wenty-three Fulbright Faculty Development Program alumni from fourteen Latin American countries met in Guatemala in May 2006 for the Fulbright seminar “Diversity and Access of Underrepresented Groups to Education.” The participants were selected based on the contributions they had made in their home countries toward providing access to education for minorities.

The six-day workshop, sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, examined Guatemalan programs that foster access to education for the country’s indigenous populations. Through lectures, discussions, panels, and field visits to rural schools, the participants gained a broad understanding of Guatemala’s approach to providing access to indigenous people. For many of them, seeing the well-developed Guatemalan initiatives in action demonstrated the possibility and potential of access strategies that had existed primarily as theoretical concepts prior to the seminar.

The participants were divided into four formal work groups, based on their areas of expertise with regard to diversity and minority access to education. The groups allowed participants to discuss in depth their contributions to educational access in their home countries, further analyze the Guatemalan initiatives, draw on their expertise to make recommendations to the entire group, and envision the next steps for their own access initiatives. Participants said that the work groups provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and information with their colleagues from other countries and were an exceptionally valuable component of the seminar experience.

The seminar represented the Fulbright Program’s ongoing commitment to diversity in higher education. It was designed by LASPAU and hosted by the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and the Universidad Rafael Landívar.