-
$1.02M
Title VI NRC Funding at Vanderbilt
FY 2019–FY 2023 -
$1.05M
Foreign Language and Area Studies Funding
FY 2019–FY 2023
CLACX awarded $1.7M to build Latin American curriculum, enhance language training
Supported by the Department of Education’s Title VI International Education funding, Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies fosters interdisciplinary research and teaching collaborations that inform the university community and general public about critical issues related to Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. The center’s focus is on examining the borders and intersections between Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean studies. Founded in 1947 as the Institute for Brazilian Studies at Vanderbilt University, the center has received Department of Education Title VI funding for foreign language area studies training since the late 1960s. Since 2006, the center has been a Title VI National Resource Center.
CLACX was awarded two Title VI grants worth $1.7 million in 2022, designating it as a comprehensive NRC for Latin America, the highest recognition an academic center can receive. The center has a concentration of Latin Americanists, with strengths in Brazil, Central America, the Andes and Afro-Latin America. It educates students, teachers, the private sector and the general public about Latin America through various programs and events. From 2018 to 2022, CLACX hosted almost 1,000 events that informed over a million people nationwide.
Supported by the most recent grant, the researchers launched the CLACX Consortium for Latin American Studies in the South, a regional partnership, with historically Black colleges and universities and a Hispanic-serving institution, focused on curriculum building and language training related to Latin American studies. The grants are also:
- Broadening access to Afro Latin American studies through working with unique archives at Vanderbilt through classroom-focused workshops, support for scholars to visit the collections, and digitization of documents.
- Expanding training and curricular opportunities at Vanderbilt and responding to growing student and faculty interest in Caribbean studies.
- Creating new training sites in the Caribbean and Colombia for Vanderbilt Blair School of Music students and a clinical research site in Peru for students in medicine, expanding upon the center’s strong initiatives in the professional schools.
- Working with K-12 educators through a series on contemporary issues in Latin America, the development of curricular resources and educator book clubs.
CLACX works with governments
With support from Title VI funding, CLACX provides educational seminars, advice and counsel on Latin America to governments at all levels: local, state, national and international. CLACX has worked with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and Vanderbilt Law School to host workshops on international arbitration, drug trafficking and gang networks. CLACX works with LAPOP Lab, a survey research lab at Vanderbilt University, to disseminate research on democracy and trust to institutions across the Americas and to postsecondary and K-12 educators. LAPOP data is widely employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.N. Development Programme and other organizations. With education faculty, CLACX hosted the annual international conference of the Impact Evaluation Network, which is part of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association.
CLACX provides instruction in languages critical for meeting national needs
Vanderbilt is committed to supporting less commonly taught languages, especially those deemed critical to national security and economic prosperity. With Title VI NRC support, CLACX provides instruction in Portuguese, K’iche’ Mayan and Haitian Kreyòl to students at Vanderbilt University and partner universities through face-to-face and virtual classrooms.
- Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world in terms of number of native speakers, and it is the official language of Brazil, the most populous country in Latin America with over 200 million people. The U.S. Department of State considers Portuguese to be a “critical language.” Since 2018, CLACX has supported Portuguese language instruction at Tuskegee University and hosts the intensive Summer in Brazil program in São Paulo with Tulane University. In 2022, CLACX expanded the Tuskegee language partnership to include students at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.
- K’iche’ Mayan is spoken today by more than 1 million people who are native to Guatemala, and there are an increasing number of K’iche’ speakers in Tennessee. CLACX established the first program in the country teaching K’iche’ and sponsors the Mayan Language Institute, an intensive summer language program in Guatemala, in partnership with Tulane University.
- Haitian Kreyòl has been identified as an “area of national need,” and CLACX programs in Haitian studies also support an increasing number of speakers in the U.S.
CLACX partners with local businesses
CLACX has advised 600+ members of the business community in the past four years through public and private partnerships. They work with Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, World Affairs Council and Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management to share expertise on Latin American markets. CLACX also began a new partnership with Nashville Predators professional ice hockey team for educational activities during Hispanic Heritage Month and held talks for AllianceBernstein and Asurion.
CLACX collaborates with area schools
CLACX provides professional development workshops, cultural events, and international conferences to help teachers understand their diverse student population. The center coordinates with Metro Nashville Public Schools, hosts an Educator Book Club, and provides educational activities at area schools. Over the last four years, the center has hosted around 470 K-16 programs that have impacted around 500,000 educators and students.
The CLACX Consortium for Latin American Studies in the South, funded by Title VI, collaborates with several regional institutions to provide support for visiting speakers and language instruction. It supports medical Spanish and cultural content for various schools, including Vanderbilt School of Nursing and Meharry Medical College students.
CLACX educates through cultural arts programming
CLACX collaborates with local arts institutions to introduce Tennesseans to Latin American topics and traditions. They support citywide cultural events, partner with the Frist Art Museum for educational programming, and work with the Global Education Center and Blair School of Music to bring music and dance to Nashville. CLACX-supported events impact around 64,000 people each year.
CLACX works with K-16 educators
CLACX works with K-16 educators and Vanderbilt faculty to produce curriculum resources for direct use in the classroom. Title VI funding allows the K-16 resources to be openly accessible on the center’s website and available for free download.
- Since 2017, CLACX has collaborated with Readworks to produce more than 90 English- and Spanish-language articles on Latin America for their reading comprehension program. More than 231,000 teachers in 61,610 schools across the country have used these articles. In 2023, CLACX partnered with the Center for Languages to create student-produced authentic Spanish language texts for ReadWorks. Materials created by the center are accessed most frequently during Hispanic Heritage Month and Black History Month.
- CLACX operates a lending library of books with Latin American content for teachers and curates Country Boxes with items from various Latin American countries, shipping them nationwide. Over the last five years, the center's instructional resources have been used by more than 6,800 teachers and students, engaging over 500,000 students and teachers in total.
- The center partners with Tulane University and the University of Georgia to offer an annual weeklong summer institute for educators from around the country.
- CLACX supports postsecondary educators, especially at historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. Each year, they sponsor an interactive symposium with the International Studies Consortium of Georgia.
- CLACX hosts the Latin American Garden and provides tours for high school students and students participating in Vanderbilt’s School for Math and Science.
Vanderbilt Center for Languages
The Vanderbilt Center for Languages offers a welcoming and dynamic environment that brings together innovative technologies, language learning and teaching, and language communities from across Vanderbilt. The mission of the center is to promote the exchange of ideas and expertise among colleagues from all departments, programs and centers in order to foster proficiencies in world languages and develop cultural awareness among students and faculty. In support of those objectives, the center offers professional development, technology training, collaborative scholarship opportunities and language-centered events. By providing both a technological and a social environment for language learners and educators, the center encourages interdisciplinary cooperation, critical thinking, open-mindedness, and meaningful and intellectually stimulating interactions. CLACX works closely with VCL to make students aware of opportunities to study languages, including Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships, and opportunities to use foreign languages on campus and in Nashville.
For more information, please contact the Vanderbilt Office of Federal Relations:
Christina West 202-216-4370 | Heather Bloemhard 202-216-4368
federalrelations@vanderbilt.edu
FY 2023