Events
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Mission and Objectives

To enhance the academic relationship and understanding between UTD students and faculty with their Mexican counterparts, using an interdisciplinary approach to focus on international education, research, and public service programs to support the University's mission in producing engaged graduates who are prepared for life and leadership in a constantly changing world.

Objectives of the Center

• To provide curricula and exchange of faculty and students with Mexican universities to examine the areas of science, technology, management, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
  
  As of Summer 2008, the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies has led the collaboration and dialogue between UTD and more than 20 institutions related to higher education on both sides of the border, including the University of Guanajuato, Tech of Monterrey (ITESM), the Mexican Research Center of Mathematics (CIMAT), Mexican Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT), the Organization of American States (OAS), Center for Applied Innovation in Competitive Technologies (CIATEC), Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP), Institute for Scientific and Technological Research in San Luis Potosi (IPICYT), Autonomous University of Yucatan, Center of Research and Advanced Studies, Campus Queretaro (CINVESTAV), Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), National Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), University of Sonora (UNISON), and the Technological Institute of Saltillo (ITS).
  
  UTD professors and researchers have actively developed and supported the Center's academic agenda. They provide the experience, ideas, and energy needed to ensure that the Center's seminars, conferences, lecture series, and publications are of the highest quality. They often lecture to students and public officials in Mexico, and provide training from a leadership perspective. During the academic years 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08 Steve Goodman, Larry D. Terry, Alain Bensoussan, Wolfgang Rindler, Juan Gonzalez, Anvar Zakhidov, Mihai Nadin, Alan MacDiarmid, Thomas Linehan, Jennifer Holmes, Douglas Watson, Anvar Zakhidov, Pablo Trinidad, Jeffrey Senita, Brian J. L. Berry and Robert Nelsen, among others, lectured in Mexico. During the academic year 2008-2009, Susan Briante and Rodolfo Hernandez are scheduled to lecture in Mexico.
  
  The Center also leads programs to facilitate student international mobility such as the UTD-CONACYT Scholarship, the UTD-OAS Scholarship, the Pilot Program for Enrolling Mexican Students, the UTD-Guanajuato Spanish Program, the McDermott - Mexico Program, and the UTD-Mexico Research Summer Program. In addition, the Center has collaborated with the Fulbright and Brockmann foundations to enhance the participation of Mexican scholars in UTD graduate programs.
  

• Supervising and executing an interdisciplinary program on issues of interest to both Mexico and the U.S., such as the implementation of NAFTA and its political and economic implications, issues in science and technology, transborder population and cultural development at UTD.

Several courses related to the analysis of Mexico have been offered to UTD students such as Introduction to Contemporary Mexican Politics, Politics and Culture of Contemporary Mexico, Mexican Economic History, Mexican Literature. During the academic year 2008-09 the courses of Modern History of Mexico, Mexican Cultural History, and Politics and Culture of Contemporary Mexico will be offered.

In addition to the regular courses, the Center leads the U.S.-Mexico Lecture Series, bringing high profile scholars, journalists, and politicians focused on the analysis of U.S. - Mexico affairs and/or the Mexican reality. Since the Center's inception Vicente Fox, Carlos Fuentes, Andres Oppenheimer, Elena Poniatowska, Tony Garza, Mario Melgar, Mónica Verea, Peter Ward, David Beall, Victoria Rodríguez, Ana María Salazar, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Arexi Urrutia, Mario M. Alvarez, Jacqueline Peschard, Jose Carlos Gomez, Juan Guillermo Figueroa Perea, Jesus Silva Herzog, Brian J.L. Berry, Ana Cervantes, Edward Ashbee, Ma. Elena Labastida, Robert Nelsen, and Rita Lepe, among others, have participated. For the 2008-09 academic year, Ruben Alonso Lopez Nieto, Jorge Volpi Escalante, Rodolfo Hernandez-Guerrero, Enrique Hubbard Urrea, Susan Briante, and Coral Bracho have confirmed their participation. For more information about the U.S.-Mexico Lecture Series 2008-2009, please visit its electronic site at http://www.utdallas.edu/research/cusms/ls.htm.
                                                                                

• To facilitate UTD academic leadership in the U.S. and Mexico and to prepare individuals for leadership on critical political, scientific, technological, and cultural issues of concern to both countries.         
                                                         
  The Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies collaborates with associations and institutions to provide academic leadership in Mexico and the United States. In the past, the Center has developed joint programs with the Mexican Association for International Education (AMPEI), the National Aeronautics and the Space Administration (NASA), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, among others.

Two bi-national workshops in nano technology and biomathematics were organized by UTD and its Mexican counterparts during the academic year 2004-2005. The first workshop, NanoScience for Advanced Applications: on Crossroads of Discipline, had such relevance for its content and commitment of international participants, including 2000 Chemistry Nobel Prize Laureate Alan MacDiarmid.

During the academic year 2005-2006 it is highlighted the symposium to commemorate the profound impact of Shiing-Shen Chern on the world of mathematics, especially on the Latin American mathematics, in November 2005 and co-sponsored by UTD, CIMAT, and the Clay Mathematics Institute. In addition the course of Art and Technology was taught by Thomas Linehan and Pablo Trinidad at CIMAT in the Summer 2005. For the academic year 2006-2007, UTD and the Institute of Physics of the University of Guanajuato will host the second bi-national workshop on NanoScience for Advanced Applications in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, in September 2006. In addition UTD and the CIMAT offered the Workshop on Computer Animation and Motion Capture in Guanajuato in June - July 2007.

During the academic year 2007-08, the Center led the opening ceremony of the annual conference of the Mexican Association for International Education (AMPEI) in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico, with the participation of Prof. Brian J.L. Berry, who lectured on Globalization, Geography, and Comparative Advantage: New Opportunities for International Education. In addition, the Center offered the workshop on International Education Leadership: The Mexican Leader as an Intercultural Manager during this conference with the participation of Darla Deardorff from the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), Carlos García de Alba from the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Donna Roginski from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, and Luis Guillermo Morones from the Mexican Association of Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (ANUIES). In the month of May 2008, the Center organized with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico the session Effective and Creative Leadership for U.S. – Mexico Higher Education with the participation of José Carlos Gómez from the Mexican Research Center for Mathematics (CIMAT), Sylvia Ortega Salazar from the Mexican Pedagogic University (UPN), Stephen C. Dunnett from the State University of New York – Buffalo (UB), and Rally Crimmins Villela from State University of New York (SUNY) during the annual conference of the Association of International Educators (NAFSA).