Three area councils of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies (YCIAS) have been awarded funding in a national competition held every three years through the U.S. Department of Education.
As comprehensive national resource centers offering foreign language and area studies fellowships, these councils have been awarded Title VI Federal Funds for the coming three years. Amounts awarded for the 1997-98 academic year are $253,000 for the African Studies Council; $260,000 for the International Affairs Council; and $95,000 for the Latin American Studies Council. The latter council received the grant for its role in a consortium of four New England universities.
All three councils were praised by the federal department for their success in strengthening curricula, providing graduate student fellowship support and offering K-12 teacher training through regional outreach programs.
The Council on African Studies will use its funding to enhance the African studies curriculum and master's program; expand African language offerings; strengthen outreach efforts; and to develop new programming and improved administrative services.
Yale was one of the first universities in the U.S. to incorporate African studies into its mainstream curriculum prior to World War II. The Council on African Studies has developed one of the world's leading libraries in the field, as well as internationally renowned faculty research and teacher training programs. The council plans to cooperate with other Africa National Resource Centers and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) programs in a joint summer language institute and study-abroad programs, as well as a cooperative library acquisition project.
The African Studies Council has also received a grant from the Department of Education for its Internet Living Swahili Dictionary Project, an effort to compile and disseminate a series of updated dictionaries, specialized vocabularies, bibliographical resources and learning tools using the Internet.
The International Affairs Council (IAC), which administers the international studies undergraduate major and the international relations (IR) master's program, will use its funding to establish new courses and technologies to support teaching, research, administration and outreach. Courses shared by Yale's professional schools and the IR program will be expanded and the international studies undergraduate major will be consolidated. The council will establish a nondegree certificate for graduate students in other programs who develop expertise in international and/or area studies and create innovative language instruction programs.
Resources from the IAC's funding will also support the council's research and doctoral training initiatives on the United Nations, global environment and public health, political economy and emerging markets. The monies will also be used to expand Yale's contribution to international education and teacher training beyond the campus.
The Council on Latin American Studies participated in the competition as a member of the Latin American Studies Consortium of New England, which also includes Brown University and the Universities of Connecticut and Massachusetts. This consortium unites the faculties and resources in Latin American and Caribbean studies at the four institutions in a public/private enterprise dedicated to providing high-quality education to students and educators throughout the nation, as well as to the general public.
To strengthen their individual programs, the four consortium members have combined their data and library resources for the study of Latin America; integrated their faculty through inter-university exchanges, jointly organized conferences and shared speakers series; and collaborated on outreach programs to businesses, the media and the public, and teacher training support to educators at all levels from kindergarten to post-secondary school.