From the Director

From the Director’s Desk… 

AY 2025-26 was a momentous year, but not always in a good way.  Year 4 of our federal National Resource Center (NRC) and Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) grants were cut by the Trump Administration, and we ran those programs on the carryover fumes from previous years.  We were fortunate to have funds carried over on a dwindling basis since the overlap of previous federal grants in 2022-23 due to the pandemic slowdown, but we still had to cancel many planned courses, travel funds, and activities.  For FLAS, we could fund only our Graduate Committee’s top candidate for an academic year fellowship instead of the standard 10-12, and in the summer only 5 fellowships instead of the standard 6-8.   Better than nothing.  And KU did us a big favor by continuing to let us offer our NRC-funded courses free of charge, which affords us a huge advantage over other area studies centers around the country.  Having an experienced staff of Mary Raple (Assistant Director), Antonio Orozco (Grants Financial Specialist), Mariya Borisova (Administrative Associate), and student workers Kae Santamaría, Mary Self, and David Martínez was crucial to running programs on a shoestring.

As faculty know because of our requests for CV highlights in June, the Departments of Education and State posted (without announcing) the next Title VI competition (formerly the NRC, FLAS, and Fulbright Hays) in early June.  This is precisely when many faculty are traveling – with loaner laptops, no less – for research.  I myself was in Seville conducting archival research, and because the Administration gave us only a month to complete the application instead of the standard 60 days, I lost some precious time crossing the starting line.  The instructions were nothing like the previous NRC ones, and emphasis was placed on ill-defined national security needs, which we had to prove with data, and evaluation measures.  Perhaps it goes without saying that any mention of DEI was explicitly discouraged.  Only homogeneity, inequality, and exclusion nowadays.  In the end, with the vital assistance of KUIA, particularly Megan Greene and Charli Bankart, KUCR, the Hall Center, various KU units and offices, grant-writing extraordinaire Melissa Birch, and our Center staff, we submitted the 207-page grant on July 7 with 8 minutes to spare.  It’s not the grant I would have submitted had I had more time, and we only received about 60% of faculty ½-page CVs, but other centers around the country faced the same challenges in these “hunger games”.  Only up to 50 CAANN area studies will be awarded, in contrast to the 121 currently award NRCs, 17 of which are Latin American centers.  Almost immediately after the deadline, the Administration requested to Congress a change in the rules to allow it more flexibility to spend Title VI funds how it wants.  Pow!

Speaking of Melissa, she, Gary Reich, and John Hoopes retired – huge blows to the Center.  They have been at the heart of our Core Faculty over the decades and served on our committees and in leadership positions.  Melissa, a Title VI award-winner herself with elite Center for International Business (CIBER) grants, has helped directors write every Title VI grant over the past quarter of a century.  She has also served on our Graduate and Executive Committees for many years.  Gary has been a steadying, level-headed presence as a social science member on the Graduate Committee for decades and thus has positively impacted the careers and lives of hundreds of students.  John, besides serving as Acting Director in 1998-99, has single-handedly shouldered all the ancient Latin American courses since arriving in the 1980s.  We can’t possibly replace him, but hopefully some faculty will now include some ancient history in their courses.  While losing the three of them will leave an unfillable void, no one deserves a break more than them.  We will continue to consult them if they’ll tolerate it, and Melissa has graduated to our Advisory Board, where she’s already making an impact.  This fall we plan to celebrate them with a special event, so keep an eye out.

Despite the losses, KUIA and the College continue to support us even under heavy financial strain due KU’s sudden $32 million debt, due to a perfect storm of unforeseeable, mostly external changes.  The College funds 6 Kaqchikel, Yucatec, and Quechua language courses, down from 8 but keeping the programs alive, and 3 content courses.  It cut our lone GTAship, which along with the elimination of FLAS will make recruiting students to our MA program a monumental challenge.  KUIA has done its best to preserve staff despite absorbing deep cuts of its own and is restructuring the area studies centers as hubs of information and organization within and beyond KU.  You would be surprised, if not shocked, to know how many KU units and local organizations host international events without consulting the centers and thus effectively isolating themselves.  With tighter integration, the sky is the limit of what can be done, even without federal funds.

While our federal support has dried up, the Tinker Foundation combined with KUIA matching funds will continue to support KU graduate student research through 2030.  We finally spent the last of our 2020-25 Tinker grant, which took longer than anticipated because of the pandemic, and so now we will be down to about 9 awards per year.  This past year, we funded 16 students with the overlapping grants.

Regarding our endowment accounts, a few very generous donors have buoyed funds in our General Account to the extent that we can keep many basic programs running this coming academic year, including our annual events, some student employment, and Native Language Assistants for our indigenous language courses.  Our Stansifer Award for graduate achievement and Herzfeld Scholarship for study abroad in Latin America & Caribbean receive a few vital, bighearted donations, such that we can now go well beyond their original targets. However, the demand for funds exceeds the number of highly qualified applicants, and the number of donations is very low.  If you’re so inclined, you can find donation QR codes at the end of this report.

This coming year we have some exciting activities.  Margarita Orozco (Journalism & Mass Media) has by now spent the last of our NRC $$ on the symposium, “The State of Journalism in Latin America”, which will be videorecorded broadcast live from the Medellín International Book Fair on September 11-20.  The Book Fair venue has enabled Margarita to recruit some heavy hitters from within Latin America.  We are also excited to announce that thanks to the efforts of Luciano Tosta (Spanish & Portuguese, CGIS Director), the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) will be seated at KU over the next 6 years with Luciano at the helm.  CLACS will support many of its campus events.