Professor Ito Peng
Associate Dean
Faculty of Arts and Science
University of Toronto
Dear Ito,
I have been almost silent about events around the Latin American Studies programme (LAS) as they have unfolded since last Spring. Yet, as the former and founding Director of this unit, and as a colleague who I hope has become known for a consistently creative and constructive attitude towards our University as a whole, I cannot remain silent anymore. I feel deeply unhappy at what I have seen. And I believe that any objective observer, faced with the evidence of what has transpired, would be properly horrified. Matters surrounding Latin American Studies appear to be getting worse, and it high time for leadership which will return our focus to the formation of our students as critical thinkers and global citizens, to the realm of ideas and public service, and to respect for each other as an interlocking community of faculty, staff, students and public.
The principal problems seem to begin with communication, the lack of it. Neither I nor other senior Latin Americanists across the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University have been consulted even once about the programme's accomplishments and future. We were not consulted about the recommendations of the Strategic Planning Committee within Arts and Science (SPC) to close down LAS's office in the Munk Centre, leave its dedicated administrator (40%) Stella Kyriakakis in an uncertain position which for the most part continues, and move LAS's teaching into Spanish and Portuguese. The first two have already happened. The one time you and I spoke about LAS in early summer, I accompanied Rosa Sarabia, Eva-Lynn Jagoe (both, former LAS directors), Ricardo Sternberg and Josiah Blackmore, the Chair of Spanish and Portuguese, at the latter's insistence, not yours. A compelling letter which Professor Sternberg sent to Provost Cheryl Misak on 16 August 2010 explored a number of subjects, but the penultimate paragraph spoke directly to the scale of our growing problem around Latin American Studies. That letter has not, to my knowledge, received a reply or, more importantly, led to alternative solutions and productive action from your office. I attach Professor Sternberg's letter, along with my own, for your ease of reference.
The kind of meeting which occurred because of Joe Blackmore's insistence should have been, should be, regular and vital. We need each other's help to think through possibilities, explore alternatives. At that time, I expressed my concerns that: first, in the wake of the recommendations within the A&S Academic Plan, you had broken off negotiations about the Directorship with Professor Valentina Napolitano (Anthropology), and; second, that you were attempting to de-link the research and teaching dimensions of the programme, with the idea of housing the latter in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. I will return to the matter of a directorship below. With respect to the SPC's recommendation to de-link research and intellectual programming from the undergraduate teaching, well, it went against everything LAS had come to stand for, and against everything the programme was giving to its students, faculty, visitors and interested public. Our collective concern as Latin Americanists was expressed to you as only natural; we are committed to a fruitful coexistence of disciplinary and multi-disciplinary work in a great modern university. As all of us explained, we were united in support of Spanish and Portuguese's unanimous rejection of the recommendation that it house LAS teaching. (The programme should not be housed in any single department, we suggested, unless, as very last resort, it and its modest administrative support and resources rotated with the given, appointed Director.) A de-linking of research and teaching would fail on several levels, but most importantly: one, it would effectively kill off the unit's considerable contribution as a multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary complement to disciplinary excellence at a great, ambitious and internationally-minded University; and two, without a nexus and base of operations, the hoped-for participation of Latin Americanists in initiatives within the new Munk School for Global Affairs would never occur. LAS, as we have known it since 2005, would wither into insignificance, or it would just disappear.
It is difficult not to take matters a little personally, given the reasons for which I have made Toronto home (and I love it here). I was hired from Princeton University to be a senior historian at the UofT, but also, in the words of then-Provost Shirley Newman, 'to build Latin America at UofT,' a vast area in this hemisphere that is increasingly connected to Canadians' lives. I joined a great many others in doing just that, pouring four years of my life into founding and growing a remarkable unit that, with modest resources, collaborated imaginatively across the University and beyond, and which has punched far above its weight in all ways. At a time when we are all so rightly concerned with financial reason, I wish to underscore the return on a modest investment. The leadership in teaching shown by Professor Victor Rivas, in particular, has been the foundation and inspiration of our student-centred approach to learning. The interim directorships of Rosa Sarabia and of Eva-Lynn Jagoe built substantially on our beginnings. The highlights have been many. One of my proudest moments came at the opening of the 'Virgin, Saints and Angels' exhibition of Baroque Art from Spanish South America (which LAS co-organised with the University of Toronto Art Centre [UTAC]); then-Provost Vivek Goel attended the opening, and commented on just how much Latin American Studies had managed to accomplish in a few short years. I won't trouble you with other examples of what Latin American Studies has been doing, but I hope you'll forgive me for asking if you know' Have you read the report on LAS I prepared on 1 June 2008 for then-Interim Dean Meric Gertler? The Faculty has conducted neither a review nor a proper, collective search for a Director since I was head of the unit. The programme has been very fortunate in its two Interim Directors since that time, but it is not the same as considering and appointing a new Director. The Faculty's stewardship and leadership is required.
Your communications to Spanish and Portuguese over the past few months have come to my attention, as has your recent reply to concerns raised by a current TA in the gateway lecture course, LAS 200Y, followed by another appeal made to Spanish and Portuguese to house the teaching programme and find an 'academic adviser,' now characterised as an 'academic director.' I am troubled by what I read, by how things seem to be getting only worse. At base, there is an apparent lack of understanding of what LAS is, where it came from, and why Spanish and Portuguese is resisting your requests, and about why Latin Americanist colleagues are patiently explaining that the SPC proposals for LAS need serious attention and re-thinking. Your assertion to the TA Jonathan Allan (10 Sept 2010) that you have been searching for an 'academic director' of LAS all summer is hard to understand. If a 'director' is now a wish, will you consult with faculty and student for views on the matter, and thus to make serious adjustments to what was proposed in the last days of June? Further, your effort to recruit a short-term leader from within a single Department by characterising the task of leading LAS as something that, you've been informed, 'really does not take much time,' is an insult to me as an experienced administrator, as well as to my colleagues. This characterisation will inspire no one to help out, much less to achieve great things for the study of Latin America, or anything else. Moreover, putting things in this way as you attempt to recruit assistance, is to set sights terribly and unacceptably low for an academic programme anywhere, let alone at a great University. I do not know from whom you are getting information or with whom you are consulting. But it is certainly not from those of us who study the region, who have worked hard for Latin American Studies, and who have signalled over and over again our readiness to help and offer counsel. As I told you in person in June and July, I have great respect for the difficulty of your position and I have offered to help. It is now mid-September, with students arriving and our greatest responsibility of teaching their classes just beginning.
The LAS programme's history and, as it were, its pre-history, is instructive and, as a historian, I know it is a best place for you to start. In what follows, I draw on information gathered carefully from a number of senior Latin Americanist colleagues (most notably Professor Ricardo Sternberg, Professor Peter Blanchard and Professor Judith Teichman), from Professor Stephen Rupp when he served as Chair of Spanish and Portuguese, and especially from Professor Emeritus William J. Callahan, my predecessor as a Chair of the Department of History and, for a decade, the Principal of Victoria College.
In the early 1990s, the opportunity for a real beginning for the coordinated study of Latin America at Toronto appeared when then-President Robert Prichard was approached by Sr. José Luis Pardos, the Spanish ambassador to Canada. (In his previous appointment in Australia, Pardos had been visionary, and promoted various initiatives to promote the study of global Spanish history and culture in universities. He wished to do the same in Canada and, in particular, for the University of Toronto. Pardo had already raised the subject with Mr. Jean Monty, then-President of Northern Telecom, which had extensive interests in various Latin American countries. Monty was receptive to the idea of funding an initiative at the UofT, culminating in a gift of $150,000 a year for five years, to a grand total of $750,000. Among other things, this generous grant provided for the creation of a Professor of 'Ibero-American Studies' (so named in deference to the efforts made by the Spanish ambassador) and of an internship programme designed to allow our students to gain first-hand work and study experience in the vast Latin American region.
Some aspects of the arrangement were put into encouraging motion. Professor Mario J. Valdes of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese was named the Professor of Ibero-American Studies (now emeritus) and, with a small fund provided for the purpose, he organised a number of conferences and exhibitions. Moreover, and auguring well for a better future, Valdes was multiply connective. One example was his co-direction, with Molson Prize-winning University Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and English Linda Hutcheon, of a massive research project on Latin America and Europe, resulting in major Canada Council funding, and many publications, including their Rethinking Literary History: A Dialogue, and a three-volume monument, Literary Cultures of Latin America: A Comparative History. But, apart from the appointment of Professor Valdes, precious little was accomplished as a result of the Northern Telecom donation, in spite of the University and Arts & Science having made Latin American studies initiatives a faculty priority. I do not mean to discount some hopeful signs over the years, and especially not the fact that the University of Toronto Libraries have been well served by a gifted bibliographer and collection development, building a first class collection in areas such as Brazil and Mexico in particular. Limited funds were provided to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for administrative assistance. The internship programme was never established and no concrete plans were ever developed to make best use of the remaining funds (some $600,000) to develop the programme the University deserved and had agreed to carry forward following its great opportunity.
The IAS programme was, from 2001 to 2005, housed in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and was ostensibly directed by this unit's chair, then Professor Stephen Rupp. This arrangement was detrimental to the growth of a Latin American studies initiative, for that Chair was, very understandably, busy with the Department he helped to thrive. Beyond the one team-taught course mounted by committed faculty, IAS was, by all accounts, moribund at the beginning of this century. Initiatives by Latin Americanists at the time --such as the Brazil seminar-- were mostly independent. With the considerable assistance and advice of Professor Rupp and of then-Dean Pekka Sinervo, the Latin American Studies programme was founded in 2005. Our shared motivation was to move IAS out of one department, and to create something new, vibrant and truly multi-disciplinary. Latin American Studies was born, housed in the Munk Centre, and I was the first director. The some $600,000 remaining endowment money was earmarked for Latin American Studies initiatives, and its annual payout of c. $21,000 to c. $25,000, would help Arts & Science in support until such time as LAS could find its feet and further support. The help which the programme enjoyed from Director Janice Stein and from the Centre for the Study of the United States (with whom LAS shared an administrator) was vital. People of all kinds bought into what we could do together.
The programme took flight and began to thrive, to attract students from all walks of university life into a Major and then, more recently, a Minor programme, inaugurated by Professor Sarabia. LAS has annually offered three courses of its own (a gateway Y course, which introduces students to the history, civilisation and culture of this deiverse region; and two H seminars, one in the humanities and once in the social sciences), and often collaborated with other units to co-support other multidisciplinary courses. Its foundational instructor has been Professor Victor Rivas, an inspiration to students and faculty colleagues from the beginning. From that day one, LAS has knitted its pedagogical mission to its intellectual programming and research agendas. It has gathered Latin Americanist faculty and students from three campuses. It has annually offered a series of lectures, colloquia, symposia, workshops, film screenings, and other events that create intellectual community around learning about this diverse region in the hemisphere Canada shares. It inaugurated an Undergraduate Student Research Award. LAS has drawn on the tremendous resources of the U of T, its libraries, and its vibrant student and faculty with the university and city. Since 2005, LAS has added in no small way to both the Munk Centre's and the Faculty's and University's international profile.
With the vision and support of a next Director for a proper, five-year term, there is every sign the LAS would move from strength to strength.
As we all engage with the broad recommendations within the Academic Plan in the Faculty of Arts and Science, it has apparently been too easy to forget about LAS. Where is the communication, and effort at consultation between generous colleagues?
Latin Americanists feel that a Director is needed for a multi-disciplinary teaching and research unit that does the University proud for very little investment. That, in a nutshell, is why our colleagues in Spanish and Portuguese have repeatedly and respectfully declined your approaches in the wake of the SPC's recommendation. We have explained - and I have detailed above once again just why - that it is all of our interests to recognise the recommendation to house the programme in Spanish and Portuguese (or any one department) as ill-advised, and, as I hope you can seem an odd return to something (IAS) that decisively did not work in the past. More to the point, the proposed move would effectively suffocate this successful multi-disciplinary programme. One of LAS's many strengths, as intimated above in my brief explanation of its principles and accomplishments, is precisely the scholarly and pedagogical range it gathers, and the rich diversity of the students and faculty it attracts from across numerous departments and disciplines. Weeks before the planning recommendations were unveiled, you were completing a negotiation with Professor Valentina Napolitano, who came to you well recommended, and with vision, energy and new ideas -- including about fundraising in the community -- which would take Latin American Studies to new levels. She would become the first Director from the Social Sciences, offering new synergy with Political Science and the emerging Munk School, for instance, and a hugely important development on our campuses. Her respectful requests of you (principally, that the Directorship be a normal term of office, not another interimship) appear to me to have been administratively rational, and just what the health of the great new programme requires. It is, in short, with a plea for a return to such administrative rationality that I write this letter.
Let's look for some of the 'alternative solutions' to which Dean Gertler referred in his welcome memo last Friday afternoon (10 September 2010). It is, frankly, exhausting and deeply dispiriting to have to make these and related arguments over and over again. As you already know, I would be glad to provide any additional information you might want. I hope that, together with the Dean and many others, we might now find a way to ensure for Latin American Studies a continued life, not to mention even greater success, at the UofT. Students ought to be our primary concern, followed by staff and faculty, and a collective enhancement of our mission to reach outwards and to lead with diverse and mind-stretching things. Early next month, the largest single gathering of Latin Americanists in the world -- the Latin American Studies Association -- meets in Toronto; from January to March in 2013, UTAC will host a spectacular international exhibition of Peruvian silverwork; and there could be much in between! But will we be able to inspire any one from our local community to take part in the learning? The question right now is far more basic: whither LAS at all?
Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Mills
Professor and Chair
Department of History
cc. President David Naylor; Provost Cheryl Misak; Dean Meric Gertler
~~~~~~~~~
Kenneth Mills
Professor & Chair
Department of History
University of Toronto
100 St. George Street, Rm. 2074
Toronto, ON. M5S 3G3
Canada
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