CIEE Study Center at Universidad de Guanajuato in Guanajuato, Mexico: Liberal Arts

  Mexico

• Central Highlands: 
Guanajuato

Term: Fall, Spring 
Dates: Fall 16 weeks: late August-mid-December; Spring 17 weeks: early February-late May

Description: The Liberal Arts program is designed to provide students with an intellectually rigorous experience that directly links intense language study to a critical curriculum related to creative and intellectual expression, and to a deeper core concern with issues related to writing about culture, language, and identity.

Academic Program
This program is a writing- and reading-intensive program, designed for majors and/or serious Spanish language/Latin American culture students with a minimum of four semesters of Spanish. The Liberal Arts program asks students to consider issues such as: How are language, culture, and identity related? What role does cultural expression play in Mexico, historically and currently? Are we the same people when we speak, write, and live in another language? You will be asked to examine these themes from personal, intellectual, political, and ethical angles, reflecting on Mexico's finest intellectual and artistic work and on your own writings and thought processes as well. It is assumed that students will have a strong intellectual interest in both Mexico and the key themes that underwrite the program.

Academic Culture
The program's academic culture is defined by its affiliation with the prestigious University of Guanajuato and by the program's own commitment to providing an intellectually and personally stimulating experience abroad. While professors are open and approachable, they expect a high degree of personal engagement and responsibility from students. Although CIEE students do not enroll directly in courses at the University of Guanajuato, all CIEE courses are held on campus and taught by local faculty and CIEE staff.

The CIEE Study Center in Guanajuato firmly believes that learning occurs not only in class, but also through the careful and critical connecting of lived experiences to formal learning. Visits to local museums and galleries, participation in artistic events and traditional celebrations, and discussions with local experts in diverse fields greatly enhance classroom learning. Homestays with Mexican families - a highlight of the program - also provide a particularly intense and rewarding site in which to continue both language and culture learning. In sum, all activities on the program bring deeper meaning to the reading and discussing done in class, and the formal knowledge built through coursework enriches students' everyday lives on the program.

The Spanish language courses meet every day for an hour each. Complementing the classroom language instruction is the University's unique self-access center, which includes conversation rooms for interacting with native speakers, audio materials, computers with language specific web references and software, a fine collection of Mexican films, and a library. Relations with professors are respectful but casual. Professors occasionally lecture, but prefer open discussions where students voice opinions and ask questions.

Highlights:

• Learn about 20th century Mexico from multiple perspectives including history, literature, and Spanish language in context
  
• Refine your Spanish skills through intensive language courses
  
• Complete a field-based independent research project focusing on issues unique to the local community
  
• Place Guanajuato into comparative perspective with cultural activities, study trips, and a rural service option

In the spring, festivities include Día de la Candelaria, San Valentín (Feb. 14), Día de las Flores, and Easter Week, during which time students participate in many local traditions within the community.

In between the many holidays, CIEE students attend local museum and gallery exhibitions, explore nearby small towns, and frequently take part in family occasions such as weddings, fifteenth-birthday celebrations, and baptisms.

Each semester also includes two weekend study trips to sites of historical and cultural interest. Designed to complement the coursework, show students a different version of daily Mexican life, and put Guanajuato into comparative perspective, these excursions take students to such places as colonial Zacatecas and Mexico City. Lectures or coursework related to the trip are also included to help students maximize their time at other sites.

Visual Arts Course
CIEE offers two 6-week long modules focusing on the visual arts of Mexico. This optional, non-credit, no-homework option provides serious students with a deeper look at topics such as Mexican cinema and Mexican art history, among others.

Immersion
Community Service
Students are invited to participate in the programs ongoing service efforts in a nearby rural community. The current project provides art workshops which, while creative in nature, are designed to reinforce community and personal empowerment, environmental consciousness, and Mexican traditions.

In the spring semester, students run a weeklong workshop during the second week of Easter holiday break, traveling to the community daily.

In the fall semester there is no long break, however opportunities to conduct day-long workshops are coordinated between interested students, staff, and the local school.

The community service project allows students to immerse themselves briefly into rural Mexican life and to gain an experience that is quite different from their daily lives in the city of Guanajuato. Some students also pursue service in town as part of their independent research project for the core course.

Cost in US$: See below for CIEE Fees

The CIEE fees for 2007-08 include tuition, optional on-site airport meet and greet, housing, all meals, full-time leadership and support, orientation, cultural activities (such as a city tour, visits to local museums, mines, and other sites), local excursions (to nearby towns such as San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo), field trips (at least two overnight weekend trips a semester to places such as Michocan or Zacatecas), access to the universitys unique self-access language learning center, comprehensive student handbook, pre-departure advising, and a CIEE iNext travel card which provides insurance and other travel benefits.

Experience Required: yes