Dear Students, Faculty, Staff and Alumni,
 I hope this letter finds you and your familes enjoying time together this holiday season.
As we close out another extraordinary year at the Green School, it is my pleasure to share with you our Winter 2018 newsletter.
Our students and faculty continue to make me proud with their accomplishments and commitment to excellence.
This fall, we were honored to collaborate with three of our outstanding Ph.D. students in hosting an important gathering of advocates and policymakers on the difficult topic of immigration reform. The event, which featured a keynote address by former Assistant Secretary of State Anne C. Richard, was part of our Dorothea Green Lecture Series and I was so pleased to have Kimberly join us as well.
Former Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis had a busy first semester as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. President Solis will teach his first class in January but in the fall, he joined us for two major events – one on the future of the Americas and a second on the political crisis in Nicaragua.
Frank Mora and the entire team at LACC continue to distinguish themselves nationally, once again earning the prestigious Title VI National Resource Center designation from the U.S. Department of Education and also receiving a field research grant from the Tinker Foundation that will support graduate student researchers in Latin American studies.
Also this fall, the Green School’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy made us proud by co-hosting with New America and the Division of Information Technology a sold-out crowd at the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Conference and Expo in Miami. FIU will continue to organize this important workforce development event for the next four years.
Our researchers continue to be recognized for their important work. Criminal Justice Professor Besiki Kutateladze recently released his first report on prosecutorial behavior funded by the MacArthur Foundation and Modern Languages Professor Melissa Baralt has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant through LACC to support Spanish-language teacher training in collaboration with Florida Memorial University.
One of our latest innovations is a series of "Green School Special Reports" on major events in the news - streamed live on Facebook to nearly 10,000 viewers and featuring our incredible faculty experts. So far, these live conversations have addressed the troubling Rise of Anti-Semitism in America; the Legacy of George H.W. Bush; and the 2018 Midterm Elections. We plan more of these events this Spring.
I would be remiss if I did not extend my personal invitation to you for the second installment of our Dorothea Green Lecture Series: State of the World 2019 – Global Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy, which will once again draw some of the nation’s leading experts to Miami to discuss today’s most pressing issues.
We are so grateful to our outstanding Senior Fellow David Kramer for his hard work in making this event such a big draw for policy leaders and journalists from around the country.
I hope you will take a few minutes to review the stories below of our students, faculty and programs and I thank you as always for your continued support!
Happy holidays and all my best for a peaceful New Year!
John
Dean John F. Stack, Jr. |
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Green School to host 2nd State of the World conference, January 10 - 11
January 10-11, 2019
FIU Graham Center Ballrooms
Miami, Florida
To address some of the most pressing issues facing the world today, leading foreign policy experts, journalists and academics will gather in January for the second annual event of the Dorothea Green Lecture Series – State of the World 2019: Global Relations & U.S. Foreign Policy. The event will feature conversations on current threats to democracy; foreign policy in hot spots such as North Korea and Russia; as well as immigration, international trade and other topics. Confirmed speakers include White House correspondent Peter Baker of the New York Times, Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and Eliot Abrams, senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. To RSVP, click here.
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Congratulations to our Fall 2018 Worlds Ahead Grads!
This semester, Sara Bedoya and Brian Lugo were named FIU Worlds Ahead Graduates for their dedication, compassion and commitment to helping make their communities a better place. Read more. |
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NEH awards LACC $100,000 for Spanish-language teacher training
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded Modern Languages Professor Melissa Baralt a grant for $100,000 to improve course content and teacher training in Spanish language and culture at FIU and partner university Florida Memorial.
The project will be administered through LACC’s MI-BRIDGE (Minority Institutions Building Resources to Ignite Development and Growth in Education) program. Baralt runs the program, which provides teacher training workshops with a goal of recruiting and retaining minorities in foreign languages and area studies classrooms. Read More.
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Study Examines What Prosecutors Think About Success, Racial Disparities and Community Engagement
 FIU, in partnership with Loyola University Chicago, is implementing a two-year project with four prosecutor’s offices in Chicago, Jacksonville, Milwaukee and Tampa. The project stems from a growing recognition that prosecutors need to become more data-driven and strategic to ensure effectiveness and fairness.
Funded by a $1.7 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the project is led by FIU criminal justice professor Besiki Kutateladze. Read More.
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LACC Releases 27th Edition of Flagship
Publication
For the 27th issue of Hemisphere, guest editor and history professor Bianca Premo drew upon her experience leading a series of international seminars on the archives of colonial Latin America to explore what the historical record reveals and what it hides, and how records affect the stories we tell and the lives we lead.
As she and expert scholars share in this issue, the approach to examining the archives reveals far more than past accounts and parallels to the present; in many ways it provides a window into the future.
Read More.
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 Former Costa Rican president and visiting scholar discusses future of the Americas
Getting to learn from a professor who is also the former president of a country can sound like a far-fetched dream for students.
At FIU, it’s a reality. Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera, who served as president of Costa Rica from 2014 to 2018, has begun his appointment as a distinguished visiting scholar at the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. To celebrate his arrival, LACC hosted a special conversation with Solís on the future of the Americas. Read more. |
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Student opposition leader joins panel discussion on crisis in Nicaragua
One of the key leaders in the student-led opposition movement against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega joined FIU faculty experts for a conversation on the country’s political crisis in September.
The discussion featured Lesther Alemán along with former Costa Rican President and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at LACC Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera; LACC Director Frank Mora; Jose Miguel Crus, director of research at LACC; and Richard Feinberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Read More.
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 Green School faculty to study the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico’s health care system
The National Institutes of Health has awarded professors Mark Padilla, Nelson Varas-Diaz and Kevin Grove, all housed within the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, a $423,555 grant to study the massive collapse in Puerto Rico's health care services after Hurricane Maria and how it impacted the lives of those who survived the hurricane but needed medical attention to treat chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and HIV/AIDS. Read More.
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Interfaith conversation sheds light on friendship across religious groups
To break down barriers and combat stereotypes, every year the Green School hosts an interfaith community event featuring religious leaders and scholars.
This year, the Green School teamed up with a newly created community group in Miami-Dade County, Interfaith Youth Miami, an initiative started by local high school students to promote understanding and foster new friendships between various faith communities.
Read More.
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 Agustín R. Arellano, Sr. and his family donate $1 million to FIU’s CasaCuba
Local construction business leader and member of the FIU Foundation Board of Directors Agustín R. Arellano, Sr. and his family have donated $1 million to CasaCuba.
The gift will count towards a $50 million fundraising goal for the design, construction and operational endowment of a 50,000-square-foot facility for CasaCuba on FIU’s campus.
The facility will harness the university’s academic assets to build a leading center that will promote global understanding on Cuban affairs and culture. Read More.
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Latin American and Caribbean Center earns national designation
The Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) has reaffirmed its place as one of the leading centers of its kind in the nation, once again earning a designation from the U.S. Department of Education as a Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) on Latin America and the Caribbean. LACC will receive more than $2 million for the Title VI program and the Foreign Language and Areas Studies Fellowship. Read more.
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 FIU hosts annual conference focused on cybersecurity workforce outreach
FIU is playing a key role in educating the next generation of highly-skilled cybersecurity practitioners to protect and safeguard important data, systems and networks. The Green School’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy joined New America and the Division of Information Technology in co-hosting the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Conference and Expo on Nov. 6 – 7, 2018, in Miami. Read More. |
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Student researchers tackle U.S. immigration policy with forum
Advocates, scholars and students came together to discuss the future of immigration in the U.S.
The Forum on Inclusive Immigration Reform was part of the Dorothea Green Lecture Series and hosted in collaboration with three Ph.D. students from Global and Sociocultural Studies: Jack Maguire, Maria Barbero and Katrina Livingston. Read More.
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 Turquoise Mountain exhibition concludes with talk by author Ana Menendez
The Green School celebrated the final days of its Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan exhibition with a talk by Ana Menendez, acclaimed author, journalist and director of a new partnership between FIU and Miami Dade College called The Humanities Edge.
Menendez, who traveled through Afghanistan in 1998 when the Taliban were at the height of their power, spoke about the power and persistence of art and the humanities in the face of war and conflict. Read More.
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 Asian Studies announces Omar K. Carrion scholarship recipients for 2018-2019
The Omar K. Carrion Scholarship for Asian Studies was established through a generous gift made by Hilda and Fernando Carrion, parents of Omar Carrion, as an endowment memorializing their son who passed away in 2013. This year Asian Studies awarded one main winner, Sofiya Burmistrova, and two runners-up, Adriana Schiavo and Hedda Stokkland.
The scholarship will help the recipients cover costs related to academics, such as tuition and course materials. Read More. |
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