STONE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

History
of the Roger Thayer Stone Center
for Latin American Studies

Mission Statement

The Executive Committee of the Stone Center adopted this mission statement in April 1998:

Introduction

Tulane University is a liberal arts institution founded in 1834. Its academic mission has been identified historically with its region. The latter includes the Mississippi River and Gulf-Caribbean basins as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds linked at the isthmus in Panama. Tulane’s programs have evolved as partnerships with these regional neighbors linked by history and shared inheritances.

Tulane has a long-standing special strength in the study of Central America and Mexico. This concentration originated in a turn-of-the-century gift of a large Mesoamerican library, which became the foundation for the Latin American Library’s holdings of resource materials on Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico, which are internationally distinguished.

In the early part of the century, one of Tulane’s first internationally prestigious program was the Middle American Research Institute, which was founded in 1924 to conduct "advanced research into the archaeology, history, tropical botany, and natural resources and products of countries facing New Orleans across the waters of the south." Tulane’s identity and destiny were to become one with this early exemplar of its institutional leaders’ commitments to create knowledge and provide service to a region whose boundaries transcended the geopolitical frontiers of the United States. Archaeology, anthropology, history, political science, literature, biology, and earth sciences formed the core disciplines in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, while the Schools of Law, Business, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health developed truly Pan-American programs in the early twentieth century.

Although Tulane expanded its scope to all of Latin America after World War II, the Mesoamerican strength remains and the Stone Center acts as a sort of brokerage for relations between Mesoamerica and the United States. A steady stream of Mexicans and Central Americans come to Tulane for training, as Fulbright Professors and to use our library. Specialists on the region can be found in most departments and the university has produced several hundred dissertations and theses on Mesoamerican subjects. Every summer there are well over 100 Tulane faculty and students at work in the region, whether in archaeological excavations, Maya intensive language program in Guatemala, or dozens of National Resource Center-financed individual research projects.

Our program is today comprehensive with faculty in almost every region and discipline essential to understanding Latin America. The Mississippi-Gulf-Caribbean region is the epicenter of cultural and historical converging and radiating flows of a vast cultural and geographic network embracing Europe, Africa, the Pacific Rim, and North and South America. Today, Tulane University has active programs in African and African Diaspora Studies, the Atlantic World, Comparative Southern Studies, and Cuban, Brazilian, and Francophone Caribbean Studies. The Payson Institute for Applied Development and Technology Transfer offers courses on its New Orleans and Washington D.C. campuses and operates a federally-funded third world disaster center. Our Schools of Law, Business and Public Health and Tropical Medicine operate field programs in every region of Latin America.

Nationally, few institutions of Tulane’s size compare in the number of faculty, graduate students, undergraduate majors, library holdings, and support for research dedicated to the support of Latin American studies across the university. When viewed in relationship to the percentage of the relatively small available pool of institutional resources—e.g. faculty, students, library holdings, and budget—Tulane’s commitment to Latin American Studies is comparable or superior to institutions such as Stanford and Duke, among private universities, and to the University of Texas and the University of California at Los Angeles, among large public universities, whose faculties and student bodies are three to five times larger.

Tulane is also a top producer of graduate degrees that focus on Latin America. Since the mid-l960s, over 300 students have graduated with an interdisciplinary M.A. degrees in Latin American Studies and have gone on to positions in the public and private sectors, and for additional training in the disciplines and professions. Almost forty have graduated with the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Latin American Studies since the late l970s. Virtually every one of these graduates is working or has worked in the field. A few placements include University of New Mexico, University of Texas, Smith College, Middlebury College, Banco de Bilbao, Harvard University, U.S. Agency for International Development, and some seven Mexican universities.

Strengths

Strengths
The principal strengths of the Center include the following.

• Tulane is one of four continuously funded Latin American National Resource Centers, and has long occupied a critical position as the only Latin American National Resource Center in the Deep South (AL, AR, LA, MS, and TN). Nationally, few institutions of Tulane’s size compare in the number of faculty, students, library resources, and research support for Latin American studies.
• The Stone Center has an endowment of $15 million, principally from the Zemurray Foundation; it stands today perhaps as the largest of any National Resource Center in the country. In 2004-05 alone it was awarded grants from Louisiana Board of Regents, Rockefeller Foundation, Tinker Foundation, and Zemurray Foundation.
• The Stone Center’s faculty averages 74 core Latin Americanists, 25 affiliates, 8 visiting professors, and 3 post-doctoral fellows, which represents the largest contingent of faculty associated with any department or program on the Tulane campus. In addition, the Stone Center is administered by 8 professional staff.
• In the period 2000-2005, Tulane awarded 88 Ph.D.s with Latin American foci in Spanish and Portuguese (25), Anthropology (19), Latin American Studies (15), History (6), Business Administration (5), Political Science (4), Sociology (3), French (2), Economics (1), EEB (1), Geology (1), Parasitology (1), Public Health (1), and Social Work (1).
• The most recent Gourman Report, Undergraduate Programs (1997) ranked Tulane’s Latin American Studies undergraduate program second in the United States.
• In 2005 alone, 50 undergraduate students graduated with a Latin American Studies major or minor; 5 majors graduated with honors.
• As of Fall 2005 there are a total of 36 students enrolled in the graduate program in Latin American Studies, 19 of which are in the Masters program.
• Tulane is one of three Latin American National Resource Centers that offer an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program; as of Fall 2005 there are 12 students enrolled.
• The Stone Center’s interdisciplinary graduate program on average admits 12-15 students each year.
• Latin American Studies GRE scores also continue to rise. According to our internal records, scores averaged 1243 for students admitted in Fall 2001, 1194 in Fall 2002, 1306 for Fall 2003, 1216 in Fall 2004, 1260 in Fall 2005, and 1270 in Fall 2006. Declines often correlate with the number of non-English speaking students admitted in a given year.
• Ph.D. placements are strong. Of the 20 PhDs awarded since summer 1999—ten are in tenure-track academic jobs, two are in research positions, two are visiting faculty, two are in government, one is a university administrator, one a medical doctor, one a librarian, and one is currently on the academic job market.
• Tulane’s professional schools provide training options in a wide variety of fields and the Stone Center offers joint degree programs in Business and Law. In 2004-05, the professional schools offered eighty-one courses with more than 25% Latin American content with total enrollments of 2,419 (Architecture 9, Social Work 2, Law 8, Business 13, and Health Sciences 49).
• Over the last three years, the Stone Center funded 26 summer field research grants for faculty and professional librarians (averaging $1,899 each), provided $22,481 in airfare and per-diem for 64 trips for travel to professional meetings, and awarded over $20,000 for editorial, translation, and publication subsidies and for staff and TAs to attend 15 professional development workshops.
• In the two-year period 2003-2005, Tulane students participated in twenty-three different study abroad programs in fourteen Latin American and Caribbean countries—Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, and Trinidad & Tobago. In 2003-2005, the average yearly enrollments for summer programs by destination country were: Belize (7), Chile (17), Costa Rica (25), Cuba (62), the Dominican Republic (14), Guatemala (20), Mexico (20), Peru (7), Trinidad and Tobago (10).
• The Stone Center offers a variety of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs)— Portuguese, Kaqchikel Maya, Yucatec Maya, Haitian Creole, and Nahuatl. Tenured or tenure-track faculty teach Portuguese and Kaqchikel. Native language instructors under the supervision of tenured faculty members teach the others. Yucatec and Nahuatl are taught in alternate years on campus with the assistance of native informants who work individually with each student.
• Tulane’s Latin American Library (LAL) comprises 19% of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and occupies one sixth of its floor space. Tulane’s holdings of 420,000 place it among the top four institutions (Texas, Harvard, Yale, and UCSD) who reported to the SALALM survey for 2003-04. In that report, LAL’s number of volumes received annually ranked sixth and its acquisition expenditures seventh. In SALALM’s last report on FTEs in 1999-2000, Tulane’s total FTEs dedicated to Latin American resources ranked third.
• In the natural sciences, federal funding helped establish a new Ecology and Evolutionary Biology line in tropical biology. Today the department has five tropical biologists working in Latin America.
• The Stone Center also supports the Latin American Resource Center (LARC), whose mission is to promote the study and understanding of Latin America through a broad range of programs that insure high academic quality and content that is accessible and relevant for our diverse audiences. LARC’s lending library is widely recognized as the largest available collection of audio-visual and curriculum materials on Latin America for educators nationwide. The library includes over 4,000 items.
  

History

Tulane University is a liberal arts institution founded in New Orleans in 1834. Located in a Franco-Hispanic city on the Gulf of Mexico, the city has served as a mediator between the circum-Caribbean world and the Anglo-American North from its foundation.

Tulane’s academic mission and programs have also evolved as partnerships with regional neighbors linked by history and shared inheritances. Early Tulane scholars studied the tropical diseases prevalent in New Orleans and the Gulf-Caribbean. They also gave attention to the tradition of civil code law which Louisiana shares with the French and Spanish world to the south. Even today Louisiana is the only place in the U.S. where civil law is taught. Consequently, Tulane has a long-standing special strength in the study of Central America and Mexico.

This early historical trajectory was given a firm organizational foundation in l924, when Tulane benefactor Samuel Zemurray, the president of the Cuyamel Fruit Company, made a large gift of a library, archaeological artifacts, and an endowment to establish the Department of Middle American Research. The library was the William Gates Collection; it furnished the foundation of Tulane’s internationally distinguished holdings of resource materials on Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico. This scholarly collection later constituted the base of Tulane’s Latin American Library established in 1962.

The Department of Middle American Research was founded to conduct "advanced research into the history (both Indian and colonial), archaeology, tropical botany (both economic and medical), and natural resources and products, of the countries facing New Orleans across the waters to the south; to gather, index and disseminate data thereupon; and to aid in the upbuilding of the best commercial and friendly relations between these Trans-Caribbean peoples and the United States." The new division launched systematic expeditions and publications that described and analyzed the archaeology, customs, and languages of Central America and Mexico. It became Tulane’s first internationally prestigious program, responsible not only for innovative research, but for the highly popular Maya exhibit at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1933-34.

William Gates was the first director of the Department in 1924, Franz Blom replaced him in 1926, and Hermann Bayer joined him in 1927. The Department attracted important participants in its research programs. Doris Zemurray Stone, who graduated from Radcliffe in 1930, joined the Department as an associate in ethnography during the 1931 academic year and subsequently was named as an associate in archaeology. She remained active in the program until 1939, when she moved with her husband Roger Thayer Stone to Costa Rica. She lived in Latin America until her father’s death in 1961, when she and her husband returned to New Orleans. Matilda Geddings Gray was associated with the Department from 1927, assembling an important collection of textiles during an expedition she led in 1935. Both of these researchers were to become major contributors and benefactors of the Department and Latin American Studies at Tulane.

In 1930, Blom presented an ambitious plan for the establishment of the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) to the Rockefeller Foundation, which dismissed them as overly ambitious. He labored throughout the 1930s to found this new institute, actively promoting plans for the construction of a new $2,000,000 building on campus modeled after the Castillo de Chichén Itzá. The fundraising campaign was authorized in1938, but they were not to be completed. Franz Blom and Hermann Bayer were dismissed from their posts in 1940 and 1941, and only the name change took effect.

Maurice Ries and Arthur Gropp guided MARI until 1943, when Robert Wauchope became Director. Although called to service in the Navy in 1944-46, on his return he worked to integrate the research functions of the MARI with the teaching goals of the university. He served as the first chair in 1945-1946 of the Faculty Senate Committee on Middle American Studies, which oversaw the instructional programs on Latin America in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He was succeeded in 1946-47 by Professor of Spanish John Englekirk, Jr., who served through 1949-50.

Throughout the 1940s, and early 1950s, studies of Latin America expanded to include an increasing number of Tulane departments and faculty. Anthropology, history, literature, art history, political science, economics, sociology, biology, and earth sciences formed the core disciplines in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, while the Schools of Law, Business, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health developed Pan-American programs as well.

In 1947, the Carnegie Corporation awarded Tulane University, Vanderbilt, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of North Carolina five-year grants to develop area studies programs for Latin America. The President’s Report of September 1948 described the fruits of that funding, announcing the creation of three new B.A. programs in Public Administration, Foreign Service, and Latin American Studies. All were targeted at newly perceived professional opportunities for students after WWII.

Latin American Studies was constituted as a minor and certification program and required 24 hours of Latin American content; the 1948 Report described it as the "equivalent of a second major." Seventeen courses were listed that year. The same Report announced the Graduate Council’s approved a new M.A. degree in Latin American Studies; and in 1948 the Faculty Senate Committee on Middle American Studies was renamed the Committee on Latin American Studies,

In 1951, William J. Griffith (History) assumed the chairmanship of the Committee on Latin American Studies that included Dean Roger P. McCutcheon, Hugh B. Carnes (Business), Gustavo Correa (Spanish), John E. Englekirk, Jr. (Spanish), Frank L. Keller (Business), Arden R. King (Anthropology), Kalman H. Silvert (Politics), Robert Wauchope (Anthropology), and Daniel S. Wogan (Spanish). Munro Edmonson (Anthropology) joined them a year later.

Carnegie Institute funding in 1953 enabled full-scale coordinated group research at MARI in coordination with the Committee on Latin American Studies. But the group research projects were not completely successful, as researchers and faculty preferred individual projects. In spite of committed efforts from both parties to forge a coherent and unified program, the research mission of MARI and the instructional program of the Committee on Latin American Studies would move forward on separate tracks.

In 1956, the Latin American Studies Instructional Program, the Institute of Comparative Law, and MARI submitted a grant to the Rockefeller Foundation to establish an Institute of Latin American Studies. They were unsuccessful, but in 1956-57 Latin American Studies became a department of instruction. By 1960, it had expanded to include Bernard Gicovate (Spanish), Donald Robertson (Art), Philip B. Taylor, Jr. (Politics), Jan P. Charmatz (Law), Rodolfo Batiza (Law), and Gilbert Chase (Music).

In the interim, MARI continued its research and publication mission. In late 1957, the National Science Foundation approached Wauchope about undertaking the general direction of the publication of the Handbook of Middle American Indians, which was to become a major focus of MARI for many years. E. Wyllys Andrews IV, who had become an associate of MARI in 1949, had established important excavations at Dzibilchaltún, north of Mérida. E. Wyllys Andrews V followed his father as the director of MARI’s projects in Yucatán in 1972-74 and took over as MARI’s director when Wauchope retired in 1975.

In 1962, the U.S. Department of Education awarded funding to Tulane University to establish a National Resource Center in Latin American Studies under provisions of the newly established National Defense Education Act. In 1965, the Ford Foundation awarded the university a major five-year grant to expand both the faculty and the curriculum. Consequently, in 1966, Tulane University established the Center for Latin American Studies. William Griffith (History) was its first director; Richard Greenleaf (History) became its second director in 1970. By then, the Center’s new faculty included Roland H. Ebel (Politics), James D. Cochrane (Politics), Paul Lewis (Politics), Victoria Bricker (Anthropology), and Ralph Lee Woodward (History). A

Richard Greenleaf directed the Center for twenty-eight years, retiring in 1998. The achievements of the Greenleaf era were fundamental in establishing the Center as one of the preeminent academic programs at Tulane University and in the nation. He increased the size and breadth of the faculty, which reached its current size under his directorship. He garnered major support for its programmatic development from the Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford, Tinker, and Zemurray Foundations to name only a few. In 1975, in partnership with Samuel Z. Stone, he helped launch the Centro de Investigacion Adiestamiento Público-Administrativo in San José, Costa Rica, as a sister institution of the Center. In 1974, he established a new Ph.D. degree in Latin American Studies. His many other accomplishments are the subject of a special issue of the Center’s Newsletter on the occasion of a symposium in his honor (see Archive).

In addition to Greenleaf’s many achievements, the Center flourished because of the indefatigable support of eminent scholar and benefactor Doris Stone. The Center was renamed the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies in 1983 in honor of her husband, in whose memory she made significant contributions to the Center’s endowment. Doris Stone died in 1994 , and her son Samuel Stone and his family continue as active collaborators in the Center’s life and programs.

The Stone Center’s Role in New Strategic Initiatives at Tulane University

Thomas Reese (Art History) became the Center’s third director in January 1999. He joined the Tulane community just as Tulane’s new President Scott Cowen determined to institute a process to define a new strategic plan for the university. The plan, approved in 2000, defined new initiatives on education and research that established four specific "areas of concentration of interest and expertise"—(1) Environmental, (2) Health Science/Biomedical, (3) International/Area Studies, and (4) Urban/Community. At Tulane, International/Area Studies is actually coterminous with Latin American Studies and African and Diaspora Studies.

In 1999, in conjunction with university-wide strategic planning, the Stone Center defined six areas of faculty expertise across the university. They are (1) Literature, Performance and Cultural Studies, (2) Art, Ethnography and History, (3) Archaeology, Preservation and Cultural Heritage, (4) Environment, Ecology, and Health, (5) Social Action, Community Planning, and Public Policy, and (6) Economy, Technology and Information Exchange. These coexist in dynamic relationships with older institutes with more tightly defined parameters (e.g. the Middle American Research Institute, Neotropical Ecological Institute, Cuba Studies Institute), and with existing and emerging programs and councils (e.g. the African Diaspora Studies Program and the Brazilian Studies Council).

The new research clusters map the unique character of Tulane Latinamericanists’ research and teaching. They do not follow traditional liberal arts divisions (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences), but reflect the particular strengths and interests of Tulane faculty and resources across the liberal arts, professional schools, and university research centers.

Literature, Performance and Cultural Studies is a rising area of strength with special distinction in Central American, Caribbean, Brazilian, and Southern Cone studies; it is characterized by extraordinary interdisciplinary dynamism and represents a distinctive niche of excellence for Tulane among Latin American Studies programs in the United States.

Idelber Avelar (Spanish & Portuguese): Brazil, Argentina, Chile
Laura Bass (Spanish & Portuguese): New Spain
John Charles (Spanish & Portuguese): Peru
Gaurav Desai (English): Caribbean
Hortensia Calvo (Latin American Library): Latin America
Christopher Dunn (Spanish & Portuguese): Brazil
Pamela Franco (Art History): Caribbean
Harry Howard (Spanish & Portuguese): Latin America
Thomas Klingler (French & Italian): Caribbean, Louisiana
Javier León (Music): Peru
Ana López (Communication): Latin America
Vicki Mayer (Communication): U.S. Latinos
Marilyn Miller (Spanish & Portuguese): Caribbean
Supriya Nair (English): Caribbean
Maureen Shea (Spanish & Portuguese): Central America
Felipe Smith (English): Caribbean
Richard Watts (French & Italian): Caribbean, Louisiana

Art, Ethnography and History are areas of longstanding strength at Tulane with special distinction in Mexican and Central American studies. History, anthropology, and art history have deep roots at Tulane and remain preeminent programs.

Rosanne Adderley (History): Caribbean
William Balée (Anthropology): Brazil
Elizabeth Boone (Art History): Mesoamerica
James Boyden (History): Spain, Atlantic World
Victoria Bricker (Anthropology Emeritus): Mexico
Richard Greenleaf (History Emeritus): Mexico
Robert Hill (Anthropology): Mexico
Katherine Jack (Anthropology): Ecuador, Costa Rica
Javier León (Music): Peru
Paul Lewis (Political Science): Paraguay, Argentina
Colin MacLachlan (History): Mexico, Brazil
Judith Maxwell (Anthropology): Guatemala
Susan Schroeder (History): Mexico
John Verano (Anthropology): Peru
Justin Wolfe (History): Central America
Ralph Lee Woodward (History Emeritus): Central America
Gertrude Yeager (History): Chile, Bolivia

Archaeology , Preservation, and Cultural Heritage are areas that have flourished in separate domains in schools (liberal arts and sciences, architecture and law), departments (anthropology, linguistics), institutes (MARI), and libraries and museums. The challenges of managing and preserving the cultural—and natural— resources of our region demand new integrated agendas for cooperation and training.

E. Wyllys Andrews (MARI): Mesoamerica
Harvey Bricker (Anthropology): Mexico
Hortensia Calvo (Latin American Library): Latin America
Eugene Cizek (Architecture): Cuba, Louisiana
Dave Davis (Academic Afffairs): Caribbean
Robert González (Architecture): Latin America
Dan Healan (Anthropology): Mexico
Wilbur Meneray (Special Collections): Louisiana, Guatemala
Katherine Nelson (Anthropology): Peru
Carol McMichael Reese (Architecture): Mexico, Argentina
Thomas Reese (Latin American Studies): Argentina, Mexico

Environment, Ecology, and Health is an historic area of strength that has waxed and waned over time, as it struggled to maintain a critical core of faculty with shared research interests in Latin America. Today, this cluster provides critical support to two of the university’s strategic areas of concentration, and new faculty in biology, political science, sociology, law, and public health provide new energy and direction to this program, which has focused historically on the analysis of regional tropical and subtropical environments.

Antonio Barrios (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Pierre Buekens (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): Southern Cone
Jeffrey Chambers (Biology): Brazil
Steve Darwin (Biology): Mexico
Lee Dyer (Biology): Panama
Gina Etheredge (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): Panama
George Flowers (Earth and Environmental Sciences): Mesoamerica
Oliver Houck (Law): General Latin America, Louisiana, Cuba
Mark James (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Carl Kendall (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Kate Macintyre (Public Health &Tropical Medicine): Cuba
Nancy Mock (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Sonia Montenegro-James (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Laura Murphy (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
Stephen Nelson (Geology): Mexico
Thomas Sherry (Biology): Caribbean
Leonard Thien (Biology): Mexico, Panama
Enrique Varela (Psychology): Mexico, Latinos in the United States

Social Action, Community Planning, and Public Policy is an area that the Stone Center is actively promoting as a new area for common faculty initiatives. The goal is to define projects that cut across not only the traditional divisions among society, politics, and economy, but also the practices of professional programs dedicated to protecting human rights, providing human and community services that improve human health and welfare, and developing models that promote greater social, political, and economic equity in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mary Clark (Political Science): Costa Rica
Elizabeth Fussell (Sociology): Mexico
Günther Handl (Law): General Latin America, Central America
David Hotchkiss (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): General Latin America
James Huck (Latin American Studies & Political Science): Mexico
Martha Huggins (Sociology): Brazil
Kate Macintyre (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): Cuba
Mauro Pereira Porto (Communication): Brazil
Diego Rose (Public Health & Tropical Medicine): Central America
Raymond Taras (Political Science): Cuba, Nicaragua
Donna Lee Van Cott (Political Science): The Andes
Jocelyn Viterna (Sociology): El Salvador

Economy, Technology and Information Exchange is another area that the Stone Center will develop in partnership with the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer, the Freeman School of Business, the School of Engineering, and the School of Public Health. Its members will focus on pressing issues brought about by the revolutions in technology, communication, and education that so profoundly influence governments, economies, and non-state actors on a global scale. The massive transfers of information, technology, and capital among Latin American nations and global actors produce dramatic new challenges as society must address the problem of the vast differences that exist between the industrialized and developing worlds.

William Bertrand (Payson Center): Colombia
John Edwards (Economics): Mexico, Honduras, Brazil
Joyce Francis (Payson Center): Latin America
David Hotchkiss (Public Health): General Latin America
Eamon Kelly (Payson Center): Caribbean
William Lennon (Center for International Students): Brazil, Mexico
Jack Ling (Payson Center): Latin America
Lance Query (Howard Tilton Library): Latin America
Wayne Reed (Physics): Latin America
Emilson Silva (Economics): Latin America
Edward Strong (Business): Latin America
John Trapani (Business): General Latin America
S.W.R. de Samarasinghe (Payson Center): Latin America

Title VI National Resource Center

In Summer of 2006, the Stone Center was once again awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI National Resource Center program. In the 2006-2010 quaternary, Title VI funds will be used for the continued support of positions in architecture, ethnomusicology, communication, urban studies, and less commonly taught languages—Kaqchikel, Yucatec, Nahuatl, and Haitian Creole, a full course and instructional design prospectus for a new interactive e-learning course in Kaqchikel language and culture, support for a LCTL Program Coordinator and the Program Manager, Educational and Public Programs, the expansion of the NRC’s outreach and program capacity, particularly in teacher training, and an impact and evaluation study of our undergraduate program. Outreach initiatives include the (a) Content Standards Project, (b) Latin American Immersion Project, (c) new high school course in Latin American Studies, (d) collaborative Summer Institute with LLILAS at the University of Texas at Austin, (e) CLASP/NRC Teacher Training Network, (f) Teacher Advisory Panel, (g) Master Teacher Workshops, (h) Latin American Environmental Film Festival, (i) Latin American News/Business/Culture Report, (j) The Pebbles Center, and (k) support for Outreachworld.org.

Affiliated School and Programs at Tulane University
Professional Schools

Law School
As noted above, Tulane's School of Law is one of the few places in the United States where Civil Code law characteristic of Latin American countries is taught. The School has an exchange program with the University of Buenos Aires and offers short courses on environmental law in Cuba, on human rights in Central America and on NAFTA. It has an agreement with the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey which will ultimately result in doctoral degrees for every law professor of that university. On campus it features teaching by Latin American visiting scholars who offer short courses on subjects of topical interest.  The Law school is particularly well known for its programs in comparative, environmental and maritime law and for its long-standing emphasis on the code legal tradition which Louisiana uniquely shares with Latin America.

A.B. Freeman School of Business
The Freeman School offers an array of programs throughout Latin America. Over half of the School's faculty have taught in these programs. Freeman offers Executive M.B.A  programs in conjunction with the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Moneterry (Mexico) and the Universidad de Chile (Santiago).  It offers a Ph.D. program for the faculty at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). In addition Freeman has agreements for student exchanges and professional programs for executives with Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa (IPADE) in Mexico City. Freeman also offers summer internships with Mexican businesses in Monterrey, Mexico and a summer course at the Instituto Getulio Vargas in Brazil.  Freeman has recently created a Center of Latin American Business Studies with grants from the State of Louisiana. The focus of the Center is Latin American equity markets and a program of research and coursework is evolving around this theme. Freeman is well known for its Burkenroad Reports for Latin America, a series of detailed, published analyses of small and medium sized companies.

School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine is one of the world's leading institutions in the general area of international public health. SPHTM operates intensive summer courses in Cuba and Guatemala on health and development.. It currently has a large USAID contract for "Measured Evaluation" of family planning programs and a USAID "Focus on Young Adults" AIDS prevention program. Each covers five nations of Latin America.  SPHTM students and faculty are active in a wide variety of health and development projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Student field research projects have dealt with such subjects as child nutrition in Brazil, adolescent birth control in Ecuador, AIDS prevention in Guatemala and many others.

Centers, Institutes, and Councils

Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies
The Center coordinates the research and teaching activities of over 70 core faculty and 35 affiliated faculty and adjuncts in schools and departments across several Tulane campuses. Except for the professional schools, this is the largest number of faculty associated with any department or program of the university. The Stone Center occupies a 3,500 sq. ft. facility with conference room, lounge and TA office.

The Center administers interdisciplinary B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. programs in which students may put together curricula selected from several departments or professional schools. Many students have found that such a program gives them flexibility and better access to the full resources of the university than can be had within the confines of a single department.  The Stone Center hosts a wide range of conferences, symposia, film series and other activities. The Center also coordinates a number of the university's many research and study programs in Latin America.

Latin American Resource Center
The Latin American Resource Center provides specialized services to schools and colleges across the nation. It is one of the largest and most comprehensive centers of its kind in the United States, and is dedicated to continuing and improving educational outreach programs. Its goal is to promote the study of all subject matter relating to Latin America at both the K-12 and university levels. The Latin American Resource Center (LARC) provides services such as a lending library, consulting, Visitor Speaker Bureau (for metro-New Orleans area), professional development for educators, and publications for use at grades 6-12.

The Payson Institute for International Development and Technology Transfer
The Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer of Tulane University was established in 1997 to examine and present the impact of technology, primarily information technology, on societal change and development.

Given the expanding emphasis on the ability to use information, it is vital for both individuals and organizations to understand how the use of technology adds to their quality of life. The Payson Center carries out research, training and service programs in social and economic development. It is dedicated to the use of information and technology assisted methods to improve the process of the transfer of skills, knowledge and competencies, which encourage worldwide participation in an equitable society.

By synthesizing information and constantly generating new approaches and methods, the Payson Center offers innovative solutions to educational and societal problems on a worldwide scale. It is a multi-disciplinary and electronically linked faculty with physical locations in New Orleans, The Washington DC area and Geneva.

Middle American Research Institute
MARI conducts archaeological research in Mexico and Central America and publishes research on Mesoamerica by scholars in various disciplines. MARI has a museum of historic textiles and precolumbian ceramics, jade bowls and other artifacts. MARI has conducted major archaeological excavations at Copan (Honduras) and at Ek Balam and a number of other sites in Yucatan.

Neotropical Ecology Institute (NEI)
NEI is a network of faculty, staff and students at Tulane who share a common interest in the Latin American tropical environment. This is a region of enormous biological diversity and natural resources which faces daunting threats and challenges from rapid economic development, lack of resources, poor government policies, and rapid population growth. We aim to help each other generate knowledge to better understand and solve critical environmental problems in Latin America and the Caribbean; we do this through supporting interdisciplinary teaching and education, and promoting greater interdisciplinary communication, sharing of research findings and collaboration in research.

Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute
The Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute evolved out of several years of sustained effort in developing relations with Cuban counterpart organizations for the purposes of academic collaboration and exchange, curricular development, cultural exchange and international development and dialogue.  In addition, the Institute fosters and coordinates Cuba-related initiatives in other units of the University, such as in the Schools of Architecture, Social Work, and Public Health and Tropical Medicine.   Reflecting the success of these efforts, Tulane University in recent years has had a greater presence of faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students in Cuba than any other American university.

The Institute runs the first and largest US undergraduate study program in Cuba, the Summer in Cuba, and organizes a wide range of lectures and musical events on campus and short courses in Cuba. There is a steady stream of Cuban visitors to the Tulane campus, Cuban intellectuals lecturing in courses, etc. The Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute also offers a Speakers Series to the academic community and general public, where experts on Cuba are invited to Tulane to discuss policy and other issues of interest.

Latin American Library
Tulane is one of three universities in the US which have created separate collections for Latin American materials. Current holdings total some 365,000 volumes. The LAL comprises 20% of total main library holding and occupies one sixth of total floor space. Its holding rank tenth among institutions surveyed by the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM). Combined holding of all Latin American materials at Tulane place us in the top four or five libraries ranked in a l997-8 study of U.S. collections.

LAL is visited by scholars from throughout the world, including many from Latin America searching for information about their own countries. Yearly it honors about a thousand interlibrary loan requests from other institutions. Every year it fields some 1,000 extramural scholar inquiries and its award-winning web-site registers 280,000 "hits." Vol. 56 of the Handbook of Latin American Studies identifies LAL as one of the four most important Internet research sites on Latin America.

The historic focus of the LAL has been Mexico and Central America, given the nature of the original l924 gift around which the library has evolved. This focus remains and, in fact, the Library of Congress uses the LAL as a yardstick to evaluate its own collections for Guatemala and Belize.

Among the more notable holdings is an archive of almost 30,000 historic photographs, many of them depicting customs, costumes and buildings no longer extant. The photo collection also includes unique glass negatives and lantern slides taken by early photographers.

LAL has an extensive collection of original Spanish Colonial handwritten documents, including the first letter written by Fernando Cortes in Mexico. LAL is especially rich in its collection of native language dictionaries, grammars, catechisms, legal dossiers, administrative proceedings and notarial records from New Spain. Another extremely important special collection includes over 2,000 rubbings (many of them huge in size) of Maya stone carving. These are the work of Merle Greene Robertson, the inventor of the rubbing technique as applied to this stone work. The importance of this collection increases yearly as the original stone material is pilfered, looted or eroded by acid rain and petrochemical pollution. In many cases it is best full-scale record of particular inscriptions extant.

Perhaps the crown jewel of the LAL is its collection of original Mexican pictorial manuscripts in the Native tradition, the largest such collection in the U.S. These pre-columbian and colonial painted manuscripts, codices, lienzos, and mapas are visited by scholars from throughout the world. A notable example of these manuscripts is the Codex Tulane, a beautiful colored Mixtec document from around l550 which offers a mythological history of an area of Oaxaca and recounts details of the regimes of fifteen generations of rulers.

Center for International Studies
The Center for International Studies provides leadership and direction in international education, programs and activities.  The Center facilitates the development of new international education opportunities for faculty and students and administers the ongoing Junior Year and Semester Abroad Programs.

Amistad Research Center
From around the world they come to New Orleans. Academic scholars, journalists, script writers, novelists, and history buffs are attracted by the diverse and invaluable resources of the Amistad Research Center on the Tulane University campus. The Center is a manuscripts library for the study of ethnic history and culture and race relations in the United States. While the focus is national, the holdings are international in scope. Researchers who use these resources find information about social, economic, and political history that leads to new interpretations of history.

Amistad is among the largest of the nation's repositories specializing in the history of African Americans. Papers of African Americans and records of organizations and institutions of the African American community make up about 90 percent of the Center's holdings. The other 10 percent, significant in number and content, contains documentation on Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Asian Americans, European immigrants, and Appalachian whites. The Center also holds records related to other Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism, as well as many more collections that are entirely secular in origin. 

The Hebert Center
The F. Edward Hebert Center near Belle Chasse, LA is home to specialized facilities for advanced research and graduate training in computer science, bioengineering, and developmental and environmental biology. The newest Hebert Center facility is the United States-Japan Cooperative Biomedical Research Laboratory, a $1.5-million complex dedicated in 1985, where international scientific teams study cell regulatory mechanisms and their role in the body's neuroendocrine system.

Tulane Regional Primate Center
Tulane Regional Primate Research Center (formerly Delta Regional Primate Research Center) is one of seven nationally funded primate centers under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health. Established in 1962, it is located in Covington, LA on a 500-acre tract of land.

The Center is part of Tulane University Medical Center and is dedicated to using non-human primates in biomedical research. Its staff includes approximately 20 scientists and 100 support personnel. The research programs include the disciplines of bacteriology, immunology, molecular biology, neurobiology, pathology, parasitology, primate medicine, reproductive physiology, urology and virology. The center also serves as a research resource to investigators from a number of other institutions. Opportunities are available for advanced students to participate in various aspects of the research.

Center for Archaeology
The Center for Archaeology operates within the Department of Anthropology at Tulane University, providing workspace, funding and equipment for processing and studying archaeological materials, and storage space for archaeological collections and archives. Our facilities include comparative collections of prehistoric and historic North American artifacts and a text and map library. The Center for Archaeology houses laboratory space and the equipment and reference material necessary for processing and analysis of archaeological materials. We help to provide equipment and facilities to students and faculty for archaeological fieldwork and laboratory work, including drafting, photography and computer applications such as computer-aided drafting and data storage and retrieval. Our computer-cataloging program was re-written in 1996 to allow enhanced data storage and retrieval, and complex file manipulation. Our laboratory also houses the Anthropology Department's video production computer workstation, which is used by our students to produce and edit graphics for original anthropological fieldwork.

The mission of the Center for Archaeology is to promote archaeological research at Tulane University, and to enhance public and professional understanding of that work. The Center has an operating budget that is used to support archaeological field research, to maintain archaeological teaching collections, and to sponsor a Distinguished Lecture Series. The Center for Archaeology also publishes an Archaeological Reports series. One of the major functions of the Center is the logistical support of graduate student research projects, providing equipment, facilities and funding for field and laboratory work. Ongoing sponsorship of graduate student research will help to insure that the Center continues to be one of the preeminent centers for Southeastern archaeology.

The Center for Archaeology is a valuable research asset to the archaeological community, both professional and avocational, and it continues to fulfill its charter goals of enhancing archaeological research at Tulane and promoting public understanding of the value and importance of archaeology as a discipline. Our staff members actively participate in public outreach projects, such as the annual Louisiana Archaeology Week, celebrated September 29 to October 5, 1996. Recently one of our associates participated in a celebration in honor of the 1682 de la Salle expedition down the Mississippi River, an event sponsored by the Louisiana Council for Music and Performing Arts, the Council on the Development of French in Louisiana, the Louisiana State Superintendent's Office and Louisiana Public Television. Other staff members present lectures to amateur archaeologists at Louisiana Archaeological Society meetings in the New Orleans area, and also at the University of New Orleans, and local elementary schools. In the professional arena, our Director, staff members and associates routinely present papers at professional conferences, including annual meetings of the Louisiana Archaeological Society, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference and the Society for American Archaeology.

Center for Bioenvironmental Research
Initial funding to create the CBR was awarded to Tulane and its university research partner, Xavier, in 1989 by the Department of Defense. Additional funding for the CBR is provided by participating universities, federal and private grants and contributions, and industry. With these funds the CBR is able to acquire and maintain equipment and facilities, as well as to recruit established scientists in the field. The CBR promotes the use of science in the formulation of public policy and offers expert communication about environmental health risks and their management. To achieve these goals, the CBR is establishing an active partnership with business, government, and interested members of the public in order to make the CBR's research responsive to the needs of the entire community. The CBR is particularly concerned with resolving environmental issues facing Louisiana and the Gulf South region.

The CBR is comprised of researchers in fields ranging from Anatomy to Molecular Biology, from Ecology to Physical Chemistry, and from Chemical Engineering to Computer Science. With researchers in over twenty-five disciplines, the CBR is the quintessential interdisciplinary program.

The trans-university and trans-school capabilities of the CBR provide the ability to form, disperse, and re-form research teams of extraordinary capability and power. In this way, the CBR represents an approach to research and teaching that exceeds and transcends that of any single school, or single department. The CBR provides a model for the interdisciplinary university of the future.

Murphy Institute of Political Economy
The Murphy Institute is home to one of Tulane's most acclaimed interdisciplinary programs. The curriculum of the undergraduate political economy major provides students with the basic skills of economic analysis; it is at the same time based firmly on the view that study of the interrelations of politics and economics has a rich humanistic tradition and its pursuit encourages sustained reflection on fundamental values.

The Institute is also an international center for advanced research and scholarship by humanists and social scientists who study the interrelations of politics and economics. Scholarly activity involves an annual program of interdisciplinary conferences, lectures, and seminars. The Institute publishes (with Cambridge University Press) "Murphy Institute Studies in Political Economy," a series of occasional volumes comprising original essays by our faculty and visitors.

South Central Center of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change
The National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) was established by the U.S. Congress under the Energy and Water Act of 1989. The Institute is operated for the DOE by the University of California, Davis under a cooperative agreement.  The institute consists of six regional research centers with the South Central Regional Center being located in the School of Engineering at Tulane University.

NIGEC is a unique national institute devoted to the study and integration of the regional effects of climate change in the U.S. It represents a human infrastructure of experts located at universities throughout the country, educating students and developing the research to answer some of the most pressing scientific questions of importance to policy makers.

The Newcomb College Center for Research on Women
The Newcomb College Center for Research on Women is a division of H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, Tulane University, New Orleans. It was founded in 1975 at the behest of faculty and staff as The Newcomb Women's Center, and was re-named in 1985 to reflect an emerging focus on research and teaching. It is one of ten interdisciplinary research centers at Tulane University. The Center is the oldest university-based women's center in the Gulf South and is the only regional member of the National Council for Research on Women.

The primary mission of Newcomb College Center for Research on Women is to advance knowledge about women by documenting and preserving women's historical pasts, fostering the creation of scholarship about women, and promoting the inclusion of the scholarship on women throughout the educational system. Through this work, NCCROW seeks to ensure that the lives, experiences, and perspectives of all women are fully represented and valued in every facet of society.

The Center plays a key role in the lives of many women. NCCROW's outreach extends annually to over 5000 people throughout the region and the nation who benefit directly or indirectly from Center programs, library and archival services, and projects.

H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute
The Newcomb College Institute is a dynamic interdisciplinary academic center designed to enhance women’s education at Tulane University, as well as to carry forward proudly the legacy and spirit of Newcomb College and support the vibrant Newcomb community. Much as Newcomb College did, the Newcomb College Institute, in conjunction with the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, will create opportunities for mentoring, internships, service, study abroad, and independent research, fund fellowships for faculty and visiting scholars, and host conferences, speakers, and symposia.

National Center for the Urban Community
The National Center for the Urban Community at Tulane and Xavier Universities had its origins in a unique cooperative endeavor agreement between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the city of New Orleans, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and the Tulane and Xavier Universities. The 1996 agreement was designed to facilitate the recovery of HANO, then widely recognized as one of the most troubled housing agencies in the country.

Today, HANO is off the troubled list and its residents are benefiting from the dynamic, holistic partnerships the NCUC has formed with government, community, and private sectors.

The National Center works with a wide range of organizations and institutions to administer a series of initiatives that involve universities, students, faculty, staff, and, often, alumni. These programmatic efforts contribute to learning, to the quality of teaching and research and to the quality of life in the communities with whom we learn and serve.

Eason-Weinmann Center for Comparative Law
Tulane's international and comparative law activities have a firm institutional base in the Eason-Weinmann Center for Comparative Law, created through the generosity of former Ambassador to Finland and Chief of Protocol of the United States Department of State, John Weinmann, and his wife, Virginia Eason Weinmann. The Center, successor to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundation-funded Institute of Comparative Law at Tulane, which began in 1949, is Tulane's vehicle for enriching its regular academic programs. Its Director and Chair is Eason-Weinmann Professor of Comparative Law, Thanassi Yiannopoulos. The Center routinely brings to the Law School eminent scholars of comparative law from around the world to serve as lecturers or to participate in colloquia on topics arising out of comparative law. Since 1981, fifteen colloquia or other international gatherings have been hosted by the Eason-Weinmann Center for Comparative Law at Tulane Law School, attracting scholars from over 20 countries and at least 30 US law schools. Colloquia topics have covered an array of subjects, from comparative examinations of particular areas of law such as labor relations or torts, to broader looks at the internationalization of law and legal practice, the reconstruction of legal institutions in Eastern Europe, or the impact of European integration.

Goldring Institute of International Business
The Goldring Institute of International Business is the administrative entity through which all Freeman School international programs are coordinated. The Goldring Institute was founded in 1991 and named for the Goldring family, longtime contributors and supporters of Tulane and Freeman School. The Goldring Institute is guided by an advisory board of distinguished business, government and academic leaders who contribute to the achievement of the Institute's goals.

The activities of the Institute include credit and non-credit educational programs to serve the needs of the Freeman School's local and international constituencies. Study abroad, international exchange programs, international executive training programs and faculty development programs provide a unique set of strategies to develop global management education.

Faculty and student research on international business topics is encouraged through faculty and student exchange, international fellowships, internships, conferences, workshops, a research consortium and Ph.D. dissertation support. Faculty and student affiliates of the Goldring Institute provide an important international business resource for contract and consulting research on international business topics.

Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship
The Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship contributes to regional and economic development by assisting the corporate and family business communities in identifying and exploring business issues through shared learning experiences.  The Institute also trains and inspires entrepreneurs through coursework, community service projects, and internships.  Additionally, it coordinates joint academic, government and business initiatives that stimulate private enterprise and regional economic growth.

Consortium for Research on Latin American Financial Markets
The A.B. Freeman School of Business’s Goldring Institute of International Business created a consortium for research on financial markets and business institutions in Latin America with the purpose of promoting research on business institutions in this part of the world. The founding members of this consortium are: Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia; Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; IESA, Caracas, Venezuela; INCAE, Costa Rica; and ITESM, Monterrey, Mexico. Recently, Fundação Getulio Vargas, São Paulo, Brazil; ESPOL, Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Universidad Católica Boliviana have been added to the consortium. The initial project of the consortium is to develop a database on Latin America stock markets for the countries represented. These data will provide a resource for the Ph.D. students in the ITESM and Universidad de los Andes program and other scholars who have an interest in studying the financial markets of this part of the world. The scope of the consortium has expanded to include research on human resource management and management strategy.

STONE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
Tulane University
100 Jones Hall
New Orleans LA 70118

ph: (504) 865-5164; fx:(504) 865-6719; rtsclas@tulane.edu

Tuesday August 19, 2008
11:54:33 AM