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The University of Miami Friends of the Library (known later as the University of Miami  Friends of the Libraries) is a library support organization founded in 1960 by a group of University of Miami faculty, alumni, and community leaders. The first president was the renowned Everglades preservationist and author Marjory Stoneman Douglas. The Friends play a vital role in supporting programs, securing gifts, and funding projects for the Libraries and are instrumental in ensuring the University of Miami remains one of the foremost research institutions in the world.

Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely known academic honor society in the United States. The University of Miami chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was installed in 1983, The society celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Its campus chapters invite for induction the most outstanding arts and sciences students at America’s leading colleges and universities. The Society sponsors activities to advance these studies — the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences — in higher education and in society at large.

Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) becan in 1943 as a small marine biology and fisheries laboratory founded by Dr. F. G. Walton Smith. The IOF was founded in November 1953 to advance occean reserch. Dr. Smith was executive secretary of the foundation.

José Agustín Balseiro was born in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, on August 23, 1900. His father was Puerto Rican composer Rafael Balseiro. José Balseiro studied law and taught at the University of Puerto Rico. He left to Madrid to study and write poetry and literature. The Spanish Royal Academy honored him for his novel El Vigia (The Watchtower) in 1925.

In 1930 Balseiro was hired at the University of Illinois as a Professor of Hispanic Literature, where he eventually became the dean of the Romance Languages department. In 1938, Balseiro was the official delegate from the United States to the First International Congress on the Teaching of Ibero-American Literature held in Mexico.

Balseiro settled at the University of Miami as a Professor of Hispanic Literature in 1946. From 1955 to 1957, Balseiro served as President of the International Institute of Ibero-American Literature. He resigned his position at the University of Miami to teach as professor of Hispanic Studies the University of Arizona in 1967, but returned to the University of Miami in 1974 as a consultant to the University of Miami Libraries in Hispanic literature. The University of Miami created in his honor the José Balseiro Prize for Hispanic American Studies, a prize awarded annually to the best essay on Spanish-American studies written by a graduate student. Also upon his arrival to Miami, he was awarded the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Catolica (Commander of the Order of Queen Isabella the Catholic of Castille), conferred by Spain to scholars, writers, and statesmen who distinguish themselves in the field of Hispanic Culture.

Throughout his life, Balseiro wrote a dozen critically acclaimed novels and multiple collections of critical essays, poetry and short stories. Balseiro was honored on a number of occasions, which include being assigned a Commander of the Order of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, being awarded a Diploma of Honor from the Mexican Academy of Letters, and the abovementioned Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Catolica. He was a member of a number of organizations including the Spanish Royal Academy, the Colombian Academy of Letters, the Sarmiento Institute of Sociology and History of Argentina, the Academy of the Spanish Language in the U.S.A., the Consultative Committee of the U.S.A. National Commission for UNESCO, and the Academia Jerezana de San Fernando. He also co-founded the Puerto Rican Academy of Letters, based in San Juan.

He retired in 1978 to Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 1984 he was named as a candidate for the Spanish Ministry of Culture's Miguel de Cervantes Prize. Balseiro passed away in Puerto Rico on January 13, 1991.

Born in Cienfuegos, Cuba in 1956, avante garde artist Leandro Soto participated in more than 200 exhibitions and performances at both national and international levels. Majoring in painting and minoring in graphics, he received his degree in Fine Arts from the National School of Art in Havana. In 1982 he obtained a teaching certificate at the Graduate Art Institute at the University of Havana.

Soto formed part of the “Volumen Uno” art movement in Havana in 1981 and was the first performance-installation artist in Cuba. Along with artists such as José Bedia and Carlos Cárdenas, he is considered part of Cuba’s “1980 generation” of artists. In 1988 he moved to Mexico, where he established the interdisciplinary art school El Tesoro de Tamulté for indigenous children of the Maya-Chontal community.

Throughout his artistic career, he demonstrated an interest in religion, ritual, and the mythology of indigenous people. Along with his installations and performance art, Soto designed sets and costumes for theater productions.

From Mexico, Soto went into exile in the United States, teaching at various universities and advising theater groups. He is well known as part of the interdisciplinary and multicultural Latino art movement. He was a Senior Lecturer and Artist in Residence at Arizona State University, West Campus, in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Department. Soto died in 2022.

Carolina C. Garzón was a Cuban educator and social worker. Starting in 1926, she taught mathematics in a private primary school and Social Studies in a private high school in Cuba and worked on developing new school programs, collaborating on a book about the topic.

In the 1950’s, Garzón worked as a Social Worker in Miami and Tallahassee. She also acted as a supervisor of the Pedro Pan program, which was a clandestine operation that from the years 1960 to 1962, brought 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors of ages 6 to 18 to the United States. Using the social histories of her clients, she worked on publishing a thesis called “A Study of the Adjustment of Thirty-four Boys in Exile,” which she wrote in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work in December, 1965 at the Graduate School of Florida State University. The thesis, eventually published in 2006 by Eagle Lithographers in Miami, Florida was dedicated to Pedro Pan children.

Mel (Melquiades Rafael) Martinez was the first Cuban-American to be elected to the United States Senate, serving as the representative for Florida from 2005-2009. Born in Sagua La Grande, Cuba on October 23, 1946, Martinez immigrated to the United States in 1962 at the age of fifteen, through what was later known as Operation Pedro Pan. This initiative, sponsored by the Catholic Welfare Bureau and the U.S. government, coordinated the exodus of over 14,000 children from Fidel Castro’s Communist government in Cuba between 1960 and 1962. For four years, Martinez lived with two different foster families in Orlando, Florida, as he struggled to learn English and adjust to a life away from his family and homeland. His parents and younger sister remained in Cuba, and his younger brother lived with relatives in Miami. Martinez was reunited with his family in Orlando, Florida in 1966.

Martinez worked his way through college and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida State University in 1969. Encouraged by one of his undergraduate professors to pursue law, he proceeded to earn a Juris Doctorate degree from Florida State University in 1973. Martinez practiced law in Orlando for twenty-five years until 1998, when he won the election to serve as Mayor of Orange County, Florida. After two years in this position, Martinez was tapped by President George W. Bush to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), becoming the first Cuban-American to serve in the Cabinet of a President. As HUD Secretary during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Martinez was responsible for overseeing funds appropriated by Congress for the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan. He served as HUD Secretary from 2001-2003. Martinez also served as a key advisor to the President on Cuban policy, and was named co-chair of the Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba alongside Secretary of State Colin Powell.

During his service as United States Senator (R-Florida) from January 4, 2005 until his resignation on September 9, 2009, Martinez focused on issues including U.S. policy toward Cuba, immigration reform, housing and the protection of home buyers from bad loans and predatory lending practices, the protection of Florida’s environment, and the modernization of the United States military through increased shipbuilding. He developed a reputation for bipartisanship by partnering with fellow U.S. Senator for Florida Bill Nelson (D) on restricting offshore drilling in Florida’s waters and with U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Barack Obama (D-Illinois) on immigration reform. Martinez was the ranking member of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging and served on the Armed Services Committee, the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. During his tenure, his office assisted more than 36,000 Florida families through casework, written correspondence, and other efforts.

Martinez is the author of "A Sense of Belonging: From Castro’s Cuba to the U.S. Senate, One Man’s Pursuit of the American Dream" (Crown Forum, 2008). In his inaugural address as a U.S. Senator, he said, “I came to America from Communist Cuba so I might have a better way of life. I wanted to live the American Dream where if you worked hard and put your mind to task, anything was possible.”