<p>A mother of two twins had one of her sons attending the University of Miami and one attending another university. Both of their graduations were scheduled for the same day, one to start in the morning, the other in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Obviously distressed, the mother sent an email directly to the presidents of each of the universities and asked them to reschedule the graduations, perhaps to earlier or later in the day, or preferably to another day, so that she could attend both graduations.</p>
<p>Clearly, this wasn't possible. The University of Miami is a major research institution and can't reschedule its graduation because a mother wants to see her son graduate, and the other university was another major research university and couldn't reschedule for the same reason. </p>
<p>And so both presidents said in their responses.</p>
<p>However, here's the really great part, which, to me, illustrates just how cool the University of Miami is. In President Shalala's e-mail, she mentioned that she had a helicopter. And she offered to have the helicopter waiting for this mother outside of the graduation for the son who was graduating from the other school. To fly her so she could make it to her son's graduation at the University of Miami on time.</p>
<p>Talk about personalized attention.</p>
<p>Note that this is something that a friend told me happened to one of his friend's mothers. I don't know if it's true... But, knowing President Shalala, I wouldn't be too surprised if it were.</p>