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Laureano F. Batista Falla was a Cuban political activist and founding member of Movimiento Demócrata Cristiano (MDC).

Batista was born in Havana, Cuba, on May 1, 1935. He received his elementary and secondary education at De la Salle School in Vedado, Havana. In 1952, he entered the law school of the Universidad Santo Tomás de Villanueva in Marianao, Cuba, and in 1953, he was admitted to the Ëscuela de Filosofía y Letras of the University of Havana as a part-time student. After receiving his law degree in 1957, Batista spent a year in Germany, where he studied the German language and took on special studies in banking at the Deutsch Bank A. G. in Hamburg and Munich. In January 1959, he returned to Havana, and was employed in the legal department of the Trust Company of Cuba. In 1960, in response to the Cuban Revolution, Batista left Cuba and entered exile in Miami, Florida.

Batista fought for Cuba’s freedom while living in Cuba and in exile. In 1960, he founded the Movimiento Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba with José Ignacio Rasco and others. He was also the president of the Catholic student youth organization Joventud Estudiante Católica (JEC). He continued to work actively against Castro’s communist regime in Miami through the Movimiento Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba en el Exilio and organized clandestine operations against the Cuban government. He was a member of the delegations representing the MDC at different congresses such as the Örganización Demócrata Cristiana de América, of which the MDC was a member in Lima, Santiago de Chile, Strasbourg, Caracas, and other cities.

Batista continued his education in exile, receiving a master’s degree in government from the University of Miami and, in the late 1960s, a Ph.D. in political science from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

He also lived in Venezuela for several years, where he was a professor at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and occupied important positions in different organizations such as Centro de Información y Documentación para América Latina (CIDAL), Ecodata, C.A.; and Cibernetica Internacional, C.A.

When Batista returned to Miami, he founded the Cuban exile publication Revista Raíz, together with Alberto Pérez, Marta Fernández Morell, Raquel la Villa, and others. He was also the director of the Instituto Jacques Maritain in Miami.

Laureano Batista was a tireless advocate of pluralism and democracy. In the last years of his life he organized the Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba, a political party composed of former members of different organizations that fought for Cuba’s freedom. He died in Miami in 1991.

Eugenio Batista (1900-1992) was a Cuban architect and author who worked in Cuba in the 20th century.

Batista completed high school courses in the United States and Cuba and received an architecture degree from the University of Havana in 1924. He moved on to work as a draftsman at the architecture firm of Walker and Gillette while taking summer and evening classes at Columbia University in New York, eventually graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in Architecture from Princeton University and working as a professor there before returning to Cuba to practice his profession in 1939.

Batista was involved in such projects as the building of the Bay of Havana amphitheater; the placement of the José Martí statue in the Parque Central; the design of the church and park at Yumurí; and the renovation of Havana's Payret Theater. He was professor and acting dean of the School of Architecture at Havana’s St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in the 1950s, and worked as a professor in design at various schools after his exile in 1961 including the University of Oregon and the University of Puerto Rico. In 1974 he was given a Fulbright scholarship to teach architecture at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia.

In his retirement he wrote a book on church architecture and the history of the Catholic liturgy titled El culto cristiano: ¿ceremonia o dedicación? (1981). He was a founding member of the Hermandad Nazaret, an exile religious organization.

Batista died in Miami at the age of 91.

Harold Bauer was born in Kingstson-upon-Thames, England, on 28 April 1873. After attempting a career as a violinist, Bauer focused his musical talents on the piano and became one of the most beloved pianists of the first half of the 20th century. After successful appearances throughout Europe, he debuted in the United States in 1900 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1917, he became an American citizen. Bauer founded the Beethoven Association of New York in 1919 and was vice president of the Manhattan School of Music.

Harold Bauer's association with the University of Miami School of Music began through his friendship with Marie Volpe, wife of School of Music faculty and University Orchestra founder Arnold Volpe. Mrs. Volpe invited Bauer to the University in 1940. Bauer taught his fist master classes in January and February of 1941, attracting students from around the country. Bauer discontinued his association with the University in 1943 but resumed his winter visits in 1946.

His association with the University deepened as he advised the School of Music on the standards of its piano education component. Harold Bauer also offered concerts for the South Florida community at the University. With his wife, concert pianist Winnie Pyle, Harold Bauer visited spent his winters at the University of Miami until he died at the age of 77 at Jackson Memorial Hospital on 12 March 1951. For a time, supported by gifts from Mrs. Winnie Bauer, the School of Music offered the Harold Bauer Awards to students demonstrating greatest progress and outstanding achievement.