In the five decades since they were undergraduates at the University of Miami, Ed Strongin, B.B.A. ’72, and his wife, Carol, A.B. ’73, have built a steadfast record of service and giving to their alma mater.
She was a volunteer at the Lowe Art Museum before becoming an employee, and he has served on numerous volunteer boards and committees, including the Citizens Board, the UM Sports Hall of Fame Executive Committee, and the University of Miami Alumni Association, where he served as president as well as ex-officio member of the University Board of Trustees.
The lessons he learned through these experiences found their way into both his business career and his personal life: “At the end of the day, notwithstanding a great deal of volunteer connection, I likely received more than I gave,” he said.
Now, the Strongins, whose financial support of the U dates to 1978, have made a major gift to establish the Edward and Carol Strongin Endowed Accounting Scholarship at the Patti and Allan Herbert Business School. Their contribution is three-part: a planned estate gift, which will fund the endowment; an endowment accelerator fund; and a current-use fund designed so that students may benefit from their generosity right away.
Miguel Angel Minutti-Meza, associate professor of accounting and chair of the Department of Accounting at Miami Herbert, hailed the Strongins’ gift as a stellar example of the kind of support the school receives from its alumni. “Their gift will benefit three to five of our outstanding female undergraduate or graduate accounting students each year by easing their financial burden,” he said. “We are proud that the Strongin family name will forever be a part of our school.”
The Strongins’ motivation for giving back is rooted in their own time at the University. “We have been fortunate, lucky, even blessed, in our lives and now have opportunity and ability to give something back,” Ed Strongin said. “[Plus], as a student I needed financial aid. The University was there. So…here’s another chance to say ‘thank you’ by providing scholarship assistance to students who will need some help…using this gift to help balance the ledger!”
“It was college, for sure, but maybe because of timing…more intense!”
For Ed Strongin, being an undergraduate at the University of Miami in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a vivid experience. “Let’s remember,” he said, “we lived through the Vietnam War, campus protests, the civil rights and women’s movements, all within a fast-changing cultural scene” that was unlike anything that had gone before.
Strongin’s personal memory lane from his time at the U is populated with influential professors; protests at Rock Plaza; Ray Bellamy, the University’s first African American student body president; President Henry King Stanford and Bill Butler, then vice president of student affairs, “trying to give us voice and at the same time keep us on track;” along with the intramural football championship, extraordinary concerts (particularly Janis Joplin on campus), formal dances, and “epic” rush parties.
Above all, there was the chance meeting with a newly arrived freshman, Carol Peltason, at the Whitten University Center. “She and three freshman suitemates came sweeping through an orientation event like they owned the place,” Strongin recalled. “It took some patience and perseverance...but she later agreed to a date and forever changed my life.”
Carol and Ed married soon after graduation, started their family with children Amy and Matt, and embarked on careers for which the University prepared them well. “Carol’s liberal arts education provided her the foundation to become a docent at the Lowe Art Museum in 1979,” Strongin recounted. “After several years, the museum director asked her to take over museum store management, which she did, first as a volunteer and then as a Lowe employee for 20-plus years.”
Strongin, who recently retired in late 2020, credits the undergraduate accounting education he received at the University for forming the foundation of a long and rewarding career as a CPA and then as a CFO for a highly successful nationwide healthcare business.
He also points to the people skills and relationships he honed through active participation in student government, his fraternity, and other campus activities—as well as the lasting benefits of getting involved in and giving to causes one believes in. For the Strongins those causes include, in addition to the University of Miami, a fund similar to the Zimbabwe-based Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, which does important work to conserve wildlife in the region surrounding the Falls.
Ed Strongin encourages other alumni to give. “Over many years of University friend-raising and fundraising, it was important to first make the best annual gift commitment we could and then ask every alum we spoke with to “join us” at that level or to the extent they were able,” he said. “With this estate gift, we find another option to address need, provide a helping hand, ensure the University’s future and just give back. We hope others will do the same, join us…it feels pretty good!”
