LASPAU Network Assists Harvard Efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Ned D. Strong, Executive Director, LASPAU

Harvard University’s effort to encourage Latin American and Caribbean students to attend Harvard and other U.S. universities was the original impetus for creating LASPAU in 1964. This effort has been highly successful in achieving its aims. LASPAU’s principal activity has been to design and implement academic exchange programs for faculty and professionals from across the region. Over 15,000 individuals have come to the United States for research or study under a wide variety of initiatives. The program grantees have excelled in their studies, enriching not only Harvard but a broad cross-section of U.S. universities. Their home institutions profit as well: hundreds of Latin American and Caribbean universities have benefited from the enhanced expertise and broadened outlooks of professors, researchers, and administrators who pursued advanced studies abroad. These individuals serve as important vehicles for the globalization of higher education, often fostering permanent relationships between their home and host institutions.

Over time, a rich network of individuals and institutions—both in the United States and abroad—has emerged as a result of these efforts. LASPAU draws on this resource to assist Harvard with activities related to Latin America and the Caribbean, including hosting visiting dignitaries, organizing symposia, and bringing Fulbright grantees and other students to the University.

Following global trends for transnational scholarship in virtually every discipline, Harvard is encouraging students to take greater advantage of study abroad activities and faculty members to become more involved in international affairs. Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, founded eight years ago, has been an important part of these efforts. Now Harvard has requested that LASPAU further fortify the University’s engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean. Consequently, LASPAU will expand activities that benefit Harvard students and faculty, both here and abroad, by tapping into the network that the organization has built over the last 38 years.

LASPAU will enhance its services for Harvard students, faculty, and researchers in three areas:

• While many programs exist for study abroad, very few have the capacity to match the unique interests of students with specific study, research, and internship opportunities. LASPAU will draw on its network of universities and organizations to match students with individualized opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean. A recent case in point is LASPAU’s identification of an appropriate placement for a Harvard Law School student who sought a summer internship with an NGO working in the field of indigenous rights and the environment in the Amazon Basin. LASPAU’s deep familiarity with the academic system in the region will also enable it to provide valuable orientation and advising services for the Harvard students.
  
  
• LASPAU has intimate working knowledge of centers of excellence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, enabling the organization to greatly expand research and teaching opportunities in the region for Harvard faculty and graduate students. LASPAU is also able to open doors to government agencies to assist faculty research efforts. As a recent example, LASPAU established connections between Harvard faculty members and officials at the Mexican Ministry of Education in order to further research in education policy.
  
  
• For more than a decade, LASPAU has been offering workshops at Harvard and elsewhere for professors, administrators, researchers, and professionals in subjects ranging from financial leadership to access to higher education for people with disabilities. LASPAU is currently organizing its fifth seminar on the strategic use of information technology for Latin American university leaders, which includes an online component as well as an onsite session at Harvard. The organization will continue to be a willing and able partner for Harvard schools and departments in the planning and implementation of this increasingly popular method of study.

Plans call for these services to be made available to the broader U.S. academic community in the future.

For more information, please contact Ned Strong at ned_strong@harvard.edu or at 617-495-0555. [an error occurred while processing this directive]