The Center offers its own interdisciplinary undergraduate major and minor. We offer great flexibility in choosing courses about Latin America, the Caribbean and Diasporas in the humanities and social sciences. As a unit within the School or Arts and Sciences the courses for our major and minor intersect with many other majors and minors within SAS including Spanish/Portuguese, Anthropology, Sociology, Latino & Caribbean Studies, History, Political Science and Geography. Students from other schools including SEBS and SCI should contact me to explore how their coursework may count as elective credits in the Latin American Studies major and minor.
As Director, I provide individualized advising on course selection, fulfilling the language requirement, study abroad, and graduate school and career opportunities. As you can see from our course list, students have many options every semester and can carve out more focused regional or country-specific specialties. Our graduates have pursued many different trajectories informed by their coursework and training including public service, graduate school, public health, business and work with NGO's. We are committed to helping our students be successful in their goals.
The Rutgers Center for Latin American Studies
Annual and Term-end Report, 2023-2024
Aldo A. Lauria Santiago, Director
Introduction
This is my third yearly report as CLAS director and marks the end of my appointed term. Despite numerous challenges, I firmly believe in the value of investing in building a community of students focused on Latin America at and around Rutgers. I hope our efforts have laid a strong foundation for further improvements and support from the School of Arts and Sciences. I am deeply grateful for the collective work of faculty, graduate students, and administrators in fostering both community and knowledge sharing.
Events and Co-sponsorships
This year, the CLAS organized thirteen events, including those initiated by our faculty/student working groups. We also co-sponsored six programs, including major initiatives, with funding support. Additionally, we facilitated seven meetings of the Princeton/Rutgers History of Latin America Workshop, coordinated by Rutgers History graduate student and CLAS Program Assistant, Javier Gonzalez.
Highlights from these events include attendance ranging from ten participants for smaller events to over 50 for colloquia and formal presentations. We spent a total of $10,000 on these events (covering speakers and food).
The CLAS also promoted dozens of other events, including many online events sponsored by sister centers and institutions within Rutgers and other universities. Our community can be proud of the hundreds of participants in our events this year, including significant involvement from individuals in New Jersey, other states, and Latin America.
Working Groups
We expanded to six working groups this year, with the Andean, Colombia, and Indigenous Studies groups being the most active. These groups initiated various events and organized multi-sponsored events.
Post-Doctoral Associate
Our postdoctoral associate, Briana Nichols, served three terms of her four-term appointment. She taught three sections of our 101 course and one section of a topics course. We held an intensive book manuscript review session with her, supported by Prof. Berg and an external reader. Dr. Nichols is negotiating a contract for her manuscript with a publisher. Besides supporting the Center’s events, she organized a colloquium on migrant mobilities in Central America. She resigned to accept a non-teaching appointment at the University of Pennsylvania.
We conducted a search for a new postdoctoral associate for the 2024-2026 term, receiving over fifty highly qualified applications. Our offer to FIU graduate student Vierelina Fernandez was accepted. Dr. Fernández’s work focuses on women in armed revolutionary movements in Colombia and the Kurdish national movement.
Website and Communications
We have emphasized improvements to our website and communications. This year, we added a Directory of New Jersey-based Latinamericanists and made frequent updates. We also posted dozens of news items from faculty, graduate students, and other affiliates.
Undergraduate
This year we offered four sections of our 101 course during the Fall and Spring semesters, and three during winter/summer session. We also offered one topics course on Central America and Mexico, taught by our post-doctoral associate. Enrollments ranged from good to excellent, with the online asynchronous spring term section leading the enrollments. Geisa Rocha continued to teach one section of our 101 in fall and spring. CLAS continued to pay for one section while SAS paid for a second in person section as well as the single spring semester asynchronous online section. Gabriel Aleman taught our online section of 101 in the spring semester.
CLAS continued to support undergraduates in other majors and minors interested in Latin America and the Caribbean. We listed and cross-listed all courses on Latin America and the Caribbean offered by departments and our faculty affiliates. Advising of majors and minors included a dozen Zoom sessions, with one major and six minors, graduating two minors this academic year.
We collaborated with the Spanish/Portuguese Department and the Department of Latino & Caribbean Studies to cross-promote undergraduate recruitment. Our strongest faculty presence is from Spanish/Portuguese, History, Latino/Caribbean Studies, and Geography, but we have significant weaknesses in sociology, anthropology, political science, and various interdisciplinary fields.
Support for Graduate Research
RAICCS Acting Director Kathleen Lopez joined CLAS in supporting graduate student research grants. We funded nearly twenty graduate students for summer research, dedicating $12,000 to student grants ($5,000 from SAS and $7,000 from our own summer/winter session income). RAICCS spent $7,000 on Caribbean-focused proposals.
CLAS sponsored a half-day research symposium with presentations from past grant recipients and other students. We also promoted smaller lunchtime presentations by advanced graduate students, hosting talks by Jian Ren from History and Carolina Sanchez from Spanish/Portuguese.
Special Projects
CLAS continued its partnership with the Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration, contributing $420 to labor costs for a graduate student intern in Puerto Rico. The PRAC leveraged support from external grants and research accounts of faculty colleagues at Rutgers, Yale, and the University of Connecticut. We were recently approved for a $1,000,000 three-year grant from the Mellon Foundation. The grant will fund participation in the archival summer program by one Rutgers undergraduate and one Rutgers graduate student, with additional support from the New Jersey Latino Studies fund directed by Professor Lopez.
Our "Latino Studies for Latinamericanists in Latin America" lecture program, funded by a grant from Global Rutgers, was postponed for a year. Graduate students Javier Gonzalez and Nathan Darmiento will implement a revised model of talks about Latino communities in the US for audiences in Latin American institutions.
Professional Networks
CLAS continued to share information on in-person events in the tri-state area and important online events. Our graduate students formed an ongoing partnership with their peers at Princeton, running a historian’s workshop that will continue next year. We also coordinated the creation of a directory of Latinamericanists in New Jersey institutions, which has grown to nearly 60 colleagues.
CLAS hosted three visiting scholars: UCLA graduate student Jennifer Carcamo and Sociologist Elena Sabogal. Former post-doctoral associate Briana Nichols also joined the Center as a visiting scholar.
Administrative Support
This year, CLAS transitioned to sharing the time of a newly hired administrator, Nancy Rosario, with other SAS area studies centers. This dedicated administrative support has been crucial in handling our tasks. Undergraduate and graduate assistants have been vital to our communications. Hely Dodia and Javier Gonzalez Cortes continued to work on our website, social media, and events coordination. Cheyenne Menezes worked with us during the Fall semester. We spent about $6,000 on student assistance, with $2,000 provided by SAS. Hely is graduating, and we have recruited sophomore Jeynelee Ortiz as her replacement.
Executive Committee
The executive committee met twice this year and provided the Director with advice and suggestions. The executive committee recommended that next year we support a faculty research fellow with a modest stipend.
At the end of this year three members cycled out of the EC while two were elected to the EC. Non-New Brunswick faculty contributed significantly to our EC.
Executive Committee, 2023-2024
- Ulla Berg, Departments of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies; Anthropology
- Laura Cuesta, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
Outgoing members:
- • Kenneth Sebastian León, Assistant Professor, Department: LCS and Criminal Justice Program
- Andrea Marston, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
- Isaias Rojas-Perez, Associate Professor, Department: Sociology and Anthropology Rutgers-Newark
Newly elected members:
- Kenneth Sebastian León, Assistant Professor, Department: LCS and Criminal Justice Program
- Isaias Rojas-Perez, Associate Professor, Department: Sociology and Anthropology Rutgers-Newark
I thank all faculty involved with the EC for their support of the Center’s activities.
Social Events
CLAS co-hosted an end of the year graduation celebration and reception with the Department of Latino & Caribbean Studies with over 75 people in attendance.
Facilities
This year, we hosted nearly half of our events in the Academic Building of the College Avenue Campus. On Livingston, we continued to be hosted by the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies, which provides one office to the Center. With the change in configuration of administrative staff, we lost one office, which we have requested back from the Department. Currently, we have an office for a post-doctoral associate, various meeting rooms, one classroom, and one shared office for part-time faculty. We also co-host a digitizing lab with the Department.
Budget and perspective
Our events and labor budget continue to be sourced from an SAS allocation and shared revenue from our courses in winter/summer sessions. SAS funded salaries for our post-doctoral associate, two part-time lecturer courses, and the Director’s salary and research supplements.
Three-year Perspective
These three years have been both thrilling and frustrating. Our achievements are evident, but our challenges need to be addressed. We have over fifty faculty affiliates on three campuses yet very modest faculty participation. We rely heavily on about a dozen faculty colleagues who serve in the EC and the working groups. I have been elected to a second term as director, which I welcome, but with a small number of votes. Funding also continues to be contentious, with the promise of a funding cut that, if implemented, will reduce our program and labor budget by 50%.
Appendices
I. Graduate Student Grant Recipients
1. Anderson de Andrade, Sociology
2. Tamara Velasquez Leiferman, Global Studies, Newark
3. Diana Iturralde, Art History
4. Jian Ren, History
5. Gabriela Duncan, Regional Planning
6. Nathan Darmiento, History
7. Leonardo Calzada, Geography
8. Sandra Acocal, History
9. Gloria D'Alessio, Anthroplogy
10. Clive Echague, Anthroplogy
11. Daniela Mosquera, Geography
12. Javier Gonzalez, History
13. Nia Cambridge, Geography
14. Dalia Grinan, History
15. Laurian Rosa Rosa, History
16. Mildred Lopez Escudero, Spanish/Portuguese
17. Javiera Barrientos, English
II. Events (see PDF)
September 2023 Welcome Message
June 2023 Annual Report
September 2021 Welcome Message
