Florida House Speaker Rubio to join FIU Metropolitan Center staff

MIAMI – Florida House of Representatives Speaker Marco Rubio has joined the Metropolitan Center as Visiting Distinguished Service Professor.

FIU’s Metropolitan Center provides research, policy and technical support to the public and private sectors with a focus on urban issues.

“We are excited about the contribution that Speaker Rubio will make in teaching and research,” said FIU President Modesto A. Maidique. “Many of the nation’s premier schools of public policy regularly appoint political leaders who can bring their experience into the classroom. Speaker Rubio joins us at a time in which the university is engaged in building a new interdisciplinary School of International and Public Affairs.”

Rubio will serve as co-instructor in a special topic course entitled Florida Politics and the 2008 Election alongside political science professor Dario Moreno. Rubio’s responsibilities will include course and lecture development as well as student evaluations. In the spring of 2009, Rubio will once again team up with Moreno for another course titled Miami Politics.

As a visiting service professor, Rubio will contribute to the Metropolitan Center’s Regional Affordable Housing project by conducting research, assisting with recommendations and developing a proposal for a demonstration project on affordable housing.

“We are looking forward to having Speaker Rubio join our team,” said Metropolitan Center Director Dario Moreno. “Rubio’s insights will give students and researchers a different perspective of the state political process.”

“I am honored to work with students and faculty at FIU,” said Rubio. “I love politics and government and this opportunity will enable me to continue to be part of the public policy conversation in Florida. It will definitely be a learning opportunity for me.”

Rubio said he also will continue to practice law in Miami with the firm of Broad & Cassel. He is in his second and last year as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. In 1998, Rubio was elected to the West Miami City Commission; in 2000, he was elected in a special election to fill a vacancy in House District 111. He has subsequently been re-elected to the House. In November of 2006, Rubio became Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He is the first Hispanic and second youngest person in Florida’s history to preside over a legislative body. The Speaker of the House is a constitutional office considered to be among the most powerful posts in state government.

Speaker Rubio holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Florida and a law degree from University of Miami.

For more information on the Metropolitan Center visit http://metropolitan.fiu.edu/

-FIU-

Media Contacts: Vanessa Brito, 305-349-1255 or vanesa.brito@fiu.edu

Maydel Santana-Bravo, 305-348-1555, santanam@fiu.edu

About FIU:

Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 21 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelors, masters and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006 FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will open in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.