To the Editor:
My colleagues and I in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese were surprised to read, in The Dartmouth of Monday, Feb. 4, about the "unclear future" of our Spring term Foreign Study Program. In fact, plans for the program and its future are perfectly clear. This spring's offering will be held in Montevideo, Uruguay, and it will take place during the same dates as our normal offering in Buenos Aires. Professor Medrano-Pizarro, who will direct the program this spring, is in Montevideo this week finalizing the arrangements for the academic program and student housing. His "refusal" to comment was owing to the fact that at the time the reporter called him, he was boarding the plane for Uruguay.
This decision was not taken lightly, nor suddenly. The Spanish department has been closely monitoring the situation in Argentina throughout the past month, while exploring the possibility of a program in Montevideo as a possible substitute. The final decision to move the program, for this year only, was taken by the department, in close consultation with the Dean of Faculty office, at the beginning of last week, after careful consideration of the alternatives (including remaining in Buenos Aires, an option adopted by several peer institutions). It was based on a combination of factors -- principally, uncertainty as to how the Argentine situation would continue to evolve over the coming months, and how that might impact the experience of our students. The students participating in the program have known, since the beginning of January, of the possibility that the program might be moved to another site.
The resources available to us in Montevideo are excellent and promise to provide a high-quality alternative to our Buenos Aires program, both in academic and cultural terms. And assuming all goes well for the Argentine economy, as we certainly hope it will, we will be back in Buenos Aires during the spring of 2003.
