Universidad de San Martin de Porres becomes partner for student exchange

Nicole Montero / Staff Writer

President Mark B. Rosenberg met with Alan Garcia, Peru’s former president, and Jose Antonio Chang Escobedo, the president of the Universidad de San Martin de Porres, to sign an agreement creating research and student exchange programs between FIU and USMP.

Following Garcia’s Feb. 3 lecture about politics and social issues, Rosenberg and Escobedo signed a “memorandum of understanding,” hoping to open doors to cross-faculty projects and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Garcia runs a leadership institute located at the San Martín de Porres university in Lima and the agreement was between the rector of the university and Rosenberg.

“FIU has many institutional agreements, but that doesn’t mean that they are active. We intend for this one to be an active exchange,” Bianca Premo, director of Andean Studies at the Latin American and Caribbean Center and graduate director of history. “Right now, we’re looking around to see which faculty and which students are interested in making this agreement mean something.”

According to Premo, Escobedo mentioned that from the USMP’s perspective, he is interested in the professional schools — law, business and hospitality and management.

Premo said information will be made available to students when there are opportunities to start applying for the program

The universities are already planning an exchange that involves FIU’s College of Law.

“We have a really terrific person in the law school, Manuel Gomez—who is a legal scholar of Venezuela—and he’s already been working with a point person to start a program that involves a student exchange,” Premo said.

USMP has an active tourism program, where they offer bachelor’s and master’s degrees in various kinds of hotel management and tourism. Premo has already put the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in contact with USMP.

“It turns out that the hospitality and management school has a faculty member, Nancy Del Risco, that is Peruvian and already knew about this specific university, so they’re hoping that they will add the university to one of their sites when they do their annual tours,” Premo said. “I was excited about it because the Peruvian university runs a tourism agency out of their school and it would be very interesting for some of our students to see that.”

However, both universities are only exploring the professional majors.

The idea is that Peru sends students to study at FIU, and vice versa, so they can be exposed to different traditions and learning processes.

“FIU is unique in that we have so many people who specialize in Latin America and one of the interesting things about our law school is that many of our faculty are versed in the two main western traditions of law: common and civil,” Premo said. “This is an amazing opportunity for exchange students.”

[pullquote]“Right now, we’re looking around to see which faculty and which students are interested in making this agreement mean something,”-Bianca Premo, director of Andean Studies at the Latin American and Caribbean Center[/pullquote]

Premo also says that they hope to open up a study abroad section for undergraduate students. Nevertheless, their first and easiest place to set up the institution exchange is at a more advanced level.

Michael Martinez, a junior majoring in computer science, is eager for an undergraduate program that leads him to Peru.

“I love to travel, especially to places where I’ve never been,” he said. “If the university opens up a study abroad program for me to go to Peru and be able to study computer science, I would be the happiest person because I would be getting to do the two things I love the most—studying for my career and learning a new culture.”

[pullquote] “I would be the happiest person because I would be getting to do the two things I love the most—studying for my career and learning a new culture.”-Michael Martinez, a junior majoring in computer science[/pullquote]

Currently, LACC has a certificate program and does not offer any majors. Its goal is to have majors for undergraduate students.

“I think we’re moving in that direction,” Premo said. “I don’t think that there’s any reason in the world why FIU’s Latin American center should not have the most thriving Latin American and Caribbean undergrad degree in the country.”

Student Media requested the contract between FIU and USMP from Media Relations, but it has not been provided.

-news@fiusm.com