A Cuban exchange program that will allow both students and faculty to study at either the University of Havana or Casa de las Américas next year is in its final stages of being approved by the College. While the program has been in the planning stages for two years, its launch conveniently coincides with the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States last December.
The choice of Casa de las Américas also corresponds with the improved relations between the countries as it was originally founded by the Cuban government for developing connections between Latin America and the rest of the world.
The Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad, comprised of Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth, developed the program to allow students from member schools to study in Cuba. Brown suggested the idea to the other six colleges in the consortium since a Cuban study abroad program was already in place at the university, John Tansey, executive director of Dartmouth’s Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education, said.
Associate dean of the faculty for international and interdisciplinary studies Lynn Higgins said that this is the first program that the consortium has created together. Each consortium program will have a lead school, with Brown taking the lead this time.
The collaboration between the seven schools allows each university to offer students the opportunity to study in an area where interest may not be high enough to merit a program from each individual school, Tansey said.
The Arabic foreign study program in Tangier, Morocco was cancelled for the falls of 2013 and 2014 and the Italian language study abroad program to Rome was cancelled for the spring of 2014 due to low enrollment. The consortium would allow the program to run even with low enrollment from each individual school.
While the program currently has no plans to host Cuban students in the United States, Tansey said he hopes to expand the program in the future so they can study in America.
In many ways, the program will function like other study abroad programs. The application will be due February 1st, course credit will transfer back to Dartmouth and Dartmouth financial aid will apply, Tansey said.
Higgins, however, describes the Cuban exchange as a “hybrid” program, while Lisa Baldez, chair of the program in the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies department, similarly said that it has some characteristics of an exchange program, some of a foreign study program and some entirely new characteristics.
The program is unique in that students are required to be proficient at speaking and writing in Spanish. Baldez said the program will be a good option for students who want to “do an off-campus program in Spanish that’s not geared towards the language,” Baldez said.
Instead, students will attend classes alongside Cuban students in the social sciences, fine arts and humanities. Examples of classes that will be offered include “Gender, Race and Inequalities in Cuba: Visions from Cuban Scholars” and “Health and Society in Cuba,” Baldez said.
While the program is currently open to students of all majors, Baldez said she believes that it will be of particular interest to Latin American studies majors.
In addition to the Spanish requirement, there are structural issues that present a challenge. Because the program operates on a semester schedule, students who do not go in the fall will need to be off-campus for both the winter and spring quarters, Baldez said. As a result, she believes that the program will appeal to incoming freshman — who have more time to structure their D-plan — than it will to current upperclassmen.
Students will stay in apartment-style housing within walking distance of both campuses. There will also be a small building with classrooms and a library that will host the United States faculty resident advisor’s office, Tansey said. This center will also provide student services and support.
The consortium of colleges are renovating the center, adding infrastructure to Casa de Las Américas, as classes in the building will be for all students, Baldez said.
The recent normalized relations with Cuba will be able to “reduce red tape for education exchanges,” government department chair John Carey said. “The exchange program was going forward before, but this will make it that much easier and reduce the bureaucratic hurdles to students and faculty coming and going.”
Carey also stressed the unique opportunities that come from studying abroad in Cuba, specifically mentioning how Cuba’s unique history with the United States makes it an interesting place for Americans to study.
“There are not that many places you can go in the world anymore that are untouched by American commerce,” Carey said. “In a lot of ways it’s kind of a museum piece. The presence of the revolutionary ethos and propaganda is so much more close to the surface than it is in most places.”
Baldez also mentioned the cultural significance of the program’s location. Casa de Las Américas was founded as a cultural center in 1959, four months after the Cuban Revolution, and it remains equally as important today, he said.
“The fact that Dartmouth students will be taking classes in a space that is in it of itself historically important is a fantastic opportunity for students, because people from the entire region are coming in and out of there all the time,” Baldez said,
All four sources mentioned that there has been interest from the Dartmouth community in Cuba for a long time. According to Higgins, there are a number of faculty members who have done research in or about Cuba for awhile, and this program will make it easier for them to get visas and permission to continue their research. When deciding whether Dartmouth would say yes to Brown’s offer for a consortium program, they evaluated the projected level of interest on campus and it was high enough to join the program, Higgins said.
Baldez said she thinks Cuba has always “fascinated” American students, and that a program in another part of the Caribbean would not generate as much interest on campus as the Cuba program has.
