The University of Georgia’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute is to use a $1.9 million grant that it has received from the U.S. Education Department “to dramatically expand the reach of our academic, research and outreach programs,” according to the institute’s director Richard Gordon.
Dr. Gordon also said that the grant would “put UGA on the map as a national resource for Latin American languages and area studies.”
According to a UGA Feb. 16 news release, U.S. Education Department grants are given to help the U.S. enhance its leadership role in world markets, global engagement and scholarship.
To fulfill this mission, the institute is to use $1 million of the grant money to offer foreign language and areas studies fellowships to support students studying less-commonly taught Latin American languages such as Portuguese, spoken primarily in Brazil, and Quechua, spoken in the Andes region of South America.
The remaining $900,000 is to be used to assist the institute assume the designation of an Undergraduate National Resource Center for Latin American studies.
Included among the activities of these centers are teacher training programs — for ages ranging from pre-kindergarten to undergraduate students — that provide an understanding of the culture, language, history, politics and economics of Latin America.
They also include collaborations with overseas institutions of higher education and other organizations and projects with centers and institutions that address themes of global importance.
The institute was established in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences in 2006. Among its many already established initiatives are the Latin American Botanical Garden on the university’s north campus and its Portuguese Flagship Program, which is funded through the National Security Education Program.
For more information about the institute, click here.
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