50@50: Dalai Lama visits FIU for the first time in 1999


To celebrate the university’s 50th anniversary, FIU News is sharing 50 moments in FIU’s history as part of our “50@50″ series. The video below of the Dalai Lama receiving his honorary degree from the university appears courtesy of the FIU Special Collections & University Archives.

By Joel Delgado ’12 MS ’17 

During his first trip to Miami, the Dalai Lama stopped at Modesto A. Maidique Campus on April 16, 1999 to deliver his message of peace and compassion. His visit had the university and local community abuzz with excitement and anticipation.

A month before His Holiness spoke at FIU Arena, 4,000 tickets were snatched up less than an hour after being released. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the area’s two members of Congress and former Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas were on hand to greet the Dalai Lama. More than 200 media credentials, from local and national outlets, were requested for the event.

While he was on campus, the Dalai Lama blessed the 6-foot-high Peace Monument located next to the fountain in front of Primera Casa. Afterward, he went to FIU Arena for a ceremony where he was awarded with an honorary divinity degree.

But on his way to the stage, the Dalai Lama noticed a few people in wheelchairs and stepped away, briefly stopping the procession in order to greet them.

Sixteen years later, former Director of Protocol and Special Events Josefina Cagigal still remembers the exchange and the Dalai Lama’s visit well.

“He is such a kind person,” Cagigal said. “He bowed to them, hugged them and he finally came back and we continued toward the stage. It was a wonderful event and it was a very, very successful visit.”

Cagigal was in charge of coordinating and organizing all the logistics for the Dalai Lama’s visit, arranged by former chair of the Department of Religious Studies Nathan Katz. Katz had a long-standing relationship with His Holiness dating back more than two decades.

After receiving his honorary degree, the Dalai Lama delivered a 40-minute speech to a sold-out crowd packed inside the arena eager to hear Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader speak.

“In the modern education system, you pay attention to the proper development of the brain. But you do not pay adequate attention to the development of the warm heart. So some sort of combination, the development of the good heart, the warm heart, and the development of the good brain, these must go together,” he said in his remarks.

To watch the Dalai Lama’s entire speech, provided by the FIU Special Collections & University Archives, go to FIU’s YouTube channel.

The Dalai Lama returned to FIU in 2004. And, in 2009, he gave a $100,000 gift to the Religious Studies Endowment Campaign in order to help sustain the future study of world religions at FIU.

In 2010, he visited Miami again, bringing together leaders from several faiths to contemplate “The Significance of World Religions” at Temple Emanu-El, located on South Beach. Cagigal was the event coordinator for all three of the Dalai Lama’s visits to South Florida.

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