The first President of the University of Miami, Bowman Foster Ashe, the first registered student, Francis S. Houghtaling, and Chief Tony Tommie, the then recognized leader of the Everglades Seminoles (an agglomeration of the modern day Miccosukee and Seminole tribes, who banded together in their struggle to maintain their freedom from the US military). These three key figures are joined by eight other students at the organization’s founding and the first nine student members are known as the “Founding Nine.”
