FIU Magazine - Spring 2000

The glass display case outside the office of Florida International University's Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) brims with news about the center's activities. Flyers line bulletin boards with announcements of upcoming LACC lecture programs and study abroad opportunities. Clippings of articles written by, or quoting, LACC's affiliated professors in the nation's major dailies document the national importance that LACC now commands.

Inside the center, a series of wall clocks - Miami, Santiago, São Paolo, Mexico City, Los Angeles - mark the region's pulse. Magazine racks display Americas, Forbes, Economía, Latin American Reports and other publications to inform visitors of the latest trade and cultural developments. Alluring photographs of Caribbean beaches, Costa Rican mountains and Guatemalan peasants dressed in colorful huipiles adorn the walls.

LACC's founding fathers Mark Szuchman and Mark Rosenberg

Latin America lives and breathes here. Just as Miami has grown to become the "gateway to the Americas," LACC serves as the University's bridge to the hemisphere to the south. Since a modest founding in 1979, LACC has become one of the country's preeminent centers for study on Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a federally supported National Resource Center for Language and Area Studies, with a mandate to promote graduate and undergraduate education, faculty research, and public education on Latin American and Caribbean affairs.

LACC offers a master's degree program, as well as a variety of undergraduate and graduate certificate programs. The center draws on the intellectual capital of more than 145 affiliated FIU faculty, who span a diverse range of disciplines, including economics, political science, history, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, music, dance, public and educational administration, criminal justice, business, engineering, geology and environmental studies. LACC also has six centers and institutes (Cuban Research Institute, Summit of the Americas Center (SOAC), Intercultural Dance and Music Institute (INDAMI), FloridaMexico Institute, Florida Caribbean Institute, Institute for International Professional Services) and is affiliated with other programs and centers at FIU. In FIU's early days of the 1970s, though, LACC was still just a vision in the minds of two faculty members.

Mark Rosenberg and Mark Szuchman, the founders of LACC, both arrived at FIU in the mid-'70s as committed Latin Americanists, schooled at the two finest Latin American studies programs in the country (University of Pittsburgh and University of Texas) at the time. The two soon found a group of professors - Tony Maingot, Ken Boodhoo, Barry Levine, Maida Watson, Raul Moncarz and others - who were natural candidates for the team they sought to build.

"Our vision here was to have a program that could look like the Texas or Pittsburgh program - nationally ranked, nationally visible. We immediately set about to do that," said Rosenberg, now FIU's provost, with LACC's earliest frustrations and triumphs still vivid in his mind.

At the time, FIU was still a toddler on the college scene, unsure of its identity. It was a very local university, offering only upper-division studies for undergraduates and a handful of master's programs.

"It was a battle," Szuchman recalled, "to sell FIU as a natural studies center hub for the region when neither the state nor the University were yet ready to sustain such a commitment." But "the conjuncture was right" for a Latin American studies center to form the centerpiece of this national education institution, said Szuchman, today the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

LACC's current director Eduardo Gamarra

Rosenberg and Szuchman met at a budgetary committee meeting and soon thereafter managed to secure $40,000 in seed funding from the University to establish the basis for a center. They opened a dialogue with other interested faculty, keeping in mind one absolute truth about Latin American studies - support from Washington was crucial.

They looked to a natural ally, the University of Florida, a recipient of funding from the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) (later the National Resource Center/NRC) since the late '50s. The federal program, created by Congress to address the fact that the United States was woefully underprepared to deal with foreign cultures and Third World countries, provided funding to established programs of excellence. At the time, the NRC encouraged a collaborative approach for universities seeking such assistance.

In collaboration with UF, Rosenberg and Szuchman competed against the nation's top schools. They devised a curriculum and packaged a dynamic proposal, submitting it in the winter of 1979. "To our delight, we were recognized as being competitive at the undergraduate level. FIU at that time was only seven years old, and it was really the first time that we had successfully competed for a prestigious national funding program," Rosenberg said.

The award, he added, "catalyzed an excitement and a belief that we were on the right track and set forward a whole set of larger thought processes for the budding center. The University jumped on board because they saw that this was something that made sense within the context of our mission."

Sprinting in the '80s

With no dedicated space nor staff and just a minimal budget, the two had turned a dream into a reality, modeling their initiative on what they had witnessed at their two graduate schools. Leapfrogging its infancy, the maverick center sprinted ahead, confident in its vision and heady as an eager teen. In the fall of 1980, LACC took another major stride when it hosted Robert E. White, U.S. ambassador to El Salvador (1980-81) at the time of the Salvadoran civil war, for a talk on campus.

"The fact that we could command a national audience and national visibility, and that the U.S. ambassador in such an important country was willing to come and speak at our university," was a boost for LACC and a direct reflection of the esteem bestowed by the NRC funding, Rosenberg noted.

Sensing another opportunity, in 1982 LACC hosted a debate between then U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, Lawrence Pezullo, and Arturo Cruz, Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States.

But LACC was wholly unprepared for what occurred.

The local audience saw both speakers as "enemies." In his capacity as a representative of the revolutionary Sandinista government, Cruz was viewed as the ambassador who ousted strongman Anastasio Somoza and the reason that many Nicaraguans had to leave their country. The event marked the first Contra (opponents of the Sandinista government) rally ever held at FIU. Fistfights broke out in the auditorium. Fires were set on campus. State police drew their weapons and Metro-Dade police were summoned to subdue the crowd. The invited guests were whisked out of the back of auditorium.

"It was an absolute disaster, but it was an incredible learning experience, Rosenberg acknowledged. "We learned that the rules of the street were not the rules for academia and that we had to identify and spend more time thinking about what our arena was and where our value-added was. We recognized that in a place like Miami we needed to focus on national academic competitiveness."

A key outgrowth of the incident was that Latin American studies faculty met frequently in the '80s to discuss everything LACC was doing. "We wanted to make sure that we were somehow striking a balance between the diverse ideological interests of the faculty on one hand and the need for academic rigor and competitiveness on the other," the provost said.

The experience prompted LACC to retool its program development strategy and to identify five key constituency groups: journalists and editors, business people, teachers, decision makers and other academics.

The '80s were also years for the center to look beyond the federal government for funding. Private foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, were targeted. A small grant in 1984 from this prestigious organization allowed for an exchange with Caribbean academics, marking the first time the University had successfully secured funding from a major New York foundation. It was followed by major grants from the Tinker and then the Mellon Foundations. Recognition from these private prestigious foundations was an important precedent for LACC and for the University, Rosenberg said.

LACC channeled this funding into its principal resource: its faculty. Field research is crucial to keeping faculty in the trenches and at the forefront of their fields, Rosenberg said, and this emphasis on faculty development is an essential facet of the center's ethos.

The Cuban Research Institute

Lisandro Perez

The precursor of the Cuban Research Institute (CRI) - the only academic center in the United States devoted exclusively to the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans - was a faculty committee on Cuban Studies created in 1989 to advise then Provost Judith Stiehm on matters relating to Cuba and Cuban-Americans. Lisandro Pérez was appointed to chair that committee and as institute director has navigated CRI through the choppy waters of Cuban issues since its formal establishment in 1991.

The CRI concentrates on the three dimensions of the University's work - research, teaching and service - and is the unit that handles all issues that have to do with Cuba and Cuban-Americans, Pérez explained. The institute has unique opportunities to develop Cuba-related programs, based on the following factors:

its location in the largest concentration of the Cuban diaspora, a community with more than 700,000 persons of Cuban origin, geographically situated at the limited gateway between Cuba and the United States.

the largest nucleus of faculty experts on Cuba or the Cuban-American community of any university in the U.S., distributed across the various colleges and schools of the University, from the humanities and the social sciences, to education, business, and public affairs.

the largest undergraduate student body of Cuban origin of any university (including the University of Havana).

Throughout its history, Pérez has never wavered on the center's direction. Local programs for the community are necessary, he noted, but the CRI must develop a national and international reputation. "I always thought that this was the place that there was going to be a unit, a nationally recognized center on Cuba and Cuban-Americans. It should be here in Miami and we should have it here at FIU," Pérez said.
But in Miami, where Cuba and controversy are as inseparable as beans and rice, how has the CRI managed its focus?
"If you're a research center on Cuba, you need to have contact with people from Cuba. I never saw it any other way. It has nothing to do with politics; it has to do with the way you do academic work," Pérez says. Since the CRI's first major outside funding, from the prestigious Ford Foundation in 1992, the CRI has developed academic contact with Cuba along with their other initiatives. A Rockefeller Foundation grant awarded for 1995-98 helped fund a CRI fellowship program.
The CRI receives more inquiries than any other center in the country dedicated to the study of Cuba. Since holding its first Conference on Cuba in October 1997, that forum has garnered a reputation as the foremost conference in its field. The third conference will be held in fall 2000. Pérez explained that the CRI has never sought the participation of Cubans from the island, but that it's only natural to expect that proposals from there will be forthcoming.
In 1998, the CRI began a five-year term managing the leading journal in the field, Cuban Studies. Pérez, with the invaluable assistance of specialist Uva de Aragón, is responsible for articles, editing and layout, while the University of Pittsburgh Press handles publication.
The CRI boasts the largest number of academics (about 25) of any institution in the U.S. engaged in research on Cuba, with expertise ranging from economics to visual arts. Pérez seeks to involve more faculty and to support the work of those faculty already engaged in Cuba-related projects. New grants from the Christopher Reynolds and Ford Foundations have provided funds toward research and travel for graduate students.
CRI's principle link to the island is through the University of Havana. Any contact is driven by requests from FIU faculty, Pérez said.
In the near future, Pérez plans to start fund raising locally. Other short-term plans include taking undergraduate students to study in Cuba, as other U.S. colleges have done for some time.

Expanding horizons in the '90s

Miami's singular environ forced LACC to adopt a more sensitive stance, but the setting offered the center major benefits and keys to its future development.

LACC's vision has broadened along with its role and impact in recent years. With the rise of graduate programs, the center responded by focusing on getting more foundation support for research and for developing a graduate program of its own. LACC also expanded its outreach activities by seeking partnerships in the community.

In the early '90s, LACC made the conscious decision to invest in personnel with technical skills. That decision enabled the center to develop projects and initiatives, in conjunction with other FIU units, that are considerably more advanced in information technology. The center established a Latin American and Caribbean information center at the library, designed to provide research-oriented services to faculty and graduate students with a focus on information technology. Under the leadership of LACC's research director, A. Douglas Kincaid, the center has formed a collaborative arrangement with the College of Engineering to create a Latin American and Caribbean communications network laboratory, a venue where computer engineering students can work with faculty to develop skills in advanced information technology.

The center's competence in information technology has not gone unnoticed. When the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) set up its 21st Century Task Force to help its membership make better use of information technology, Rosenberg was invited to chair. Kincaid replaced him in 1999.

The Intercultural Dance and Music Institute

Andrea Mantell-Seidel

In 1991, Andrea Mantell-Seidel was an FIU visiting professor with a doctorate in dance, a specialization in Native American ritual and a passionate vision.

LACC had recently undergone their three-year review by the federal National Resource Center (NRC) and the NRC's recommendation had not gone unheeded: expand the curriculum beyond the traditional humanities and social sciences.
"I didn't really know the structure of LACC at the time. I just kind of walked over and was passionate and tenacious enough about my idea for a dance/cultural institute," Mantell-Seidel recalled.
"I used to joke with Andrea that `we don't do gigs' at LACC, but it was a metaphor for `we need to focus on academic issues,'" Rosenberg remembered. Investing in dance at that point, he said, was peripheral to the goal of creating a solid program. He did not say "no," but instead adopted the stance that characterizes his administrative style: Show me the merit and that you've got enough energy and commitment to make it work.
She did, and in the fall of 1992, the Intercultural Dance and Music Institute (INDAMI) was welcomed into LACC as a joint project with the Theatre and Dance Department. As it does for its other institutes, LACC plays a supporting role for INDAMI, providing space and services such as graphic design and technology support.
The Institute stretched and sweated with smaller local grants and funding, but driven by the need to have a larger impact on national dance curriculum reform, Mantell-Seidel looked to Washington. On an early morning plane ride to the capital, she made her case to Rosenberg for how dance was the ideal vehicle to prepare students for the multicultural workplace of the 21st century. For how Latin American and Caribbean dance needed to take its place alongside Western European traditional dance. And for how dance is a primary means by which cultures encode cultural identity, religion, political values and social relations.
In Washington, Rosenberg demonstrated his understanding of the federal funding process. The result? Of the 3,000 applications, only 70 projects were funded - and INDAMI was the proud recipient of a three-year $225,000 U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Secondary Education (FIPSE) grant.
The Institute focuses on furthering a synergy between dance and area studies. Now in the second year of the grant, INDAMI's "faculty task force" strives to incorporate Caribbean-based dance into the classroom as a way of communicating the essential place of dance and ritual in cultural identity.
The Institute's other major thrust is its Summer Dance Institute, now in its third year. The one-week intensive event of lectures, panel discussions and workshops takes place at the New World School of the Arts in conjunction with the Florida Dance Festival, which moved to Miami several years ago.
Mantell-Seidel recognized that the FIPSE grant would not have been possible without LACC's reputation as a sponsoring entity and the center's expertise in writing federal grants. She applauds the synergy that comes from collaborating with such visionary colleagues.
"LACC is like a well-run corporation, merging corporate efficiency with academic freedom and where the staff is supported yet motivated by the demand for absolute excellence. There really is the courage to be adventuresome and to innovate and, though we are housed within LACC, we have the autonomy to create our own vision," Mantell-Seidel stressed.

`So much depth, so many people of talent'

LACC's current director, Eduardo Gamarra, came to FIU in 1986. Gamarra left his native Bolivia during the military rule of General Hugo Banzer to attend college in the U.S. and earned his doctorate form the University of Pittsburgh. Gamarra arrived at FIU bent on the academic circuit - writing books, publishing articles and teaching. He had no reason to believe his career would deviate until one Friday night in 1994 he got a call from Mark Rosenberg.

"I want you to become interim director of LACC. You've got 48 hours to decide," Rosenberg told him. "You're insane," Gamarra responded, then called everyone he knew for advice. His only previous administrative experience had been with the U.S. Catholic Conference, assisting refugees from the Mariel boatlift at Ft. Chaffey in Arkansas. "If I'd had more time to consider, I'm sure I'd have said `no'," he admitted.

"By 1994, LACC had so much depth, so many people of talent. The base was so well laid, strong in the Caribbean, strong in Central America," he remembered. LACC saw itself as a single unit, yet it coordinated a number of institutes.

Gamarra got a crash course in administration and the monumental support of Rosenberg, Kincaid, Lidia Tuttle, then the assistant director, and other key individuals.

Today, LACC's director employs a "management-by-consensus" leadership style, a true democracy in which the collective wisdom of the cadre of institute directors is solicited and appreciated. The intention is for LACC to become the preeminent center for the study of Latin America and the Caribbean in the United States. To do that, Gamarra said, the center must remain ahead of the curve on information technology, understand the direction of regional economies, particularly in the services sector, stay abreast of the direction trade will take and keep ahead of any center on Cuba. "As each year passes," he added, "we are getting closer to that vision."

LACC has historically played and continues to play a key role for the University by supporting other departments, institutes and units in their endeavors. As one of the oldest major interdisciplinary centers on campus, that role is a natural one, Gamarra says.

What's clear to Gamarra is that LACC's strength is not based on individuals, himself included. "Everybody has put so much into LACC, they've dedicated their lives to it, and it's going to be here long after we're gone."

The center's mission is, above all, to educate - students, faculty, journalists, business people, teachers. It promotes the study of Latin America in a unique inter-American setting, tailoring programs to make them relevant to the community. Throughout, the preservation of one value has remained "absolutely crucial" and that is a tremendous sense of independence. This spirit has encouraged a climate of pluralistic debate, particularly on issues regarding Cuba.

The Summit of the Americas Center

Carl Cira

The Summit of the Americas process began in Miami in 1994 with a historic three-day meeting that brought together all 34 democratically elected leaders of the Western Hemisphere. FIU and LACC were heavily involved, and the following year, capitalizing on the University's strategic location and faculty expertise, they established the Summit of the Americas Center (SOAC). The center, which has been backed by $500,000 a year from the state of Florida, was created to research, analyze and monitor the accords of the 1994 Summit, with special attention to Florida's role in hemispheric trade and commerce. At the 1998 Santiago, Chile Summit, LACC and SOAC were intimately involved in a major support role.

For the center's first five years, a major focus was on Florida, specifically on enhancing hemispheric trade and commerce - which will benefit the state - and since 1998, SOAC has sought to educate Floridians about the ongoing process toward creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The SOAC has conducted research, sponsored conferences and produced publications on the movement toward hemispheric integration and its impact on Florida trade, labor, agriculture and other state issues.
Building on the success of SummitNet, FIU's first Internet site for 1994 Summit-related information, SOAC developed AmericasNet (http://americasnet.net) to be the information backbone of the hemispheric integration process during the 1998 Santiago Summit. The center is now revamping the web site and launching a new information policy, through which it will offer more timely news, analysis and comment on Summit implementation, with special emphasis on FTAA negotiations and the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada in April 2001.
The changes on AmericasNet are among the initiatives that have been launched by the SOAC's new director, Carl Cira, who has been leading the center since last October. Cira, a lawyer by training, was with the U.S. Agency for International Development for 15 years, managing democracy development and legal reform programs in Costa Rica, Chile, Bolivia and Colombia. He also served as executive director of the International Law Institute at Georgetown University.
Cira views the center as a clearinghouse - for both Florida and the rest of the hemisphere - for information and education on hemispheric integration. "Our current focus is the FTAA negotiations process, which we follow, analyze and disseminate for the benefit of Florida," Cira said. "FIU produces graduates who can respond to this developing trend and many of them will enter international trade. There also are enormous potential benefits to South Florida as a whole from this trend, especially if we are successful in the effort to assure that Miami is the location of the Permanent Secretariat of the FTAA in 2005."
The center also intends to launch new academic programs for the local and international markets. Cira said plans are moving forward to establish a certificate program in international trade next year as well as a course for Latin American trade negotiators. The latter course would be offered both in Miami and in foreign countries, with elements included on the Web.
The center continues to produce an ongoing series of conferences with LACC on issues affecting the region. In March, they presented Colombia: Armed Conflict, Peace Prospects, and Democracy, a successful two-day event that addressed Colombia's economy and politics and the search for solutions to problems including drugs and corruption. Upcoming conferences will focus on Venezuela, Peru and Jamaica.
The SOAC also recently released its latest trade report, "The Florida Position Paper: The FTAA Negotiations and Florida's Role in Hemispheric Integration." The paper presents a consensus of views by Florida's business and public affairs leaders on the movement toward hemispheric free trade by 2005. The report states that the state's future is "intimately linked" to the successful completion of FTAA negotiations.

The challenge today

LACC founding director Rosenberg believes the center's challenge today is to keep up with the University. "In many ways, LACC was at the forefront of nationally visible and recognized programs early on in the history of the University, and now we have a lot of LACCs, a lot of programs that are doing very well," the provost said. The center's challenge, he suggested, is to renew itself and to remain vigorous by maintaining and enhancing its quality.

Rosenberg recognized that area studies are far more comparative, far more transregional than in the past. LACC, he said, has done a good job of fostering new initiatives, like INDAMI, SOAC, the Hemispheric Center for Environmental Technology (HCET) and the Institute of International Professional Services (IIPS). The programs are an indication of the center's persistent search for high quality and for its willingness to work with the faculty on their terms. That continued willingness to innovate, Rosenberg emphasized, is critical for LACC's continued success.

The programs that LACC has developed for its targeted constituencies - journalists and editors, students and teachers, policy makers and business leaders - have cemented the center's leadership profile. Over the past decade especially, LACC's foresight to develop information technology and link those advancements to specific seminal processes or events in Latin America - the Summit of the Americas, the Free Trade Area of the Americas - has catapulted the center to the forefront of Latin American studies centers in the nation.

As a result of its vision to create the Summit of the Americas Center, LACC was able to secure $500,000 a year in funding from the state of Florida, which is channeled into the FIU budget. Provost Rosenberg stressed how important that funding is for LACC to continue to build and expand its programs.

LACC is now collaborating with the Inter-American Dialogue and the Institute of Iberoamerican Studies of Hamburg, Germany, to conduct a major study of development prospects and trends for Central America over the next two decades. Called Central America 2020, the project seeks to generate innovative ideas and recommendations for international development assistance to promote sustainable economic growth, expanded citizenship and enhanced social welfare in the region. The project will run throughout the year 2000 and culminate in a large international conference, workshops, and numerous publications. In mid-March, LACC hosted two major events: the XXII conference of the Latin American Studies Association, and a key conference on Colombia - one of the region's hot spots. For Gamarra, the latter forum was indicative of the center's future focus.

"We have to be aware, through seminars and research, of where the ball is going. That country (Colombia) is about to explode, and LACC is going to have to play a major role by developing a Colombian studies program, by recruiting faculty to keep up with where things are going. That's the role that LACC has to have."

Michael R. Malone writes on culture and ethnicity and teaches creative writing at FIU. He has written two books, A Guatemalan Family: Journey Between Two Worlds (Lerner 1997) and A Nicaraguan Family (1998), and his articles have appeared in Americas Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others.