The Center for International Studies is finalizing a new Latin American project, which will create new relationships between Saint Louis University and four Latin American Jesuit institutions.

The Universidad Iberoamericana in Puebla, Mexico, Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile, and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Ecuador in Quito are all on board for the project, as well as a university in Brazil, which has yet to be announced.

"Our center is establishing connections with those four universities, and the program implies that we are going to send American students over there and bring students from Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Brazil to Saint Louis University," said Paul Garcia, Ph.D., director of the Center for International Studies.

The program's aims, according to a proposal penned by Garcia, are to open up connections with the Latin American universities and to develop structures to facilitate cooperation between academic programs and far-reaching research projects on all campuses.

"Once you have students in both places and you exchange professors, you create the possibility of research being done by both institutions," Garcia said. "On top of that, we will have programs that may complement each other; say, for example, in Chile, they have an excellent program in Latin American studies. We don't. But we have an excellent program in American studies."

The program will create options for retired professors to teach at the sister universities, and will give them opportunities to stay active in the learning community.

"We hope that this structure is going to give us the ability to send students for that program. That will create another possibility for exchange professors in certain specific areas," Garcia said.

Garcia is planning on creating two endowments in the College of Arts and Sciences, one to provide financial assistance to Latin American students who wish to attend SLU through the program, and another endowment to pay for transportation and health insurance for voluntary faculty and staff who want to serve at one of the sister schools.

The program will begin in spring of 2006. The Center for International Studies is considering Jesuit universities in India for future expansion.

"The issue is to see education as an organism that grows on both sides, and we do it in this Jesuit spirit of fairness and justice for the one who has fewer possibilities than us," Garcia said.