Federal Government Funds Several UF International Programs

June 24, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The U.S. Department of Education has announced that the University of Florida has won a number of grants to create a transnational and global studies program and a European studies program, as well as to continue support for existing programs in Latin American and African studies.

Under the Department of Education, or DOE, grants, $230,000 will be available during the first year of a three-year period that will allow UF to establish a National Resource Center, or NRC, for Transnational and Global Studies. The money will be used to support new course offerings and research on problems dealing with hunger, human rights, technology, communications, terrorism, identity and diasporas that affect people around the world. The funds also will be used to support work at Florida International University and, to a lesser extent, at the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida and Florida A & M University.

The new program, to be housed at the UF International Center and overseen by Dean Dennis Jett, is part of UF’s continuing effort to internationalize the campus and curriculum.

“The Transnational and Global Studies Center, together with the other DOE-supported centers for Europe, Latin America, Africa and international business will enable us to give the internationalization of UF a tremendous boost across the entire campus and throughout the UF community,” Jett said.

University officials consider the internationalization effort so important that it is one of the top priorities in President Charles Young’s strategic plan, which will guide growth and development of UF for years to come.

In addition to funding the new transnational and global studies program, the DOE also awarded funding for a new Center for European Studies. The center will support research, teaching and outreach in European Studies, building on existing strengths at UF, especially in languages and training in areas such as the European Union, Greece, France and Germany and Jewish studies. Amie Kreppel, an assistant professor of political science at UF, is the director of the new center as well as the director of the European Union Studies Program. The center, which will receive about $235,000 the first year of the award, will be housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Two existing UF National Resource Centers received renewed funding from the department. The Center for Latin American Studies, which has been an NRC since the 1960s, received two grants totaling $1.4 million, a significant increase from the prior three-year cycle. To be shared with UF consortium partner, the Latin American and Caribbean Center at FIU, the grant will be used for curriculum and faculty development, outreach and graduate student fellowships. The center will receive $468,000 for 2003-04.

UF’s Center for African Studies was awarded $459,000 for the first year of the three-year grant. The center, which has received DOE funding for more than two decades, will be used to support African language instruction, faculty hiring, research and outreach programs to secondary-school teachers as well as the center’s annual Carter Lecture Series.

The DOE also renewed funding last fall for the Center for International Business Education and Research for three years. This brings to five the number of NRCs on campus, placing UF among the best-supported Association of American Universities institutions in this indicator of the strength and depth of international programs at major research universities.