Latin America and Caribbean SIG (LACSIG)
2008 LAC MIG Annual Meeting Minutes
Attendees: 38
The president of NAFSA, Everett Egginton, attended the first portion of the LAC MIG annual meeting to talk a bit about his passion for Latin America, lend his support to our group, and talk a bit in more details about his activities, as NAFSA president, in Latin America. Dr. Egginton is the Dean of International and Border Programs at New Mexico State University. He has had vast experience in Latin America throughout his career including the Peace Corps (Venezuela), Foreign-Area Fellowship (Peru), Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship (Colombia); numerous consultancies with the U.S. Agency for International Development (Colombia, El Salvador), various ministries of education (throughout Central America), and the World Bank (El Salvador); and more recently as a Senior Fulbright Research and Teaching Fellow (El Salvador).
As President of NAFSA, he has conducted a couple trips to Colombia and Mexico, visited with universities, talked openly about campus internationalization and worked with the Fulbright Commission in those two countries. He indicated that there have been great strides in Mexico in terms of internationalization. He thought the LAC MIG could be of importance to providing support and a way for institutions to work together, especially from smaller countries in the region, to organize and market their countries as study abroad destinations. He communicated that NAFSA, despite having a larger EU presence, is interested in opening the door even wider to Latin America and the Caribbean.
LAC MIG had asked Dr. Egginton to comment on whether or not it may be possible in the future for a NAFSA Annual Conference to take place in Latin America. He indicated that although a NAFSA annual conference has never been held in Latin America, there is a precedent for crossing the border (Montreal/Vancouver) and there have been some regional conferences in Monterrey. Mexico would be the most logical choice but the obstacles would be the fact that conferences are planned 5 years in advance and the venue has to be able to accommodate 10,000+ attendees and the conference is growing. Sal Carranza, LAC MIG co-chair, did share that Guadalajara will be hosting the Pan-American games in 2011 and could be a potential site.
Committee Break-outs:
Leadership/Advocay Committee:Christine Wintersteen, co-chair, and Dorothea Antonia, committee member and local activities coordinator in Washington DC, spoke about what the committee had accomplished this past year in terms of increasing visibility through a brochure, stickers, list of DC restaurants and activities geared to those interested in the region, and a social event at a local restaurant. The committee would like to continue this type of visibility at the NAFSA 2008 conference in LA and will be seeking a local activities coordinator in Los Angeles that can assist with local arrangements.
The committee spoke about the fact that Mexican institutions, for the first time, had exhibited together in the Exposition Hall. The Fulbright Commission had assisted with this initiative. As a committee, we would like to identify the person at NAFSA that works on the exhibition hall requests and reservations. Further, the committee decided to draft and send a formal letter signed by LAC MIG that supported regional unity among exhibitors, when possible.
The committee discussed the promotion of regionally-focused presentations at the next NAFSA 2008 annual conference, especially due to the fact that the conference is taking place in Los Angeles. One potential presentation proposal that was discussed was the idea of asking representatives of nationally based international educational organizations such as AMPEI present on how a Latin American country can organize nationally to promote international education. The purpose of a panel as such would be to have mentoring and cross-regional sharing of how to overcome obstacles to organize nationally in terms of international education. Potential organizations could be AMPEI (Asociación Méxicana para la Educación Internacional), FAUBAI (Fórum de Assessorias das Universidades Brasileiras para Assuntos Internacionais) and the educational branch of ProChile.
Membership Committee: Soren Peterson, Coordinator, received contact information from all present to register them as LACSIG members. Then the group joined the Advocacy Committee to plan outreach efforts to connect with all NAFSA Latin America participants and invite them to join our SIG and participate next year in our events.
Goal for NAFSA 2009:
Identify colleague in Los Angeles willing to work with LAC SIG on local activities and arrangements.
Draft and send support letter for regional unity among LA exhibitors to Cara Stann at .
Work within committee to contact potential presenters and inquire about interest to join together to organize presentation. Contacts: Tim Wright, Program Officer, U.S.-Mexico Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange, Email: x.
Study Abroad Committee: ChairMaria Paula Carvajal, from Colombia was unable to attend NAFSA this year, so Sal Carranza coordinated the committee meeting. We started to identify what U.S. universities and colleges do on-campus to promote study abroad programs specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean;
We talked about the creation of a list of study abroad programs in Latin America and the Caribbean for distribution on our website. After this year’s NAFSA, we will add new programs to the list based on information supplied by our new members.
We talked about the need to identify safety statistics in Latin America and compare with other regions, including the United States, for distribution on the SIG website. We will also develop a World Citizens Guide to Latin America, on Culture, History, Language and Customs so that they can travel with knowledge, resourcefulness and sensitivity to that region. We hope to be able to post it on our Web site.
We also talked about encouraging members to use the listserve and the web site blog to communicate with each other and use it as a resource for Q & A for members and others with interest in Latin America and the Caribbean.
LAC MIG Social Event
For the first time, our group had a social event immediately following the meeting on Thursday early evening. It was extremely successful and provided an opportunity for the attendees (roughly 30) to enjoy complimentary food and great conversation among people with interests in Latin America & the Caribbean. It was a great chance for people who were unable to attend the annual meeting to meet one another and for those who did attend the meeting to continue some of the same conversations informally over tapas! For example, some attendees continued discussing the possibility of a NAFSA conference being based in Latin America and Lima, Peru was enthusiastically suggested by one attendee, Ramiro Salas-Bravo, the ex-minister of tourism and current Dean in the Office of International Development at the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Lima, Peru. The social event was sponsored by CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange). LAC MIG welcomes other interested organizations or universities who wish to sponsor a social event at NAFSA in 2008.
Minutes Submitted by:
Salvador Carranza, LACSIG Chair
Christine Wintersteen, Leadership/Advocacy Committee Chair
Maria Paula Carvajal, Study Abroad Committee Chair
Soren Peterson, Membership and Communications Coordinator