Some of the first Cornell undergraduates to complete the LASP concentration in 1996 are from left, Clay Sanford, Nohemy Solorzano, Anne Pederson, Elisa Vandervort, Neil Perrotte, Dennis Shin, Leticia Pearman and Lourdes Torres. Mary Jo Dudley
Colonial Latin America. Latin American Women Writers. Bandits, Deviants and Rebels in Latin America. Labor in Developing Economies.
One glance at the course listing in the brochure for Cornell's new concentration in Latin American studies reveals the breadth of this program, now available to undergraduate students.
Housed in Uris Hall, the concentration (Cornell's equivalent of a minor) is an outgrowth of the 35-year-old Latin American Studies Program (LASP), originally aimed at providing graduate students and faculty with teaching and research opportunities.
In consortium with the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, the Cornell program has been designated one of 13 National Resource Centers in Latin American studies by the U.S. Department of Education under its Title VI program. (Cornell also has four other National Resource Centers focusing on other regions.)
"It's becoming more important that students can function in an increasingly globalized context," said Mary Jo Dudley, LASP associate director. "In order to do so, they need not only expertise in their academic discipline but other skills in area studies and language."
Undergraduates who complete the concentration receive official recognition on their transcripts. The first crop to complete the concentration, in spring 1996, included 13 students; currently, 22 students are enrolled from such disciplines as anthropology, Spanish, chemistry, industrial and labor relations, and city and regional planning. (A minor in Latin American studies is also available for Cornell graduate students.)
"The concentration was a way of formalizing what was, in effect, already under way," said Lourdes Benería, LASP director and professor of city and regional planning and women's studies. "Before, students might study many courses on Latin America, but they would have nothing to show for it in their records.
"More and more," she continued, "students have been expressing interest in the region, so it makes sense for us to encourage them through a concentration." In part, such interest derives from developments like NAFTA and growing tourism in Latin America, she said; but to a greater degree "it comes from the increasing internationalization of the Cornell curriculum. For students who were already taking courses in Latin American history, economics, politics, etc., the concentration is a way of giving academic shape to their Latin American studies and guiding them through this process."
One such student is senior Timothy Doane. "When I learned of the LAS concentration last year, I looked at its brochure out of curiosity," he said. "When I realized I had already taken more than half of the required courses, I decided to declare the concentration."
Doane, a chemistry major who first visited Latin America as an exchange student in Paraguay at the age of 17, hopes to pursue a Cornell master's degree in agronomy and apply such studies to agricultural work in South America.
He and several other LAS students agreed that requirements for the concentration are not excessively demanding or intrusive upon requirements for their majors. The concentration requires at least 15 academic credits from a course list of more than 60, which must be distributed among at least three departments and include one introductory and one advanced-level course. Students also must demonstrate proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese or Quechua.
Economics major Maria Gallardo, a junior, chose the concentration to learn more about her native Peru.
"I had studied Peruvian history in high school, but it wasn't analytical; it was just 'memorize, memorize, memorize,'" she said. "In Ethnology of the Andean Region [taught by Billie Jean Isbell, associate professor of anthropology], we learned to discuss and express our opinions. The concentration has opened my mind to so many aspects of Peruvian life that I'd never really gotten a grasp of." Gallardo, who has worked with the Peruvian Human Rights Project in Lima, recently began her own chapter of the organization at Cornell.
Denene DeQuintal, a junior majoring in anthropology, is taking a new course, Latin American Cities, offered through the Department of City and Regional Planning in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. The course included a six-week seminar and will be followed by a two-week field trip to Mexico City over winter break.
"I would never have taken a course in city and regional planning if it weren't for Latin American studies," she said. "And it's one of the best courses I've taken."
LAS undergraduates learn about the region not only in the classroom but beyond, through LAS programs and those offered in conjunction with other Cornell entities like the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development; Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies; Latino Studies Program; Johnson Graduate School of Business; and American Indian Program. Ongoing LAS programs include:
But perhaps Cornell's greatest resource in Latin American studies is its faculty, which includes 54 core and 87 associated faculty.
Core faculty members include Benería, who works on international development and labor issues; Debra Castillo, Romance studies and comparative literature, who specializes in contemporary Latin American narrative; Thomas Holloway, history, a specialist in the social history of Brazil; Isbell, anthropology, who has written plays about Peruvian life that her students will perform this spring; and Mary Roldán, history, who studies citizenship and political violence in 20th-century Colombia.