Tulane University

The Stone Center for Latin American Studies held its annual Awards Ceremony in the Greenleaf Conference Room on Thursday, May 1, 2015 at 5 pm. Hosted by Jimmy Huck, Assistant Director for Graduate Affairs, the event honors students, faculty and staff for both academic excellent and service. Congratulations to all of the award winners!

LAGO Outstanding Faculty Member Service Award
Recipient: Guadalupe García
Presented by: Latin Americanist Graduate Organization (LAGO)
For excellence in teaching and for promoting selflessly the interests and careers of Latin American Studies graduate students.

LAGO Outstanding Staff Member Service Award
Recipient: Denise Woltering Vargas
Presented by: Latin Americanist Graduate Organization (LAGO)
For selflessly promoting the interests and careers of Latin American Studies graduate students.

LAGO Outstanding Graduate Student Service Award
Recipients: Mira Kohl, Jennifer Triplett
Presented by: Latin Americanist Graduate Organization (LAGO)
For generously promoting the interests of Latin American Studies graduate students as a whole.

Stephen P. Jacobs Prize for Best Graduate Paper Presented at LAGO Conference
Recipient: Maile Speakman (Tulane University), “Gender in the City: Reading Judith Butler in Havana”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
For the best paper presented at the Latin Americanist Graduate Organization’s annual conference. Named for Stephen P. Jacobs, Professor Emeritus of the Tulane School of Architecture, who, after retiring from teaching, became a doctoral student in Latin American Studies and was respected by his peers on the faculty and by his fellow students in Latin American Studies.

Simón Rodríguez Award for Best Undergraduate Teacher
Recipient: Annie Gibson
Presented by: Tulane’s Undergraduate Latin America Studies Organization (TULASO)
For genuine interest in promoting undergraduate scholarship in Latin American Studies.

William J. Griffith Award for Outstanding Teaching Assistant in Latin American Studies
Recipient: Allison Caplan
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
William Griffith was a noted historian of Central America and served as director of Tulane’s Center for Latin American Studies. Griffith was the first Center Director to secure federal funding for the program and his role as Center Director influenced the development of the core introductory course in Latin American Studies, which our Teaching Assistants have since assumed primary responsibility for delivering.

Stone Center Award for Best Campus-Wide Undergraduate Paper on a Latin American Topic
Recipient: David Roberts, “Towards a Sweet Reunion? The Sugarcane Agroindustry and Brazil’s Impact on U.S.-Cuban Trade Normalization”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies

Alberto Vázquez Award for Best Undergraduate Paper in the Humanities by a Latin American Studies Major/Minor
Recipient: Lilah Shepard, “Si no vista la Paisana Jacinta no tuviste infancia: Humor and Nostalgia in the Acceptance of Peru’s Anti-Indina Media Portrayals”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
Alberto Vázquez was a member of the Spanish Department at Tulane who always demonstrated a firm commitment and dedication to undergraduate scholarship in the humanities. Professor Vázquez developed the primary humanities course in the Latin American Studies curriculum.

M. Karen Bracken Award for Best Undergraduate Paper in the Social Sociences by a Latin American Studies Major/Minor
Recipient: Dylan Barnes, “Divided We Fall: Oil Exploitation, Conservation and Indigenous Organizing in the Amazon Basin”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
M. Karen Bracken served as Assistant Director in the Center for Latin American Studies for 13 years advising undergraduate majors and helping to build the undergraduate program. Her training as a sociologist contributed to the development of the social science side of the inter-disciplinary undergraduate degree program.

Stone Center Award for Best Campus-Wide Graduate Paper on a Latin American Topic
Recipient: Jennifer Triplett, “Feminism and Fertility: Discourse and Policy Disconnect in Fujimori’s Family Planning Program”
Presented by: Susan Bridle-Fitzpatrick, Stone Center for Latin American Studies

Donald Robertson Award for Best Graduate Paper in the Humanities
Recipient: Sarah Bruni, “A Space of One’s Own: Secondary Characters and the Politics of Personal Memory in the Southern Cone Post-dictatorship Generation Novel”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
Donald Robertson was a professor of Art History at Tulane for more than 25 years and authored the standard Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan Schools. Professor Robertson served on numerous graduate student committees and motivated a generation of budding Art Historians and Ethnohistorians.

Richard E. Greenleaf Award for Best Graduate Paper in the Social Sciences
Recipient: Alexander Standen, “Rhetoric and Reality: Local Agency in the Maya Biosphere Reserve”
Presented by: Jimmy Huck, Stone Center for Latin American Studies
Richard E. Greenleaf served as the Director of the Center for Latin American Studies from the late 1960s until his retirement in 1997. Not only are his own scholarly accomplishments impressive and well-known, but he has directed more than 20 doctoral theses and has motivated the scholarly production and research of countless graduate students.