Criterion 1: COMMITMENT TO SUBJECT AREA 1-A/B. Institutional Support for operations, faculty, library, et al.

Transcription

1 Criterion 1: COMMITMENT TO SUBJECT AREA 1-A/B. Institutional Support for operations, faculty, library, et al. TABLE 1: Total University Support Federal Endowment University Direct via Center University Extramural Grants TOTALS Administrative Salaries - 186, , ,853 Outreach Salaries 18,370 17, ,627 Teaching Staff 93, ,572-6,160,379 6,543,057 Fringe Benefits 16, ,949 82,824 1,176,632 1,381,973 Library Staff - 51, , ,692 Library Acquisitions - 59, , ,623 Outreach 40,120 67, ,188 Conferences - 59,656-8,990 68,646 Supplies, equipment 6,490 33, ,459 Faculty Research - 43, ,549 Travel 16,740 83,389-8, ,982 Student Field Research - 29, ,000 44,000 Stipend/Tuition Waiver 216,000-1,810,448 2,948,000 4,974,448 Special Programs & Projects 39,000 72, , ,821 Post-Doctoral Research 15,000 80,000 95,000 Summer Programs 199, ,206 Student Assistants 7,194 17, ,194 TOTALS 453,588 1,332,051 2,333,484 10,854, ,333 15,227,318 Note: Blue indicates financial support for graduate students for the study of Latin America - includes FLAS & Graduate School Fellowships and summer field research support. Tulane is one of four continuously funded Latin American NRCs, and has long occupied a critical position in the southern region. Nationally, few institutions of Tulane's size compare in the number of faculty, students, library resources, and research support for Latin American studies. In , the NRC s faculty taught 569 individual language and area studies courses with at least 25% Latin American content, including 53 interdisciplinary courses and 92 in the professional schools. The Executive Director of the NRC reports directly to the Senior Vice- President for Academic Affairs/Provost and also meets biannually with the President to discuss Stone Center initiatives. Table 1 records all sources of financial support for Latin American research at Tulane. The total amount increased from our report last quadrennium by 5.3% or $2,231,501. In addition, the administration assisted NRC directors in raising $16,472,787 Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 1

2 million in grants, gifts, pledges, and endowment. In the last quadrennium, the NRC was awarded grants from Louisiana Board of Regents ($800,000), Tinker Foundation ($45,000), CIAPA Support Trust ($6,510,549), Zemurray Foundation ($3,322,238), and gifts and a pledge from an anonymous donor ($5,795,000). In the last quadrennium, the President and Provost increased their contributions to our operating budget in conjunction with the NRC s reorganization of staff, research, and teaching. The most dramatic of these developments was financial support for the expansion of CIPR, which next year will provide $975,000, including salary support for CIPR s Executive Director, Assistant Director, Program Manager, student workers, three post-doctoral fellows, and a visiting scholar, in addition to an administrator and support staff in Costa Rica. Tulane has also been very generous with its allocation of prime space on campus as the NRC s operations expand. In 1997 Tulane renovated the NRC s 3,500 square feet facility at a premier campus location in Jones Hall that houses staff offices, a conference room, a student lounge, and the Latin American Resource Center (LARC). In 2005, the university added 1,030 sq. ft. of new office space in Jones Hall and renovated 780 sq. ft. in Caroline Richardson Hall for Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute. This year the university completed or is completing renovations of 5,267 sq. ft. for the Cassatt Courtyard in Jones Hall ($250K), 10,025 square feet of space for the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) in Dinwiddie Hall ($2M) and 1,860 square feet in Richardson Building for the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR). Criterion 2: QUALITY OF CURRICULUM DESIGN 2-A. Baccalaureate degree programs, requirements, and quality. Over 50 area studies specialists participated in an IPES-funded review of our undergraduate program whose goal was to establish thematic clusters that might resist claims of disciplinary ownership. The NRC commissioned modules for the clusters Creativity, Encounter, Exchange, Identity, Land, Nation, Peoples, and Welfare that form platforms for our introductory surveys and areas of Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 2

3 concentration. In 2006, the NRC adopted them as an integral part of its curriculum, together with a new capstone seminar LAST 400, in which students examine the intellectual and political trajectories of Latin American Studies, ethical questions of research and representation, and the challenges of interdisciplinary scholarship. All conduct original research based in primary sources and present their findings at a public conference with faculty discussants. The new curriculum also incorporated service learning and civic engagement as essential components. Training options for graduate students and quality. Latin American Studies is among the largest and most productive graduate programs at Tulane. Each year, the NRC admits students. It currently has 23 students in the MA program two are joint degree candidates with Law or Business. As one of a select few Latin American Studies programs to offer an interdisciplinary PhD, the NRC currently has 22 PhD degree candidates enrolled three in two joint PhD programs that offer unique alternatives to the current choice of either a disciplinary or interdisciplinary degree. They are Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 3

4 shaped around a strong specialization in a disciplinary sub-field that is complemented by interdisciplinary concentrations that focus on Latin America or one of its several regions. The new programs goals are to strengthen the expertise of students in these programs by providing a firm methodological and knowledge base in Political Science or Art History respectively, including experience in the classroom, and a strategic selection of area studies courses in supportive disciplines. In each degree program, there is a focus on comparative perspectives that seek relationships between Latin American cases and those drawn from another world region. In , applications and enrollments in the NRC s graduate programs were among the three highest in SLA, and our yield was 81%. Between and , the NRC enrolled 65 new students, and graduated 42 with MAs and 5 with PhDs. 2-B. Academic and career advising. The NRC s senior academic staff provide general program counseling for all students in the program. Undergraduate advising for all majors is required twice each semester and in the capstone seminar. NRC alumni are regularly invited to speak about their careers and employment opportunities. In addition, speakers from the State Department, the Peace Corps, the United Nations, USAID, the Council on Foreign Relations, Latin America Working Group and specialists in international business, immigration law, journalism and representatives of NGO's and grass roots organizations spoke to students about how to find work internationally with BA degrees. In LAST 400 students find and post on-line job listings weekly, which are reviewed in class with the goal of advising students on how their academic, extracurricular and professional experience can be described to satisfy the skills necessary for the position. The NRC also mentors students in preparation for their participation in academic conferences, such as the Birmingham Southern College Latin American Studies Symposium, which many attend each year. A similar process occurs in the preparation of an Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 4

5 annual Stone Center delegation to the Model Organization of American States. A seminar in the fall, a course in the spring, and participation in the Model introduce undergraduates to the history, functions and protocols of the OAS and to the professional fields of diplomacy and regional political cooperation. While in the capital, students meet with officials and analysts at the World Bank, the International Development Bank, the OAS, and selected official diplomatic missions, and encourage students to pursue internships and employment with these types of institutions. The NRC also hosts seminars and workshops each year that are designed to provide additional training and skills for graduate students, which are described in 9-B. Arrangements for study abroad and access to other institutions programs. For undergraduates, Tulane sponsors four JYA and semester-abroad programs: 4 in Argentina, 3 in Brazil, 4 in Chile, 1 in Costa Rica, 1 in Cuba, 2 in Mexico, and 1 in Uruguay with eight distinct host universities. In the three-year period , 144 Tulane undergraduates participated in 28 different study abroad programs in 7 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The NRC sponsored. In five annual summer programs under the direct field supervision of Tulane faculty and staff with 180 students participating; the average yearly enrollments for summer programs by destination country were Brazil (18), Chile (14), Costa Rica (12), Guatemala (12), Mexico (14). In 2007 and 2008, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (SPHTM) conducted summer programs in Peru (24) and in 2009 in Suriname (11), and the School of Architecture (TSA) held others in the Southern Cone and the Andes. In 1975, Tulane University partnered with CIAPA (Institute for Research and Advanced Studies in Government and Public Administration), a Costa Rican non-profit asociación, to create an academic think tank whose mission then was to contribute to the modernization of the Costa Rican state. The two-and-a-half-acres campus is in Curridabat about 20 minutes by car from San Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 5

6 José. There is an office and classroom building of 12,625 square feet, and a residential building of 16,800 square feet that can accommodate two families and 24 visitors. The NRC and CIAPA have discussed for over a decade how Tulane might operate the facility as an extension of the Tulane campus. Those negotiations were completed in September 2009, and although the NRC has long operated a summer program at the institution, we are now planning two innovative new international programs there: a first semester abroad program for Freshman and a second semester abroad program for undergraduate majors in Public Health. Criterion 3: QUALITY OF NON-LANGUAGE INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM 3-A. Courses in non-language disciplines and area coverage. As of the NRC s faculty consisted of 69 core Latin Americanists, 11 associates, 21 affiliates, 9 visiting professors, and 4 post-doctoral fellows, representing the largest contingent of faculty associated with any department or program at Tulane. The structures of specific degree programs are shown in Tables 2 & 3 and the breadth of disciplinary and area coverage are shown in Table 4 and in the course list in Appendix B. Our strengths today are in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Last year, the NRC made senior appointments in Economics (Stone Chair), Anthropology (Director of MARI), and Environmental and International Law (acceptance pending, Director of Payson), and will fill endowed chairs in Latin American Public Health and Latin American Colonial History in the next quadrennium. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 6

7 Area courses in the professional schools. Tulane's professional schools provide training options in a wide variety of fields and the NRC offers joint degree programs in Law and Business. In , the professional schools offered ninety-two courses with more than 25% Latin American content with total enrollments of 2,059 (Architecture 7, Law 10, Business 46, and Health Sciences 29). (A) Tulane Law School s excellence in the fields of international, mixed jurisdiction, admiralty, maritime, and environmental law draws many Latin Americans. It has active exchanges with the University of Buenos Aires and houses the Payson Center for International Development an offer has been extended to a Latin American specialist in International, Environmental, and Land Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 7

8 Use Law to serve as its Executive Director. (B) The Freeman School of Business has dual degree programs in Management and Finance with ITESM (Monterrey)*, ITAM (Mexico City)*, Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala)*, IESA (Caracas)*, Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá)*, Universidad ICESI (Cali)*, Centrum Católica de Perú (Lima)*, Universidad de Chile (Santiago), and are also in the process of establishing a dual degree program with INSPER (São Paulo)*. Freeman also provides PhDs training to Latin American faculty at those schools with an asterisk. In addition, the revised MBA program incorporates four Global Leadership courses, where students visit Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Thus far, they have visited ITESM in Monterrey and Belgrano in Buenos Aires, where they meet with top executives from global and Latin American firms and develop a project for a small US firm that is expanding to the region. (C) The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (SPHTM) secured an endowment for Tulane s first Chair of Public Health in Latin America with a mandate to establish a joint NRC degree program and to expand course offerings in the SPHTM s new undergraduate major. In 2003, SPHTM established the Health Office for Latin America in Lima, Peru (HOLA) to develop and implement public health research projects between Tulane and Latin American researchers. Subsequently, in , SPHTM created a new Office of Global Health with an NIH grant to foster international research collaborations and to fund Fogarty Scholars, a multidisciplinary global health certificate program for students from any Tulane school or department. (D) The Tulane School of Architecture sponsored two Latin American Studios one led by Coleman Coker in Mexico City, whose field component was cancelled because of the swine flu epidemic, and another led by Jonathan Tate in Ecuador. This year Robert González, editor of AULA, will sponsor the symposium, En el Aula: Second Latin American Architecture Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 8

9 Symposium to explore diverse methods used to integrate Latin American architecture and urbanism into the traditional study of the built environment. 3-B. Depth of specialized course coverage. Table 4 and Appendix B demonstrate Tulane s thorough coverage of regions across a broad spectrum of methodological and disciplinary perspectives. Table 7 shows the research clusters, institutes, and councils developed to support research and curriculum; they map the unique character of research and teaching at Tulane across the liberal arts and sciences, professional schools, and research programs. The NRC provides funds from endowment to members of these clusters as incentives for collaborative and interdisciplinary work most frequently manifested in the conferences, colloquia, and lecture series cited in Table C. Interdisciplinary offerings. The NRC s revision of its BA interdisciplinary curriculum is addressed in 2-A. For MA students, the introduction to interdisciplinary research begins in LAST 700. Currently, the seminar consists of four tightly integrated units interdisciplinary research methods and project formation; cultural and humanistic studies; politics, economics, and society; and health and environment. They are convened by faculty committed to the high value of analyzing important issues from multiple perspectives and of applying new combinations of disciplinary knowledge and research methods to solve complex problems. The sequence represents macro-disciplinary units, but the pedagogic program resembles a fugue. Each participant brings to the seminar (1) a thorough familiarity with three polemical core texts that reflect very different multidisciplinary commitments, and (2) a project that must meet the test that the resolution of the problem cannot be readily achieved by relying exclusively on disciplinary or even macro-disciplinary methods. Three weeks are devoted to explorations of research paradigms associated with area studies and to research methods and resources. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 9

10 Participants present a project prospectus in the third week. In order to develop skills in the preparation of grant proposals, participants frame their research as a grant application to the NRC s Summer Field Research Grant program. In the first meeting of each subsequent three-week unit, faculty members provide an intense review of the theoretical foundations and debates in their own sectors of multidisciplinary work. Before the second meeting, they meet individually with participants to discuss ways in which the models and approaches elaborated in the first week can inform or challenge the foundations or contours of their individual projects. Participants also revise and rework their research proposals for each module to improve upon their interdisciplinary strength and their methodological complexity. In the third week, participants present papers that assess the utility or barriers to the incorporation of the particular field of approaches presented in the unit to their evolving project. The seminar culminates in a formal proposal of a project and program for research for a field project and potential thesis. During the next quadrennium, the NRC proposes to follow the model established for its national IEPS-funded curriculum project by addressing an issue often raised by those wishing to strengthen interdisciplinary education what is the appropriate exposure to methodological tools developed in the social sciences required by graduates of interdisciplinary area studies programs. (See Criterion 8). 3-D. Numbers of non-language faculty. Tulane has built over five decades an extensive, balanced, and engaged community of Latin Americanists. The combined effect of federal support, university commitment, and the NRC s capacity to raise funds to endow new positions places us in an enviable position. The NRC has six endowed faculty chairs, three full-time and two half-time faculty positions in the Center, three dedicated Latin Americanist lines in SLA, Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 10

11 two positions for postdoctoral fellows, and the financial capability to fund adjuncts or regular faculty to teach three to five special courses each semester. The NRC has been active this quadrennium in recruiting new faculty to support strategic foci; they included 24 regular faculty, 19 visiting faculty, 9 fellows, and 6 distinguished visiting Greenleaf Chairs in Latin American Studies. In the same period, the NRC lost 5 faculty to retirements and 11 who left the university. Consequently, the NRC has strong faculty representation in all LAS departments. The following ratios of Latin Americanists to non-latin Americanists apply Anthropology (10/7), Art History (3/10), Communication (3/6), EEB (5/4), Economics (4/13), History (8/15), Political Science (6/10), Sociology (4/11), and Spanish and Portuguese (15/4). Latin Americanists represent 42% of all regular faculty in these key departments; 53% are tenured. Appendix C shows the number and specialization of non-language faculty. Pedagogy training for instructional assistants. TA training at Tulane occurs at two levels. At the college level, the Innovative Learning Center (ILC) provides an intensive program in teaching skills in a series of workshops for TAs. The Assistant Directors also conduct workshops for all TAs with sessions on pedagogy, methods, assessment, and a 22-page teaching manual. The NRC also maintains a Blackboard site as a resource archive for pedagogy and course materials. Next year, the NRC will institute a seminar required of all TAs that will advance their skill sets in developing interdisciplinary teaching for the new core curriculum of LAST The Assistant Directors both actively evaluate TA teaching methods each semester and provide on site guidance about courses. Criterion 4: QUALITY OF LANGUAGE INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM 4-A Extent of language instruction and enrollment. Tulane University offers language instruction in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya and Kaqchikel Maya. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 11

12 Spanish and Portuguese offers basic language courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Kaqchikel Maya is offered as an intensive immersion program in Guatemala each summer. Instruction is offered at the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels and students are encouraged to attend multiple summers in order to develop their skills. Three semesters of Haitian Creole are offered, and students continue their instruction through enrollment in independent studies course and summer institutes. Nahuatl and Yucatec Maya are offered as one-semester graduate level Anthropology courses. Native speaker language specialists assist a professor in the classroom and work with the students individually and in small groups. As of 2006 the foreign language requirement for undergraduates requires the completion of at least one foreign language class at Tulane and demonstrated competency in SPAN 102/112 level in that language. The School of Liberal Arts (SLA) requires competency in SPAN 203 (third Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 12

13 semester). The NRC also urges students to apply for summer FLAS fellowships to attend language institutes to increase proficiency at the intermediate and advanced levels. In , the Department of Spanish and Portuguese made faculty appointments to newly created positions of Lecturers to increase the number of highly qualified faculty in all levels of language instruction. Lecturers have PhDs in Spanish or a related field and are considered teaching faculty. The presence of these Lecturers helps professionalize lower level language classes: a Lecturer is the Basic Language Program Director; one Lecturer coordinates the SPAN 204 (Conversation and Composition) course; another Lecturer coordinates the SPAN 304 (Advanced Grammar and Writing) course; and Lecturers teach the Spanish for the Professions courses as well as content courses and basic language courses as needed. Adjunct Instructors typically teach three language courses in the Fall and two in the Spring. As of Fall 2009, the Portuguese program implemented two major initiatives to maximize student retention beyond the intermediate level: (1) the addition of a new joint undergraduate major in Spanish and Portuguese requiring five courses in Portuguese 3 rd year or above and the same number of equivalent courses in Spanish; (2) the introduction of a 400-level undergraduate option to all 600-level graduate seminar offered every semester on rotating literary and cultural topics. By instituting this dual track, the Portuguese program will be better able to meet the anticipated increase in demand for 400-level courses (especially from mid-level undergraduates pursuing the joint major) without diminishing the experience of the advanced undergraduate and graduate students. 4-B. Levels of language training and disciplinary courses offered in foreign languages. Table 5 and Appendix B record all language courses that have been regularly offered from the through the academic years. At present, few courses on campus are taught in Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 13

14 Latin American languages beyond the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, which offers many courses on Latin American gender, identity, film, music, art, and popular culture. Nevertheless, in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, such as Anthropology, Art History, Brazilian Studies, Communications, Economics, History, Latin American Studies, Political Science and Sociology, students are encouraged to use primary source materials in their original language of production for research projects. Therefore, while course discussions are not conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, or indigenous languages, students are encouraged to consult materials produced in these languages as relevant to their research. Service Learning opportunities tied to courses with Latin American content have project offerings that enable students to utilize Spanish, Portuguese or Haitian Creole. Community Partners work closely with Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole speakers include the English as a Second Language program in conjunction with the Hispanic Apostolate, Catholic Charities, and local NGOs. For more information on Service Learning at Tulane see Criterion 7. In addition, the NRC holds Portuguese Bate-Papos weekly at lunchtime which are attended by 4-8 faculty and 1-10 students. For Spanish speakers, the NRC sponsors a Mesa de Conversación with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese which is a weekly luncheon attended by 1-4 faculty and 1-5 students. The NRC offers two classes every year to address the needs of students in the Law, Business, Medical, Public Health and Social Work schools. In SPAN 329, Business and Legal Spanish, students study the Spanish language as it is used in business and law providing students with the lexicon related to these topics, as well as with contexts for its usage and practice in the Spanishspeaking world. Spanish for the health sciences is aimed at pre-med and other students interested in medicine and public health combining an emphasis on language acquisition with exposure to Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 14

15 medical content. Many students take the class together with the service option and contribute between 20 and 40 hours to a community partner, usually a clinic or a hospital. 4-C. Numbers of language faculty. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is the largest language department on campus; its enrollments in were 2,051 students. In the same year ten tenured or tenure-track faculty offered Spanish courses at the 300-level or above; one Visiting Assistant Professor offered courses at the 100-to 300-levels; five Lecturers taught at the 100-to 600-levels; 13 Adjunct Instructors taught at the levels; and 13 graduate assistants taught the levels. In the same year, two tenured or tenure-track faculty a third faculty member, who regularly offers courses in Portuguese is on academic leave for this year taught Portuguese courses at the levels and two graduate assistants offered courses at the levels. Graduate students periodically offer Portuguese courses at the 300-level as well, and three additional graduate students offer Portuguese but are currently teaching or have recently taught language courses in Spanish. Exposure of staff to language pedagogy and performance-based evaluation. The Basic Language Program director regularly attends the ACTFL National Convention and enrolls in specialized training and implements new and innovative pedagogy standards in the language program including performance-based grading rubrics, ACTFL-style Oral Proficiency Interviewstyle Oral Exam, open-ended Communicative written exams, integrated writing and oral assignments and more. All instructors of Spanish and Portuguese are encouraged to participate in annual day-long training workshops on specialized topics such as Using Performance in the Basic Language Classroom; Using Technology in the Classroom; the Communicative Method, open-ended exam writing and other current language pedagogy issues as needed. In addition Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 15

16 Spanish/Portuguese graduate assistants are required to take Methods of Teaching Spanish & Portuguese before given a teaching assignment focusing on Communicative Language Teaching and communicative methodologies. Language faculty and instructors participate in training sessions on language pedagogy and assessment throughout the academic year; a joint examwriting process each semester; peer observation sessions and are observed by the Basic Language Program director in their first year of teaching. 4-D. Quality of the program as measured by performance-based evaluation. Lower-level Spanish course outcomes are directly related to ACTFL s National Standards and the ACTFL Proficiency Scale. Course activities are designed to move students progressively toward proficiency. Courses are entirely communicative in nature and, in each language course, written quizzes, oral interviews, compositions, essay-style examinations, and interactive task-based activities permit a thorough performance-based assessment of working language ability. Upper level Spanish courses build on these levels and continue to that end. Portuguese courses follow a similar format. Kaqchikel courses are offered via a full immersion-style teaching approach, with students expected to produce and perform in the language from the first day and throughout the summer program. Adequacy of resources for language teaching and practice. The Language Learning Center supports and enhances the teaching and learning of foreign languages, literature, and culture at Tulane by providing media, facilities, equipment, and consultation services to faculty and students. A growing collection of foreign language video material, currently numbering almost 1500 titles, is available for use in class or for students to view independently. Region-free and multistandard equipment allows for the screening of video filmed in any international format. Three technology classrooms with integrated projection systems are available to foreign Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 16

17 language faculty, and wireless laptops for classes meeting there are provided upon request. The student computer language lab is open seventy-five hours per week. The server Langstream continues to expand digitized holdings available in the student lab and is accessible off campus via a password-protected gateway. Faculty have access to video editing equipment, a recording studio, computers, scanners, and a high quality color laser printer. Additional equipment available to faculty includes audio players, video carts with DVD player and monitors, projector carts with media projector and laptop, and digital cameras. A fulltime technical support specialist is available to assist faculty with technology issues and to provide training sessions. The technology rooms, student lab, and equipment are supported by the technical specialist and by office and student personnel. Language proficiency requirements. Effective in Fall 2006, all incoming undergraduate students must fulfill an enhanced core curriculum foreign language requirement of at least one foreign language class at Tulane and demonstrated competency at the 102/112 level in that language. The School of Liberal Arts requires competency at the 203 level. The syllabi for the introductory sequence of courses now are directly linked to the ACTFL Proficiency Scale at the Intermediate Low and Intermediate Mid level, respectively. Undergraduate majors in Latin American Studies are encouraged to move beyond the lower level language courses and it is expected that they will attain at least an Intermediate-Mid level of language production on the ACTFL Proficiency Scale in at least one Latin American language. Undergraduate Majors in Spanish and Portuguese are expected to attain a Proficiency level of at least Advanced Low on the ACTFL Proficiency-Scale. MA students must achieve an ACTFL equivalent rating of intermediate mid for Spanish or Portuguese. PhD candidates must attain at least this score in two Latin American languages. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 17

18 Criterion 5: STRENGTH OF THE LIBRARY 5-A. Relative strengths of holdings. Tulane s Latin American Library (LAL) comprises 15.8% of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and occupies one sixth of its floor space. Tulane s monograph and serial holdings of 462,084 place it among the top four libraries (Texas, Yale, and Pittsburgh) as reported in the last SALALM survey for , and LAL s expenditures on acquisitions ranked third. These numbers do not include 1300 LFT in MARI s collections or 750 LFT in the unprocessed library and archive of Doris Z. and Samuel Z. Stone acquired in April LAL s collections encompass all Latin America and the Caribbean, but the library s focus since its formation in 1924 has been the Mesoamerica and the trans-caribbean region. Its Guatemalan, Belize, Yucatan Peninsula, and Chiapas holdings are perhaps the best in the United States. The LAL is also the U.S. institution that acquires the largest number of monographs and serials published in indigenous languages from Guatemala as well as extensive publications in Nahuatl, Yucatec, and other indigenous languages of Mexico. LAL s Special Collections include unique collections of (1) original Mexican pictorial manuscripts, nine of which are from the 16th century, (2) several thousand colonial Mexican manuscripts, (3) native-language dictionaries, grammars, catechisms, legal dossiers, administrative proceedings, and notarial records from New Spain, (4) correspondence, political and religious pamphlets, flyers, and ephemera from Central America, (5) 52,347 still photographs and slides, (6) field notes, photographs and over 2,000 full-scale rubbings of Mayan relief sculpture made by Merle Greene Robertson, (7) personal papers and correspondence from major anthropologists and art historians of Mesoamerica, such as Donald Robertson, Ross Parmenter and Mary Elizabeth Smith, (8) original silver design drawings and drawings documenting the work of Willam Spratling ( ), (8) significant Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 18

19 runs of Brazilian 19 th - and early 20 th -century journals, most notably of the state historical societies. Financial support for acquisitions and staff by university. In , the LAL budget was $1,006,403 (1) acquisitions: $362,623; (2) staff salaries: $623,542, and (3) monograph and serial binding costs: $20,238. The NRC and the Doris Stone Librarian have secured since 2007 pledges, gifts, and endowments totaling $2,395,000 for the LAL. They include $1.8M from the Zemurray Foundation for salary support for the Doris Stone Librarian and for acquisitions and special projects; $500K from Richard E. Greenleaf to support research by Latin American scholars in the LAL; and special acquisition funds from Christian Pradell and Jim and Penny Morrill. The university supports 6 FTEs in the LAL. In , these included the Director, the Curator of Manuscripts and Image Archives, the Reference Librarian, the Stacks & Office Manager, the Coordinator of Serials and Gifts, and the Administrative and Bibliographic Assistant. In addition, the university supported through the library the following staff positions: 2.33 FTE Catalogers; 4 FTE Library Technicians;.90 FTE Unit Coordinator Database, includes Serials and Binding,.25 Librarian Acquisitions. The salary estimate of Technical Services staff working on LAL materials: $292,850. In December 2008, it also upgraded the Curator of Manuscripts and the Image Archives from part-time support staff to a full-time professional appointment as Librarian II. Finally, upon her arrival, Doris Stone Librarian Hortensia Calvo (PhD, Yale) secured university funding for a major renovation and expansion of the library that added over Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 19

20 6,000 square feet to its existing space. Today, FEMA funding for post-katrina modifications have resulted in new plans for an expanded and renovated LAL that includes new spaces for both collections and users. 5-B. Availability of materials through cooperative agreements and on-line databases. Tulane is a contributing member to several consortia: the Latin American Research Resources Project (LARRP), the Latin American Microfilm Project (LAMP), the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the Latin American Studies Southeast Region (LASER). This year the LAL signed an agreement with Gale Cengage to digitize its Central America Printed Ephemera and the Viceregal and Ecclesiastical Mexican Collections. Gale has also proposed to include LAL rare book holdings in their Sabin Americana digital database. Finally, The LAL has hosted the Secretariat of the Seminar for the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM ) since September 1, 2005 and the SALALM Annual Meeting in Detailed information on web-resources, access, and use are provided in Criterion 9 on Impact and Evaluation. Criterion 6: QUALITY OF STAFF RESOURCES 6-A. Extent to which faculty and staff are qualified. Thomas Reese has served as Executive Director since Reese, formerly Vice-President of the College Art Association and Deputy Director of the Getty Research Institute, earned the PhD at Yale University in the History of Art. His recent work focuses on issues of imaginaries and urbanism in turn-of-the-century Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Panama. Asst. Dir. James Huck, formerly Director of Latin American Studies at Albright College and a specialist on contemporary Mexican foreign policy under Salinas, earned the PhD with distinction at Tulane in He edited the five volume series, "Global Studies: Latin America," for ABC-Clio Reference Publishers, and authored its volume on Mexico and received the 2010 Gulf-South Summit's Award for Outstanding Faculty Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 20

21 Contributions to Service-Learning Instruction. Asst. Dir. Edith Wolfe, a recipient of AAUW, Fulbright and SSRC fellowships and a cultural historian whose work focuses on ethnicity and identity in Brazil, received her MA in Latin American Studies at UCLA and her PhD in Art History at the University of Texas where her dissertation was recognized as the Outstanding Dissertation in the Humanities in Academic Analytics' Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, a rating system of doctoral programs based on quantitative assessments of faculty productivity rather than reputation, listed two programs at Tulane in among the top two in their respective categories: Latin American Studies under the category "Area and Ethnic Studies, Various" and Spanish and Portuguese under "Spanish Language and Literature." For , Tulane's Stone Center was second in the category of "Area and Ethnic Studies, Various." Harvard's African and African American Studies Program was first, but Tulane's program was ranked first among those identified as Latin American Studies, ahead of UT Austin (third) and the University of New Mexico (eighth). Development opportunities and overseas experience for faculty and staff. Over the last three years (through 2009), the NRC funded 23 summer field research grants for faculty and professional librarians (averaging $2,301 each), provided $39, in airfare and per-diem for 77 trips to professional meetings, and awarded over $100,632 for research, translation, and publication subsidies, including funding for staff and TAs to attend 43 professional development workshops. In addition, the NRC budgets $10,000 to support the travel of professional school faculty and administrators who wish to develop programs at our Costa Rican facility. Time faculty and administrators commit to teaching and advising of students. The NRC sets the high standard that the 69 core faculty, who teach at least one 100% Latin American content course annually, and 11 associate faculty. In & , the NRC sponsored 249 non- Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 21

22 language courses with 100% Latin American content with enrollments of 3,525. Course titles by department are listed in Appendix B. Within the NRC, Huck and Reese teach the core graduate seminar, Wolfe and Huck teach the undergraduate capstone annually and alternate years teaching the CLAS Tide, the honors section of Introduction to Latin American Studies, and a graduateundergraduate (600) level special-topics seminar. Reese spends 10% of his time advising, Huck 40%, Wolfe 50%, and Porto 30%. 6-B. Adequacy of staffing and oversight. Thomas Reese, who has been Executive Director of the NRC since 1999, reports directly to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost. During the last grant period, the Stone Center also added a new division, the Center for Inter- American Policy and Research (CIPR), directed by Ludovico Feoli (PhD, Political Science). Natalia Porto, Program Manager for Academic Programs, currently oversees the activities of the FIGURE 1: Organizational Chart Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 22

23 Cuban & Caribbean Studies Institute (CCSI) and CIPR and manages four to five NRC Latin American summer study and internship programs and the daily affairs of CIPR. Denise Woltering Vargas, Program Manager Educational & Public Programs, directs and manages the public and educational programs of the NRC, primarily focusing on K-12 Absolute Priority teaching training activities. Valerie McGinley Marshall, Director of External Relations & Program Management, is responsible for planning and supervision of outreach, media, public relations, and publications, and the coordination of all NRC funding initiatives including major gift solicitation and institutional and foundation grant applications. Suyapa Inglés is Assistant Director for Administration, and Barbara Carter is Administrative Secretary. Additional staff positions for CIPR and international programming are discussed in Criterion 1-A, and two new positions for teaching indigenous Mesoamerican languages and Haitian Creole are in Criterion 8. The NRC has a system of governance in which committees make decisions or recommendations on almost every issue of consequence. The Executive Committee (EC), which meets three times each year, is composed of seven elected members from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, one representative from the professional schools, one graduate student representative, and the directors of the LAL, MARI, NEI, CCSI and CIPR. Each elected member also chairs one of the NRC s standing committees and has responsibility for evaluating the purviews and performances of these programs on a biannual basis. The organization of staff resources and the interdisciplinary faculty research clusters, institutes, and councils are described in Figure 1. 6-C. Nondiscriminatory practices and advocacy. Tulane and the NRC are aggressively committed to promoting gender and racial diversity among staff, faculty, and the student body as a means of fostering an environment for educational excellence. The university is committed to Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 23

24 the following recommendations of a Special Presidential Task Force on Diversity (1) increased hiring/promotion of minority and female faculty to tenure-track positions, (2) encouraging development of potential faculty from within the underrepresented student population by creating new pipeline programs and continuing existing programs, (3) the allocation of more financial resources directed toward increasing gender and racial diversity and creating an environment that celebrates diversity as an educational asset. The composition of the entire Tulane faculty in is Asian 193, Black 91, Hispanic 88, Native American 4, Other 19, and White Tulane's fully articulated ADA policy in which applicants are assessed and provided whatever accommodations they need. In the area of inequities based on age the Office of Academic Affairs undertook in a review of associate and full professor salaries in the uptown campus and allocated an additional $1M to salaries at these ranks, addressing salary compression and inequalities. The university also instituted a new interdisciplinary PhD program in Aging Studies. Student recruitment and pipeline programs are discussed in Criterion 9-A-C and the NRC s GEPA Statement. Criterion 7: OUTREACH ACTIVITIES The mission of the NRC s outreach programs is to promote the study and understanding of Latin America through programs that insure high academic quality and content that is accessible and relevant for our diverse audiences. At the core of our outreach activities is the Latin American Resource Center (LARC), whose core mission is teacher training and the development of resources for K-12 education. Outreach activities are planned and coordinated by the Director of External Relations, Valerie McGinley Marshall, and the Program Manager for Educational & Public Programs, Denise Woltering Vargas. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 24

25 Outreach activities at the K-12 level. K-12 outreach activities focus on collaborative teacher training activities at national, regional, and local levels; participation in professional meetings for educators; school-site activities for educators and students; and the provision of curriculum resources through the lending library, publication of content-based materials, and delivery of materials through both the NRC and Outreachworld.org website (Absolute Priority). Collaborative teacher training activities are conducted with other NRCs, museums, and organizations of professional educators. The NRC conducted national educator institutes that included the Teacher Institutes on Performance in Latin America (in collaboration with UF-Gainesville and UT-Austin) and the Summer Teacher Competition (with CLASP), and local training activities that included LARC s Latin American Environmental Media Film Series for Educators, Day of the Dead Teacher Workshops (with the New Orleans Mexican Consulate), and the Brazilian Music Lecture Series and Teacher Workshop. NRC presentations at professional meetings took place at CLASP, Asia Society, International Studies Schools Association, Louisiana Council for Social Studies, and LASA. In the last quadrennium, school site projects focused on the New Orleans Public Schools and charter and private schools with international foci. The Latin American Immersion Project is a NRC course on a single Latin American country taught at the middle school level at Samuel J. Green Middle School, where 42 students enrolled to study Cuba and Haiti, and at the high school level at Metairie Park Country Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 25

26 Day School, where 38 students enrolled in Introduction to Latin American Studies. In addition, the NRC established a visiting scholar program at the International High School of New Orleans where faculty and advanced graduate students spoke to 68 students and 25 teachers on subjects such as Precolumbian civilizations and international disasters in Latin America. LARC s Lending Library is widely recognized as the largest available collection of Latin American audio-visual and curriculum materials for educators nationwide. K-12 teachers accounted for 72% of the 1,066 registered users of LARC s online content, and between August 2006 and March 2010 the NRC loaned103 items to K-12 teachers, who represented 14% of the 720 users of its collection of 2,500 titles. LARC also published 9 new curriculum guides online and 6 audio podcasts designed for the K-12 classroom. The NRC s units on Latin America are uploaded on Outreachworld.org and are accessible to over 19,000 educators. Outreach at the postsecondary level. In the last four years the NRC has hosted many scholarly programs for faculty, students, educators, and broad public constituencies; all appear on our web site. Educators from area institutions such as Delgado Community College, the University of New Orleans (UNO), Loyola University, Xavier University, Southern University of New Orleans, and Southeastern University attended LARC-sponsored teacher-training activities and utilized the Visiting Speaker Bureau. LARC Program Manager Denise Woltering Vargas regularly speaks about NRC resource materials for pre-service teachers at Tulane, Our Lady of Holy Cross, and Xavier University. Students in the Teacher Certification Program at Tulane are introduced to Latin American content through presentations, participation in Stone Center events, and an internship program. In December 2006, the NRC hosted Reconceptualizing Latin America: Curriculum Dissemination Workshop for educators, administrators, and faculty around the country to review and update curriculum for Latin American Studies programs. In May Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 26

27 2010, the NRC and the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs will host a working meeting for Outreach Coordinator/Directors from Title VI Latin American Studies centers. Best practice information developed from this meeting will be shared and distributed through our website. Between August 2006 and March 2010, LARC loaned 632 items to non-tulane postsecondary instructors, who constituted 66% of 720 registered users and accounted for 30% of the 1,066 registered users of LARC online content. During the quadrennium the NRC also sponsored 20 conferences that attracted 1,104 faculty from postsecondary institutions other than Tulane. Outreach to business, government, media, and the public. In the last quadrennium, the NRC concentrated increased attention on new collaborative civic outreach projects. In order to bring into stronger focus Louisiana s strong historical and economic ties to Latin America, the Executive Director is active in board service to local institutions (Audubon Nature Institute, New Orleans Arts Council, New Orleans Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Center, and Mayor-Elect Landrieu s Creative Economy Transition Team) and state advisory committees (Louisiana State Museums, Louisiana Folk life Division, and Culture, Recreation, and Tourism). Many of the following new projects are the fruit of the NRC s increased activities in various areas. (A) Economic Development The NRC presented before the City Council s Economic Development Committee on the history of New Orleans-Cuba Relations; (B) Politics, Finance, & Trade In Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 27

28 addition to the NRC s an active partnerships with New Orleans World Trade Center, World Affairs Council, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Tulane Law School s Latin American Law Institute, CIPR hosted 20 seminars on key policy issues attended by over 400 local business leaders, fulfilling its mission of stimulating contact between scholars and decision-makers working on Latin America,. (C) Public Libraries the NRC created La Hora del cuento, a book reading program at the Pebbles Center, inside the NOPL s Children s Resource Center to which the NRC contributes $1,000 every year to expand its collection of over 500 books and audiovisual materials about Latin America with an annual circulation of 1,800. In addition, the NRC sponsors monthly guest speakers and artists and an annual festival for families, Celebración Latina. (D) Media & Film The NRC hosted scholars and media professionals at a national conference on Media & Democratization in Latin America and collaborated with the New Orleans Film Festival to produce a biennial Latin American Environmental Media Festival that screened 15 films attended by over 200 people a team of educators write curriculum on the winning film each year. In addition, the NRC collaborated with Tulane s student-run radio station, WTUL, to develop Enlaces, a series of six audio podcast series covering current key issues within Latin America and the community that have been broadcast locally and are available to all non-profit radio stations for free download online. (E) Performance the NRC partners with Tulane Music and Theatre & Dance departments, CubaNOLA, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation to produce major public performances each year that included Fiesta Latina!, workshops on Afro-Latin American dance and music, Gabriel Alegría s Afro-Peruvian Jazz Sextet, and a performance by the ONIX Ensemble, a group of Mexican and Latin American composers of computer-generated music. (F) Exhibitions Since 2006 LAL held 11 major exhibits, 11 public lectures, and receptions that attracted over 1,300 non-tulane Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 28

29 visitors to the library and this year the NRC collaborated with Tulane s Newcomb Gallery of Art, LAL, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and 14 other galleries on Cuba Sí that presented contemporary art from Cuba to the New Orleans community, and produced K-12 field trips, several teacher workshops, book readings, and educational materials. (G) Media and Government Outreach NRC faculty and staff regularly appear in print, radio, and television media outlets such as the Times-Picayune, Gambit Weekly, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and the Discovery Channel, ESPN and local television news; they have been exceptionally active in the media since Hurricane Katrina, being quoted on information ranging from immigration, health, and the environment to the social implications of natural disasters. (h) Service Learning The NRC has expanded service learning in the wake of Katrina as the local demand for service increased, especially among an expanded population of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking immigrants. Currently all introductory LAST survey courses are service learning courses, with opportunities for students to learn about Latin America by direct engagement with the local Latino community, and our two post-doctoral teaching fellows offer upper-level service learning courses, representing about 50% of the NRC s direct course offerings. NRC students have worked in the Office of Economic Development, Catholic Charities, LatiNOLA, the New Orleans Public Library, the Hispanic Apostolate, Delgado Community College, the Esperanza Charter School, Puentes/Latinola, the Advocacy Center of Louisiana, and the International School of Louisiana. The NRC Service Learning initiatives provide civic "public service" experience by training students for work in the "public" sector. The NRC offers on average about 20% of all service learning courses taught throughout the entire University. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 29

30 Criterion 8: PROGRAM PLANNING, BUDGET, & IMPACT The following NRC requests for the quadrennium are all designed to achieve the goals set forth for evaluation: (A) quality, (B-1) strengthened programs, (B-2) effective use of resources, (C) reasonable costs, (D, E) long-term impact for graduate students and undergraduates. 1. Faculty Development. The NRC requests funding to continue 50% support of faculty salaries for positions in Sociology (Ortiz, ), History (García, ), and Communication (Pereira Porto, ). Each teaches a minimum of two Latin American content courses each year, and the university assumes full financial responsibility once each is tenured. As the commitment to Communication ends, the NRC requests funding for 100% support of an administrative faculty appointment in the Stone Center to teach Mesoamerican indigenous languages and Maya epigraphy and to manage the logistics of our LCTL language assistants. 2. Indigenous Language Assistants. The NRC requests funding to support language assistant salaries in Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya and Kaqchikel Maya. 3. Native Instructor Exchange with Vanderbilt. The NRC proposes to exchange language instruction between K iche and Kaqchikel through live streaming and instructor exchanges twice/semester beginning fall of the third year. (NRC Invitational Priority 1) 4. Language Pedagogy & Methodology Training. The NRC will work with SDSU s Center for Latin American Studies and Language Acquisition Resource Center to host assessment seminars based on ACTFL s Modified Oral Language Proficiency Interview (MOPI) for instructors of less commonly taught Latin American indigenous languages. Additionally the NRC will continue to support the professional development of the Spanish and Portuguese Language Program Directors through training in language pedagogy and assessment training. (NRC Invitational Priority 1) Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 30

31 5. Support for Symposium on Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America (STLILLA) in The NRC will assist in the funding and planning of this conference to be held in the Fall of 2011 by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. (NRC Invitational Priority 1) 6. Annual Colloquium on Indigenous Themes. In collaboration with the University of Arizona and CIRMA in Antigua, Guatemala, the NRC will support an annual colloquium on indigenous themes that will take place in each of the partner s locations and involve the faculty of each institution. (NRC Invitational Priority 1) 7. Haitian Creole Instruction. The NRC requests continued funding to support advanced course offerings in Creole taught by a native speaker supervised by a linguist specializing in Louisiana Creole; the NRC now offer three levels in Haitian Creole and a full two-year sequence and provide a fourth semester of study that qualifies Tulane to offer academic-year Creole FLAS fellowships. (FLAS Invitational Priority 1) 8. Development of Undergraduate Summer Program in Brazil on Language & Culture. In the summer of 2012 the NRC will sponsor a new summer program directed by faculty from Tulane and Vanderbilt in alternate years. (NRC & FLAS Invitational Priority 1) 9. Brazilian Course Faculty Exchange: Develop parallel course to be taught at Vanderbilt and Tulane and facilitate faculty exchange during course in Year Semester Abroad Program for Undergraduate Public Health Students. The NRC will develop with Tulane s School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine a semester abroad program at its facility in San José, Costa Rica for undergraduate public health and Latin American studies majors focusing on Global Health. (NRC Invitational Priority 3) Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 31

32 11. Program Manager, Educational & Public Programs. The NRC requests 50% support of this salary. (Absolute Priority) 12. Working Group on Critical Methodologies. The NRC will establish a working group to study and make recommendations concerning critical methodological skills that they deem should be required of all graduates of area studies programs and support for the preparation of curriculum units that might be adopted by area studies programs as described in Criterion 3-C. 13. Service Learning in Area/International/Global Studies. Dissemination workshop on best practices in service learning in the fields of area, international, and global studies. In higher education, the service movement is coupled with a commitment to the civic formation of students primarily through service-learning courses, community-based research programs, and social entrepreneurship initiatives. Service-learning both enhances content knowledge and heightens a student's sense of connectedness and engagement in shared community as citizens and civic leaders. There are individual faculty members who have developed some "best practices" for combining local service learning as it relates to their "foreign/international" course content, but there has been no systematic effort to gather these practitioners and educators in one place specifically to focus on this particular challenge and to serve as a clearinghouse of expertise and information in developing innovative solutions to the challenges that come with it. (NRC Invitational Priority 2) 14. Outreach. a. LAVA Film Database. The NRC will develop and maintain a comprehensive video database with Las Américas Film Network which recently acquired the defunct Latin American Video Archive (LAVA) database. A team of filmmakers and educators will create innovative curriculum materials aligned to National Content Standards to be used with selected films, Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 32

33 recommend resources for those who teach with film including: discussion guides, lesson plans, maps, and fact sheets to accompany selected films. (Absolute Priority) b. CLASP Film Award. The NRC will run a biannual film competition with the Consortium for Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) then screen the winning film at the New Orleans Film Festival every Fall. The award will provide a tool for educators, other NRCs on Latin America, and others such as the National Council for Social Studies to locate engaging films on Latin America and the Latino community that is fit for the K12 classroom. (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priority 1) c. Portuguese in the K12 Classroom. In year three, the NRC will collaborate with Vanderbilt and Georgetown Universities to offer an intensive Portuguese in the K-12 Classroom for Spanish Teachers summer institute at Georgetown University. The NRC will provide funding for film programming and curriculum writing. (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priority 1) d. Master Teacher Workshops. LARC will continue to host between 2-3 K-12 teacher workshops per semester with a new emphasis on collaborative projects with Teacher Certification departments and other Title VI institutions such as Vanderbilt University to host a conference on Maya (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priority 1) e. Summer Teacher Institute Abroad. The NRC will bring the annual summer teacher institute to Latin America every other year starting in The institute will consist of a four-day workshop at Tulane University and an institute abroad (funding will be applied through Fulbright-Hays Group Study Abroad). Teachers have the option of participating in the 2-4 week institute abroad to further strengthen language and cultural skills of the region. (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priority 1) Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 33

34 f. Enlaces Podcasting Latin America. The NRC will continue to produce a series of radio podcasts entitled Enlaces-Podcasting Latin America produced and created by students, staff, and faculty and broadcast on Tulane s radio station, WTUL 91.5 fm, then archived on the NRC website. The NRC plans to introduce video and expand to allow for more reporter/producers. In the next quadrennium, workshops will be conducted on how to use the series as a resource in the K-12 classroom. This project is a collaborative project between Tulane s Center for Public Service, the Communication Department, WTUL, and the Teacher Certification Program. (Absolute Priority) g. Mesoamerican Web Portal. The NRC will collaborate with Tulane s Middle American Research Institute (MARI) to digitize key rare and unique artifacts of the MARI collection for use within a K-12 curriculum. The NRC will fund one graduate student to work with MARI on this web portal for the next four years. The goal is to have teachers incorporate and utilize prime resources found only at MARI. (Absolute Priority) h. Latin American Collaborations. The NRC will contribute to the salary of a graduate student to teach a course on a Latin American country with a teacher of record at Samuel J. Green Middle School and provide funding for school-based library resources. At the high school level, the NRC will continue to work with Metairie Park Country Day School to further develop their Latin American Studies program. The NRC will provide funding for visiting speakers, transportation costs, and a supplement payment to a school-based teacher. The school is planning to add a travel component to the program with their own funding. i. Centenario Series. The NRC will collaborate with the Mexican and Venezuelan Consulates of New Orleans and community associations in New Orleans to celebrate and commemorate the centenaries of independence of the Americas. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 34

35 j. The Pebbles Center. The NRC will continue to partner with the New Orleans Public Library s Children Resource Center by supporting the purchase of materials and expanding collaborative programming including La hora del cuento, a bilingual story time for children and the Teen Summer Reading Program. The NRC will work with other local schools and community colleges in order to sustain the programming at La hora del cuento using Spanish language learners and non-tulane students. The NRC will also continue to collaborate with local organizations on the spring Latin American Children s Festival. k. Outreachworld.org. The NRC will continue it s longstanding support and work with Outreachworld.org by becoming a Full Member of the website. (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priorities 1 & 2) l. Américas Award: The NRC will become a sustaining sponsor of the Américas Award for Children s and Young Adult Literature which recognizes U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction. (Absolute Priority, NRC Invitational Priority 1) 15. Impact and Evaluation Implementation and Conference. The NRC will continue to contract with a professional evaluator from Vanderbilt s Peabody College to consult with us on implementing proposed quantifiable, outcome-measure-oriented evaluations to assess the effectiveness of our overall program. The project results will be disseminated at a conference in Year 4 on Assessment and Evaluation for Area Studies with Vanderbilt s Center for Latin American Studies. (NRC Invitational Priority 1) Criterion 9: IMPACT AND EVALUATION 9-A. Extent of Center s impact. The NRC s evaluation plan for impact is comprehensive and objective through the use of a performance tracking matrix (Table 9) to measure how NRC activities and training programs impact the university, the community, the region, and the nation. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 35

36 1. University audiences: (a) The impact of language courses is measured by course registration, enrollment, completion, and language competency. In , 8,683 undergraduates enrolled in language courses and 232 graduate students. Competency requirements are explained in Criterion 4, Table 5. (b) Non-language disciplinary and professional school courses had total enrollments in the period of 8,252 undergraduates and 4,082 graduate students. Between , there were 851 degrees awarded at bachelor s level, 160 master s and 37 PhDs (graduates of all schools who took 15 hours or more of Latin American content and/or language courses). Table 10 shows graduate placements. A faculty committee evaluated the core seminar by reviewing a random sample of course papers and the NRC conducted exit surveys of all Latin American Studies graduates. (c) The NRC offers on average 25 Latin American-based academic events on campus attended by approximately 400 people in the form of lectures, conferences, films, and performances every month during the academic year. LAL s events are discussed in Criterion Community audiences: (a) The NRC provided 15 instructional resources in multiple formats to K-12 teachers that were accessed 346 times in The LARC lending library figures provided in Criterion 7. (b) From , 52 professional development activities have been offered to 1,993 pre-service and K-12 teachers in addition to sponsoring 42 local meetings, workshops, and pre-service/in-service presentations to 1,105 participants and 10 national level meetings and workshops to 438 participants, 30% were K-12 pre-service teachers. These events are evaluated through event surveys and follow-up interviews. (c) Community events, which provide important venues for the NRC to disseminate knowledge about Latin America in New Orleans and beyond, is discussed in detail in Criterion 7. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 36

37 3. Region and Nation: (a) The NRC sponsored seven workshops attended by 254 teachers and conducted exit surveys at each event. (b) In the last quadrennium, the NRC held 20 regional and national conferences attended by teachers, scholars, and members of distinct communities. (c) During , the LAL received 2,580 inter-library loan requests for LAL items, responded to approximately 1,200 extramural scholarly inquiries, registered 36,570 web site visits in 2009 and received major international scholars from, on average, 72 countries. For LAL exhibitions, lectures, workshops and LARC s extensive video and other holdings, see Criterion 7. 9-B. Provisions for equal access (Section 427 of GEPA). To further diversity, Tulane offers seminars and workshops and maintains a network of recruitment, training, and support services for students with special needs. They include: (1) LAMP for the sciences (2) the Summer Transition Program for male high school students from local underperforming high schools, (3) Upward Bound, (4) the Office of Multicultural Affairs, (5) the Gates Foundation Millennium Scholars Program, and (6) a partnership with the Posse Foundation, a college-access organization that works with urban public high schools to identify, recruit and train dynamic minority and economically disadvantaged students and send them to elite universities across the country. The success of Tulane's equal access program is reflected in these percentages: African-Americans (10.2%), American Indian (2.1%), Asian (4.9%), Caucasian (72.9%), Hispanic (4.3%), other (5.4%) and foreign students (7.9%). The NRC frequently exceeds university averages as exemplified in its graduate cohort. In the period , the NRC enrolled 1 American Indian (2%), 1 Asian/Pacific Islander (2%), 4 Black/NH (8.2%), 2 Hispanic (4%), 37 White/NH (76%). In addition, we enrolled 1 Latin American (2%), and 2 Europeans (4%), and 1 African (2%). Twenty were males, 29 females. For further documentation, see the NRC s GEPA Statement. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 37

38 9-C. Comprehensive evaluation plan. The design, refinement, and implementation of an exemplary evaluation system was developed in collaboration with Vanderbilt s NRC working with third-party experts at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt. Our evaluation system has two strong features: a framework that draws strongly on the literature of effective evaluation research and on technical assistance sources. Our program assessments include qualitative and quantitative methods to capture the breadth and depth of the impact of language and area-studies programs. Figure 2 illustrates our framework that incorporates evaluation, feedback, and reevaluation into NRC operations and program delivery. The impact of all activities is measured in terms of output by enrollment, participation, graduate placement, and usage. The evaluation includes measures that gauge the outcome of NRC services that manifest in reported utility, pursuit of related courses, career progression after graduation, and the actual implementation of new classroom practice by K-12 teachers. Our outcome-oriented system of evaluation was developed (a) to measure the quality of, and access to, specific program services the NRC offers, (b) to provide meaningful feedback to faculty and staff for improvement, and (c) to collect crosssectional and longitudinal information for overall NRC performance enhancement. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 38

39 The NRC evaluation plan is built on existing practices as demonstrated in Table 9. Current evaluation measures capture immediate program outputs through measures of enrollments, participation, language proficiency, course credit, and graduation rates. All activities and training programs were assessed for alignment with the NRC priorities and extent to which performance data is captured (9-A). In addition, the NRC strategically designed activities for K- 12 educators to meet three goals: (1) to enhance teachers knowledge in Latin American culture and language; (2) to increase the content rigor of K-12 curriculum on language and area studies, and (3) to provide pedagogical tools for classroom instruction. The summary of the overall impact of the NRC is sorted with respect to the target audience in terms of the outcome indices. The plan for the next quadrennium will ensure that outcome measures are fully implemented. The NRC will employ methods to identify representative samples of individuals and groups for more in-depth follow-up via focus groups or interviews so that the impact of activities can be better reflected and understood. It is also actively exploring innovative ways of staying in touch with graduates to be better informed of their career choices and progression. These include social media (Facebook, Twitter), electronic listerservs, personal contact, and website surveys. The NRC plans to enhance the evaluation component for targeted audiences in blue in Table 9): University: Language: The ACTFL proficiency requirements for Latin American Studies majors and minors will increase to beyond Intermediate Low. Campus Events: The NRC will evaluate events through a system of focus groups of students and faculty to be conducted twice a year so that feedback may be used for planning purposes. Library Resources: The NRC will work with the library to implement an annual faculty and student user survey to solicit feedback. Community: Professional Development programs: The NRC will conduct focus group discussions with randomly selected teachers 3-6 months after participation. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 39

40 TABLE 9: Impact and Evaluation Summary Matrix (Captures SCLAS ; New Measures for Underlined in Blue) In summary, the NRC has a comprehensive evaluation system to measure the impact of center activities and training programs. Its measures provide valuable data that inform the planning and design of our services, and offer important evidence for program improvement. Working with Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 40

41 the evaluation team at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, the NRC will add features to address the longer-term impact of center services. Specifically, it will implement the following: (a) establish an evaluation team led by a third-party expert and a content knowledge expert; (b) fine-tune evaluation instruments with rubrics aligned to NRC priorities and provide timely feedback to faculty and staff; (c) refine the NRC s alumni network for career placements; (d) follow-up with teachers that participate in workshops to assess the extent to which NRC services have enhanced their teaching in terms of content and pedagogy; (e) work with service partners and conduct ongoing joint assessments of planning, goal-alignment, and overall effectiveness of events at the community, regional, and national levels; (f) ensure the evaluation system be examined each semester and adjusted for its effectiveness and feasibility by the evaluation team. 9-D. Increases in supply of specialists (FLAS). Over the last quadrennium, course enrollments were as follows: 634 area studies and language courses enrolled 24,447 undergraduates, and 441 area studies and language courses enrolled 8,196 graduate students.. Table 10 includes placements since 2007, but since 1998 the NRC s interdisciplinary program produced 27 PhDs and 123 MAs. Of the PhDs awarded sixteen are in tenure-track academic jobs, two are in research positions, one is a visiting faculty, two are in government, two are university administrators, one is a medical doctor, one is a librarian, one is an independent urban development consultant, and one is unknown. The impact of our interdisciplinary graduates on different sectors is demonstrated in Table 10. In addition, almost all graduate programs that are critical for developing new research about Latin America have strong ratios of graduate students working on Latin American topics to those working on non-latin American topics: Latin American Studies (45/0; 100%), Spanish and Portuguese (14/5; 74%), Anthropology (35/24; 59%), History (4/16; 20%), Art History (2/2; 50%), EEB (7/22 32%). In the period to Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 41

42 , Tulane awarded 37 out of 68 PhDs with Latin American foci in Spanish and Portuguese (5), Anthropology (13), Latin American Studies (3), History (6), Political Science (1), Sociology (2), French (1), English (1), Architecture-Preservation (1), Interdisciplinary-Linguistics (2), Interdisciplinary-Art History (1), and Interdisciplinary-Development (1). 9-E National needs and dissemination of information to public. The NRC gives extremely high priority to sponsorship of events for faculty, students, and especially different academic and public constituencies (detailed in Criterion 7). The NRC s website, together with that of CIPR, which were redesigned and launched in August 2009 with extensive new capabilities to transmit Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 42

43 in various media, carry significant content about Latin American programming at the NRC to broad audiences. For example, between January 1, 2009 and August 27, 2009, the NRC site had 10,044 visits from 82 countries 8,920 were from the United States. Over the last quadrennium, students in our Latin American Studies undergraduate programs went into the following critical fields: medical school (7), graduate study in public health (4), advanced graduate work in geology, and two are working in the fields of physics and medical research. In the next quadrennium, the NRC is working with the School of Public Health to establish joint degree programs for undergraduates and certificate programs for graduate students and to provide specialized language training in Portuguese and Haitian Creole. 9-F. FLAS and national needs. Of the 46 AY FLAS fellowships awarded over the past four years 38 have been for Brazilian Portuguese (82.6%) and 8 have been for Haitian Creole (17.4%) (FLAS Competitive Priority). Over the last quadrennium, the NRC trained 67 students in the study of a LCTL as AY and Summer FLAS fellows. The target languages included: Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Kaqchikel Maya, Yucatec Maya, Garifuna, Nahuatl, K'iche' Maya, Quichua, and Guarani. Of these sixty-seven, 52 are continuing graduate students and are actively incorporating their language training into their research programs and career goals, Of the remaining fifteen FLAS fellows, eight are actively incorporating the LCTL in their post-graduate careers that include immigration law, international development work, NGO and non-profit advocacy and research, dance and theatrical performance, private sector coffee distribution, international finance, federal law enforcement (FBI), and ESL instruction. Over the next quadrennium, the NRC will recruit undergraduates in its program with interest in the areas of national need to achieve higher levels of Portuguese through summer FLAS fellowships. Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 43

44 Criterion 10: FLAS AWARDEE SELECTION PROCEDURES The NRC currently awards AY FLAS fellowships in Portuguese and Haitian Creole. Tulane Graduate School provides full tuition waivers (currently valued at $39,100 each) for all AY students and discounts summer tuition for its own FLAS-approved summer program in Kaqchikel Maya, thereby increasing the pool of FLAS funds available and doubling the number of AY and Summer FLAS awards. Table 11 records awards over the grant period. Of the 46 AY FLAS fellowships awarded over the past four years 38 have been for Brazilian Portuguese (82.6%) and 8 have been for Haitian Creole (17.4%) (FLAS Competitive Priority) Every summer before an award-granting year information on FLAS fellowships and the application process are updated on our website and in literature sent to applicants, core and affiliate faculty, and professional school deans with instructions to identify potential candidates. Generally this application and information-gathering process takes place over the course of the fall semester, which corresponds with our regular admissions cycle. Applicants for AY FLAS fellowships complete the regular graduate admissions application, which elicits information on GPA and GRE and encourages the applicant to note in his or her statement of interest (1) whether his/her career plans involve language education or government service and (2) whether he/she has another specific need to learn a LCTL. As part of its normal admissions practice, the NRC director convenes in late-february/early-march the Graduate Admissions committee that is composed of faculty from across the various disciplines and schools, half of whom either teach or conduct research in the less-commonly taught languages of the region. Members rank Tulane University, Stone Center for Latin American Studies, page 44