization, please feel free to reach out our Board members. Thank you for your continued support!

Jennifer Valdes is currently an account executive at rbb Public Relations, a Coral Gables-based marketing public relations firm with a national reputation for delivering results.

Jennifer manages and works on travel, consumer and nonprofit accounts, representing local, national and international clients such as the Miami Marlins, Orange Bowl Committee, YMCA of Greater Miami, AMResorts, Homewood Suites by Hilton and PriceTravel. She is also a contributing blogger on rbb’s blog, Digital Park. Before joining rbb, Jennifer was communications coordinator for the University of Florida’s College of Fine Arts where she managed the College’s multiple publications and media relations for student, faculty and alumni events.

Jennifer obtained her bachelor’s degree in communications, along with a minor in AEM and concentration in Spanish from Cornell University in 2007. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester studying at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain.

A Miami native, Jennifer returned to the warm and sunny state of Florida upon graduation to continue her studies at the University of Florida’s School of Journalism & Communication. In 2009, she earned a master’s degree in mass communication with specializations in public relations and Latin American studies. Jennifer was invited to present her master’s thesis, “Images of Latin America: Managing Impressions through Tourism Websites,” at the 12th Annual International Public Relations Research Conference in Miami and at Cornell University’s “Regional Identity in Times of Globalization and Diaspora” Conference in Ithaca.

Jennifer currently serves as treasurer of the Public Relations Society of America’s Miami Chapter. In her free time, Jennifer enjoys cheering on the Florida Gators (including former Gator Tim Tebow), traveling the world and spending time with friends and family.