LASPAU's Mission Leads to New Relationships with Regional Institutions

By Fay Henderson de Díaz, Director of Program Relations and Management, LASPAU

Since LASPAU’s founding in 1964, the organization’s mission has been to foster academic exchanges that strengthen institutions and fields of study that are important to the development of Latin America and the Caribbean. Evidence shows that these investments have had a far-reaching, positive effect on the quantity and quality of higher education offerings in the region.

From 1964 to 1985, LASPAU administered programs for U.S. sponsoring agencies such as USAID and the Fulbright Program, foundations, Latin American institutions and government agencies, and multilateral funding organizations. All program participants studied at institutions of higher education in the United States. LASPAU established close relationships with those institutions, which included agreements for academic placements and tuition assistance for LASPAU-administered grantees.

In 1981, at the request of USAID, LASPAU researched and published A Guide to Graduate Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. At that juncture, it was clear that academic exchange efforts had been effective in assisting faculty development and enhancing science and technology infrastructure. The LASPAU study indicated that Latin American and Caribbean institutions now offered graduate degree programs and research opportunities that could attract students from other countries as well as national students.

In recognition of that capacity in the region, USAID missions in the Dominican Republic and Panama requested in 1985 that LASPAU place grantees in graduate programs in development-related fields at Latin American and Caribbean institutions. From that point on, LASPAU has encouraged program sponsors to consider academic placement throughout the region—not just south–north, but also south–south.

Today, LASPAU continues to place the majority of the grantees we administer in U.S. universities, where we have valuable long-term relationships and support. However, given the broader opportunities now available, we also look at other options in order to seek the best possible placement match for program participants—in many cases enabling grantees to select from graduate offerings throughout the hemisphere as well as in other parts of the world.

At this writing, LASPAU administers the programs of grantees studying in public and private institutions in the United States and in Latin America and the Caribbean (please see list below), as well as in Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Program sponsors that encourage studies in a range of countries include Colciencias of Colombia, FANTEL of El Salvador, FUNDACYT of Ecuador, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Organization of American States (for studies in the Western Hemisphere only).

LASPAU has been an important resource in facilitating the graduate training of Latin American and Caribbean faculty from many of the region’s most prestigious universities. Our relationship with a number of those institutions has evolved. While LASPAU continues to train faculty from these institutions at universities abroad, we now also request admission to their academic programs for outstanding exchange program participants from other countries in the hemisphere.

Since 1985, our placement staff has developed substantive knowledge of Latin American and Caribbean academic systems and degree programs as well as administrative relationships that facilitate our requests for admission on behalf of our program participants. Recognition of our new relationship with three of the major institutions in the region has been formalized through official agreements. LASPAU takes great pleasure in announcing agreements for partial tuition waivers for LASPAU-administered grantees with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas (INCAE) in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico.

LASPAU looks forward to expanding its partnerships with academic institutions throughout the world that seek to contribute to development in Latin America and the Caribbean.