David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Encyclopedia
Founded in 1994, Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) works to increase knowledge of the cultures, economies, histories, environment, and contemporary affairs of past and present Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

. The Center's main office is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

 at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. DRCLAS also has offices in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

.

Mission

• To expand research and teaching on Latin America and related fields at Harvard University

• To strengthen ties between Harvard and institutions throughout Latin America

• To enhance public understanding of Latin America in the United States and abroad

Overview

The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies is one of 11 inter-faculty initiatives at Harvard overseen by the Office of the University Provost, with an administrative home in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Center's structure reflects its inter-disciplinary mandate: The Executive Committee comprises eight senior faculty members from throughout the University. A separate Policy Committee, helps to direct the Center's development.

While the Center is not a teaching unit of the University, it contributes to the Harvard's teaching mission. The Center supports faculty-directed research projects and academic conferences. It funds students who want to learn more about Latin America through research, work, study, or volunteering in the region. The Center also provides funding to underwrite course-based field trips to Latin America and to develop new courses with Latin American content.

DRCLAS was founded in 1994 as an initiative to promote high-quality teaching and research on Latin America and related fields at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. Neil L. Rudenstine, then University President, and David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller
David Rockefeller, Sr. is the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. He is the youngest and only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and the only surviving grandchild of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil. His five siblings were...

 B.S. '36, LL.D. '69 (honorary) shared a sense that Harvard should be intellectually poised to respond to real-world changes in the Americas resulting from democratic transitions and economic restructuring.

Harvard was uniquely positioned to meet these challenges. While many U.S. universities had to downsize their Latin American studies programs in the 1990s, reducing numbers of faculty specialists and educating fewer students, Harvard benefited from President Rudenstine and David Rockefeller's shared hope to develop a center for Latin American studies to parallel Harvard's centers for European, Middle Eastern, Russian, and East Asian studies. They envisioned the Center as the academic cornerstone of a new relationship between the United States and the countries of Latin America, and as an influential example to other universities.

'The Center will be anchored in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, but is deliberately University-wide in its reach,' President Rudenstine said at the Center's 1994 inauguration. 'It will be a natural forum for the discussion of public policy, of the arts, and of the ways in which Latin America is related to Iberia and the rest of Europe, the Pacific Rim, and, of course, our own country.'

Since its founding, the Center has overseen the creation of six endowed professorships at Harvard dedicated to the study of Latin America. The Center's Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...

 Visiting Professorship program and the Visiting Scholars and Fellows Program, have enabled the Center to draw leading scholars from Latin America to spend time at Harvard. The Center has become known among faculty members and students as one of the most enterprising and creative of all Harvard's University-wide initiatives, providing extensive support for innovative research from faculty and students.

DRCLAS has played a critical role in establishing Harvard as a leading United States institution for Latin American studies. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Education recognized Harvard as a National Resource Center for the Study of Latin America by awarding the Center a Title VI grant - an honor it repeated twice: in 2003 and 2006.

The international profile of Harvard as one of the world's premier universities, moreover, allows the Center to help focus the attention of academics, policymakers, journalists, and business leaders on the most compelling issues facing Latin America today. The Center coordinates the University's relationships with over 60 institutional partners and hundreds of individuals throughout Latin America.

In August 2002, the University established a Regional Office in Santiago, Chile. The office provides support to Harvard faculty and students in the Southern Cone countries of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

, as well as the southern Andean republics of Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

 and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

.

In May 2006, the Center launched a Brazil Studies Program, followed in July 2006 by the opening of the Brazil Office in São Paulo, Brazil in June 2006. The joint efforts of Harvard University faculty members and students from diverse disciplines, and support from Jorge Paulo Lemann
Jorge Paulo Lemann
Jorge Paulo Lemann is the third wealthiest individual in Brazil. He is ranked as the 55th richest person in the world by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of as of September 2011.-Biography:...

, enable the Brazil Studies Program to convene experts from the United States and abroad to expand and diversify research and teaching on Brazil at the University.

The United States Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...

again named the Center a "Title VI" National Resource Center (NRC) for Latin American Studies in 2006, the Center's third NRC award, earning DRCLAS broad recognition as a leader in promoting Latin American studies within higher education.

External links

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