Becoming Better Neighbors
Alberto Arenas, a UA teaching and teacher education assistant professor.
The UA will receive a piece of a $1.3 million federal grant to host and educate 40 Latin American students during the spring of 2008.
Indigenous and student leaders from Latin America will be coming to The University of Arizona to learn about the region’s history and culture thanks to a $1.3 million federal grant the UA will be sharing with two other institutions.
The pool of U.S. State Department funds will go to the UA College of Education, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Institute for Training and Development in Massachusetts. Both the UA and University of Tennessee are considered subcontractors on the grant.
“The U.S. State Department’s mission is to bring the United States closer to other countries around the world,” said Alberto Arenas, an assistant professor in the teaching and teacher education department and the grant’s principal investigator.
“In general, there is a better need to become better neighbors, and the main guarantee is to ensure training and development,” he said.
Arenas said that, in general, the division between the United States and Latin American countries is the result of “stereotypes and misconceptions” held by individuals from both sides.
“This prevents what I consider to be a respectful understanding of one another,” he said. “Ultimately, we hope that the richness and complexity of our countries will be better understood by first hand visits.”
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs awarded the funds to the program, which allows international student leaders to spend time at institutions in the United States for five weeks during the spring.
Though the funding split has yet to be finalized, the UA is expecting at least $400,000 to support 40 university students from Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, Arenas said.
Participants are chosen by the United States Embassy and are either community or student leaders.
The students will come to learn about the social, economic and political structures as well as environmental issues, American Indian history and sustainability efforts. While here, they also will attend formal classes build specifically for their respective groups.
The first group will arrive toward the end of January and the second group will arrive in July.
This is not entirely like a study abroad program, Arenas said. Once the participants return home, they are each expected to initiate a program or activity that will incorporate what they learned while in Tucson.
UA students and Tucson families also will get involved, and will be paired with the participants who mostly speak Spanish.
“This is a unique opportunity,” Arenas said, “for us to learn from each other.”