CLACS was awarded two Title VI grants from the US Department of Education in its 2022 competition: a National Resource Center (NRC) grant ($1,082,640) and a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grant ($902,476). We want to provide a brief overview of activities these funds will support over the next four years.

The entirety of the FLAS award will support fellowships available to both undergraduate and graduate students to study Less Commonly Taught Languages. For Latin America, these include Portuguese and Indigenous languages, as well as Haitian Kreyol. Fellowships provide both tuition and living stipends and are available for the academic year as well as for summer-intensive programs. Look for our call for applications for FLAS fellowships in January.

The NRC award supports teaching and scholarship on Latin America and the Caribbean as well as outreach on the region. Grant funding will underwrite a major symposium each semester, as well as individual speaker events. The award also supports the development of new courses or academic programs with Latin American/Caribbean content. Additionally, in order to expand undergraduate research opportunities, the grant will provide funds for MSU faculty members to develop special topics courses to prepare students for mentored research abroad; students will subsequently conduct summer research under the supervision of the MSU faculty member or their international research partners. CLACS core faculty members are also eligible to apply for conference travel funding provided by the grant to support their professional development. In January, CLACS will send out calls for proposals or applications for all these activities.

Additionally, as a National Resource Center, CLACS serves as a public resource on Latin America for K-12 educators, community college faculty, businesses, and government officials throughout Michigan and across the nation. In this role, CLACS has responded to requests by teachers and administrators from local school districts for help in developing equitable and inclusive policies, curricula, and practices for their schools and classrooms. For example, an annual Art-Based Global DEI Program at the Broad Art Museum prepares educators to use museum artifacts and exhibits to deepen students’ critical thinking and curiosity about people around the world, while building skills of observation, imagination, and creativity through experiences with art. A parallel workshop program, “Reading the World,” will prepare teachers to engage award-winning children’s/young adult books and offer pedagogical strategies for their effective use in classrooms. The workshops will feature winners of the national Américas Award,which honors books that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.