September 7, 2001
Prepared by Leonardo R. Ledezma and Cathy Rakowski
The meeting started with a summary of the discussion of the
Business Meeting. Emperatríz
Arreaza and María Pilar García informed those
present that they, Jun Ishibashi, Maria Cristina Parra, Kim Morse, and several others had met during the
reception to discuss a post-Congress meeting in Venezuela. They presented their
project. The proposal is to hold a conference in Maracaibo
in May or June 2002. They will obtain
support from local funders (probably CONICIT) and the
Universidad del Zulia, but also suggested that we
should consult section members about using the money in the Section’s account
for this conference. Kim Morse will be in charge of the dissemination of
information in the United States, while Emperatríz
and María Pilar will do the
same in Venezuela. A written proposal should be ready by October 6th
During the discussion of Leonardo’s proposal for facilitating exchanges, Elizabeth Nichols suggested identifying organizations that could make our job easier. She suggested the Consortium of Centers of Latin American Studies would be a good contact to identify LAS centers likely to help with exchanges. ILAS in University of Texas in Austin is also a good institution to contact. Elizabeth Nichols volunteered to help arrange exchanges to her university
Cathy suggested that we should contact Fulbright to secure information about the ways to achieve the goal of exchanging scholars. Leonardo will contact Rogelio Saenz at Texas A & M College Station with the same purpose.
It also was suggested that we should look into how we could find information on Venezuelan students and scholars in the United States. Are there centralized data somewhere? Can a query of members assist us? We will check this.
Leonardo and Cathy agreed to work together to update member data, encourage “friends” on our listserver to become members, and draft a survey instrument for members.
The meeting adjourned with each member volunteering to follow up by e-mail.