Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida celebrates 75 years of Latin American Studies at UF

February 15, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida will celebrate its 75th anniversary at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, in Emerson Alumni Hall on the UF campus.

The event will honor UF’s faculty who have devoted their careers to studying Latin America as a region. The keynote lecture will be given by Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University on “The U.S. and Latin America in the Post-Cold War Era: More of the Same?” Valenzuela is former senior director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council and former deputy assistant secretary for Inter-American Affairs at the State Department.

The Center’s predecessor, the Institute for Inter-American Affairs, founded in 1930, was the first university program nationally to focus on the study of Latin America and U.S.-Latin American relations. At the Institute’s inaugural conference in February 1931 the University Quadrangle was dedicated as the Plaza of the Americas and 21 live oaks were planted, one for each of the republics of the Americas at the time.