The United States is a melting pot that continues to draw people from all ethnic backgrounds to its shores in pursuit of the “American Dream.” Many of these latest newcomers arrive as students and their first encounter with American culture – both good and bad - is on a college campus. And sometimes these campuses are recognized internationally for their efforts at getting it right.
The University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson received such recognition for its Latin American Research Program, or "Verano de Investigación," which trains international undergraduate students on research methodology and prepares them for graduate studies in the U.S. while helping them to perfect their English language skills.
The 10,000-member Association of International Educators (NAFSA), the world's largest nonprofit professional association dedicated to international education, honored UA with the Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award. Named for the late Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., the award recognizes institutions for their planned, strategic integration of international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the ethos and outcomes of higher education. Senator Simon was well known as a strong supporter of international education and foreign language learning. His leadership in these areas was especially evident in his robust support for the creation of the National Security Education Program, which addresses critical national security deficiencies in language and cultural expertise, and in his vision of a national program that greatly expands U.S. citizens' knowledge of the world, according to NAFSA.
The UA, as well as Providence College, Washington, and Jefferson Colleges, will be featured this fall in an NAFSA report, "Internationalizing the Campus: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities," and honored at an event in Washington, D.C., in November 2012 during International Education Week.
"This type of collaboration and outreach is indispensable to build closer ties between the UA and universities in Mexico, our closest neighbor, and the rest of Latin America with which we share many historical, cultural, and linguistic bonds as well as economic relations,” said Maria Teresa Velez, Associate Dean of the UA Graduate College, and director of the Latin American Research Program. “Our university is proud to have a role in educating these students since many are likely to be future leaders in their professions and in their countries."
The UA program, which Velez founded in 2007 with the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico, recruits science and engineering majors from universities in Latin America, and over the last six years, 72 undergraduate students from 12 universities in Mexico and Colombia participated in the program. Velez is currently working on implementing a winter research program with Chile's Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica to create a similar program for 30 Chilean undergraduates. That program will focus on solar and renewable energy projects, research areas of great interest to both the U.S. and Chile.