LACA Concentration Initiates Collaboration with the Engaged Scholarship Program

March 21, 2018

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) has recently announced the collaboration between the Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACA) concentration and the Engaged Scholarship Program (ESP) run by the Swearer Center at Brown University. As part of the program, Engaged Scholars combine hands-on experiences such as internships, public service, humanitarian, and development work with their academic learning to gain a richer understanding of their communities. This collaboration will allow students in the LACA concentration to delve deeper into the realities of Latin American, Caribbean, and diaspora communities, especially those in Providence. For more information on the program, click here.

Although the LACA concentration has long included an engaged element by requiring an internship or service project, ESP amplifies and broadens the depth and impact of students' engagement. The ESP-approved courses span across LACA and partner departments, encompassing a variety of points of view and social frameworks. Engaged courses that contribute to the LACA concentration are hosted in departments such as American Studies, Hispanic Studies, Public Policy, History, and Anthropology. ESP approved courses can be found here. 

In addition to these courses, with funding from Swearer, CLACS has supported Nidia Schumacher’s (Hispanic Studies) and Scott AnderBois’s (Linguistics) ESP course proposals. Schumacher’s course, HISP 700: Introduction to Professional Translation and Interpretation, takes a functionalist approach to professional translation and interpretation in Spanish/English by working with Spanish-speaking clinics and community organizations in Providence. AnderBois’s course, CLPS 1390: Linguistic Field Methods, is a practicum course in which students work with a native speaker of a language they do not know to learn how to elicit linguistic data from that language. Both courses offer an opportunity for LACA concentrators to become more engaged with our diverse communities, combining intellectual work with service learning.