Harvard Club Reception
Dear Members of the Harvard Club of Puerto Rico:
Good afternoon! Harvard has just begun its new academic year, so let’s get started!
We invite you to our first event of the Harvard new year: a Harvard Club reception featuring two distinguished guests: Mr. Ned Strong, Executive Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University (DRCLAS), and Dr. Pedro Reina Pérez, a Visiting Scholar at DRCLAS since 2013 and a Full Professor of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Management at the University of Puerto Rico.
The reception will take place next Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 7 pm, at the home of Harvard Club member Camelia Garrido, located at Calle Paz 660 in Miramar.
Mr. Strong and Dr. Reina Pérez will share with us their interest in rekindling the Harvard Caribbean Winter Institute, a yearly, two-week graduate seminar for 24 students in collaboration between Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Afro-Latin American Research Institute (Hutchins Center) and the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, set to begin in January 2016. The goal is to choose 12 students from Harvard and 12 students from the UPR to participate in the seminar.
Please RSVP to this event by sending us an email to harvardclubpr@gmail.com. Thank you as always, and we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, September 16!
Abrazos,
Andrés
More information on the Harvard Caribbean Winter Institute and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies:
The Harvard Caribbean Winter Institute was originally established in 2005 in Puerto Rico by DRCLAS, through a generous grant from the Wilbur Marvin Foundation that lasted until 2010. In its seven programs, the HCWI engaged 163 students and 47 faculty members from Harvard University and academic institutions in Puerto Rico. It deepened knowledge of the island and its nearby neighbors and increased understanding of their history, culture, and development challenges. It has promoted learning far beyond the classroom and encouraged intensive interaction around themes of relevance for the island and its future. Their aim is to restart this program in 2016, and for that the Wilbur Marvin Foundation has pledged $50,000.00 which they are seeking to match locally.
This seminar will focus on Santurce, the biggest and most populated part of San Juan. It offers a unique set of examples to study both the effects of lack of government planning and the possibilities of civic engagement and urban renewal. Participants in the seminar will be able to visit, inquire and experience the many aspects of this plural and diverse community, together with scholars, community leaders and practitioners that are working to promote innovation and change.
Goals:
1. To establish a new, mutually productive exchange between faculty and students from Harvard University and the University of Puerto Rico, in an annual seminar;
2. To foster conversation on themes of common interest for Puerto Rico and the Caribbean region that will lead to collaborations (publications, symposia, academic exchanges);
3. To engender awareness and understanding of Puerto Rico and its present condition to produce new scholarship and expand academic ventures;
4. To take advantage of San Juan as a center of academic and intellectual activity at the crossroads of the hemisphere;
The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies was established at Harvard University in 1994. The activities of the Center are explicitly University-wide, and have consistently engaged faculty and students from the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. It has a strong reputation within the University as a highly successful regional studies center and has an excellent track record as a multidisciplinary, service-oriented, and effective organization in engaging faculty and students in a wide range of activities related to Latin America. Many of the activities of the Center are focused on expanding Harvard’s engagement with institutions in Latin America and finding ways that research and teaching can “make a difference” on the ground in the region.