History

Established in 1968 to coordinate research and teaching on Latin America, the University of Chicago Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) has evolved into a locus for intellectual exchange and innovation in Latin American studies.

1968

Provost Edward H. Levi approves the formation of the Committee on Latin American Studies, a non-degree-granting office intended to support faculty and graduate student research.

1976

The Committee consolidates into the Center for Latin American Studies.

The US Department of Education awards the Center, in consortium with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Title VI National Resource Center grant and Foreign Language & Area Studies fellowships. The National Resource Center grant and Foreign Language & Area Studies fellowships provide support for faculty and graduate student research in Latin American area and language studies, and for public education programs and professional development workshops for Chicago-area educators. These grants are sustained for more than 45 years.

1978

An interdivisional Master of Arts in Latin American & Caribbean Studies, administered by CLAS, is established.

1981

The Tinker Foundation establishes a Tinker Visiting Professor endowment to support teaching and research residencies at the University of Chicago for distinguished Latin American scholars, journalists, and practitioners. UChicago is one of only five universities to receive a Tinker Visiting Professor endowment. Since then, UChicago faculty and students have benefited from the yearly presence of scholars brought to campus through the Tinker program.

1983

The Tinker Foundation awards CLAS a three-year grant to support graduate students’ pre-dissertation exploratory field research. These grants have contributed to the success enjoyed by UChicago doctoral students who later obtained field research support from Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, among others. CLAS continues to award Tinker Field Research Grants to this day.

1989

The Hewlett Foundation awards CLAS a one-year planning grant to prepare a proposal for the establishment of a Mexican Studies Program.

1991

The Mexican Studies Program, an autonomous unit of CLAS, is established to provide office space, logistical support, and other services to the study of Mexico.

The MacArthur Foundation awards CLAS a grant to support the Cuba Scholarly Exchange program which, until 1999, sponsored 71 participants from Cuban universities and cultural institutions to spend research residencies as Visiting Scholars at UChicago and UChicago scholars to spend residencies in Cuba. The Cuba Scholarly Exchange program helped establish a tradition of interdisciplinary research into Cuban studies.

The Mellon Foundation establishes the Ignacio Martín-Baró endowment in honor of a slain colleague and distinguished member of the University of Chicago community.

1998

The Rio Branco Institute of Brazil establishes the Rio Branco Chair of Brazilian Studies at CLAS. This provides resources for one Brazilian social scientist to spend one quarter teaching and conducting research at the University of Chicago each year. The program continues through 2003.

2005

The Katz Center for Mexican Studies is established upon the retirement of Friedrich Katz, the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Latin American History. Contemporarily, Friedrich Katz was among the most eminent historians of modern Mexico working in the United States. By establishing the Katz Center for Mexican Studies, the University recognized the work of this important scholar and the lengthy tradition of research and education on Mexico at this institution.

2007

The US Department of Education awards CLAS a Title VI International Research and Studies Materials Development grant to develop updated versions of 1960s UChicago Modern Spoken Yucatec Maya and K’iche’ Maya teaching texts. This grant continues until 2010. For more than 75 years, UChicago linguistic anthropologists have led the study of Latin American indigenous languages, particularly those of Mesoamerica.

2010

The National Science Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities awards CLAS a two-year grant under the Documenting Endangered Languages program. The resulting project digitized and cataloged a unique collection of early-to-mid-twentieth century ethnographic and linguistic manuscripts produced by UChicago scholars working on indigenous Mesoamerican languages and cultures.

2012

Funding from the Tinker Foundation allows CLAS to establish the Tinker Field Research Grant endowment, providing a permanent source of support for graduate students’ pre-dissertation exploratory field research.

2017

With funding from the Mellon Foundation, CLAS awards the first CLAS Mellon Dissertation Research Travel Fellowship. This fellowship supports dissertation research and fieldwork in Latin America by outstanding doctoral students in the social sciences.

2020

CLAS launches a formal graduate certificate in Latin American and Caribbean studies, which provides graduate students in any MA or doctoral program at the University with transcript documentation of interdisciplinary study.