Stone Center for Latin American Studies: Post-Katrina Information
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Faculty Professional Travel Grants
Tulane Latin Americanist faculty should click here for updated information on the Stone Center's Faculty Professional Travel Grants program for the 05-06 Academic Year.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Tulane University Webmail Now Operational
Please be advised that all Tulane University faculty, staff, and students assigned a technology account are now able to use their Tulane email accounts via Tulane Webmail.
You should use your same email account login and password information that you were using before the Hurricane struck.
You should use your same email account login and password information that you were using before the Hurricane struck.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Stone Center Constituency Websites
In order to address the specific needs and concerns of each of our constituencies and program units in a more organized and efficient manner, we have set up a series of separate "post-Katrina" information websites:
Each of the other sites will contain links and information that pertain specifically to the appropriate constituency.
Please continue to check the main Stone Center site regularly; but be sure now to also check out any of the other sites that are relevant to your particular relationship with the Stone Center.
MAIN STONE CENTER SITE: http://rtsclasblog.blogspot.comThe main Stone Center site will contain general University links, messages from Tom Reese, the Executive Director of the Stone Center, and informational postings of a general nature that are relevant to all of the Stone Center's various constituencies.
FACULTY AFFAIRS: http://rtsclasfaculty.blogspot.com
GRADUATE AFFAIRS: http://rtsclasgraduate.blogspot.com
UNDERGRADUATE AFFAIRS: http://rtsclasundergrad.blogspot.com
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS: http://rtsclasabroad.blogspot.com
LATIN AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER: http://www.freewebs.com/tulanelarc/
Each of the other sites will contain links and information that pertain specifically to the appropriate constituency.
Please continue to check the main Stone Center site regularly; but be sure now to also check out any of the other sites that are relevant to your particular relationship with the Stone Center.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Update from Tom Reese
Dear Friends,
The Stone Center is now reconstituted, at least virtually, through the Internet. Edie and I are in Austin, TX, Jimmy in Chesapeake, VA, Valerie in Arlington, TX, Sue in Covington, LA, Lucy in Donaldsonville, LA, Brian in Cuernavaca, MX en route to New Orleans. Ana in Kissimmee, FL, and Debbie in Ithaca, NY. I feel that Sallie Hughes (Department of Communication at the University of Miami), who completed her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at Tulane in 2001, belongs on that list too; we cannot thank her enough for to the critical role that her blog played and continues to play for our extended community.
Once our Center team was able to reestablish communications, we turned our attention immediately to the relocation of our graduate students and Rockefeller Fellows to other institutions, trying to respond to their many financial and academic needs. We now have accounted for everyone and have posted contact information for all. Six are at UT Austin, two each at Rice, Harvard, & the University of Florida, and one each at Boston, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Louisiana State, and the Universities of Arizona, California at Los Angeles, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, & Pennsylvania. We conducted a similar search to locate our Latin Americanist faculty and have now accounted for almost everyone and have posted contact information at http://rtsclasblog.blogspot.com. Jimmy Huck has also created a blog specifically for undergraduates to communicate and reestablish contacts. Undergraduates can reach this special blog from the address http://rtsclasundergrad.blogspot.com/.
In every task, records on our computers were critical. Thankfully, our local server and other computers were safely stored in Jones Hall. They contained not only our undergraduate records, but also essential records that are required for our upcoming submission to the U. S. Department of Education for funding as a National Resource Center for Latin America (a competition now held every four years) and the software and data that supports our website. We plotted a mission to rescue these computers since our arrival at our disparate sites, but it was simply too dangerous to attempt until last Tuesday. With special permission from the university, Jimmy and Sue returned to the campus under escort and brought our vital computer equipment to safe ground. Valerie shipped an external hard drive to Covington, where Sue and Jimmy will copy all essential files and FedEx the drive to Austin, where LANIC and LLILAS have generously offered to mount a temporary server and website if necessary.
Jimmy and Sue found the Stone Center offices in Jones Hall, including our newly renovated conference room, our new visiting faculty offices and workstations for TAs, and our new file room, to be just as we left them. The Norton Student Lounge (“La Cueva”) and our auxiliary file storage room in the basement of Jones Hall were flooded to the ceiling. Our newly redesigned offices for Cuban and Caribbean Studies in Caroline Richardson Hall, which include Debbie’s office, a seminar room, and offices for visiting fellows took on an inch or two of water, and we hope that they can be cleaned and occupied without major delays.
We are now focused on planning course offerings for the spring semester, which will include an almost normal spring semester followed by a compressed nine-week semester. The purpose is to meet various situations that returning undergraduates might confront. These include students who took no classes in the fall, and others who took classes at other universities, but were unable to take some of the required proficiency courses or courses for their major. In most departments, there will be special priority given to lower-division sequenced courses that are prerequisite to more advanced courses. Latin American Studies will offer in the spring semester Latin American Studies 101, 102, and 400, and then 101 and 102 in the compressed semester. We also will be vigilant in insuring that all of our majors are able to meet our requirement to enroll in three Latin American content courses at the 600-level, and that a strong selection of courses be available for our graduate students.
There is no doubt that Tulane University and the Gulf states face major challenges in the immediate future. From every disaster there emerge prospects for leadership, reflection, and productive new direction. Tulane and the Stone Center have opportunities to apply our research and experience to the creation of programs that will examine critically social, economic, political, legal, and ethical issues associated with disaster response and recovery today and throughout history. As Latin Americanists, many of us bring to the Gulf region insightful knowledge of Latin Americans’ own experiences in planning and coping after massive dislocations and suffering caused by natural and human violence. Indeed, we might productively today consider forging paths that will allow us to work in conjunction with on-going real-life efforts in the Gulf region. I sense that many of our faculty, staff, and students are tired of feeling passive, and are waiting for initiatives that let them think more positively and proactively about rebuilding our societies. We welcome all who would join us in this quest to offer their thoughts and their labor as we prepare to return to our primary avocations as educators and problem solvers.
Tom Reese
The Stone Center is now reconstituted, at least virtually, through the Internet. Edie and I are in Austin, TX, Jimmy in Chesapeake, VA, Valerie in Arlington, TX, Sue in Covington, LA, Lucy in Donaldsonville, LA, Brian in Cuernavaca, MX en route to New Orleans. Ana in Kissimmee, FL, and Debbie in Ithaca, NY. I feel that Sallie Hughes (Department of Communication at the University of Miami), who completed her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at Tulane in 2001, belongs on that list too; we cannot thank her enough for to the critical role that her blog played and continues to play for our extended community.
Once our Center team was able to reestablish communications, we turned our attention immediately to the relocation of our graduate students and Rockefeller Fellows to other institutions, trying to respond to their many financial and academic needs. We now have accounted for everyone and have posted contact information for all. Six are at UT Austin, two each at Rice, Harvard, & the University of Florida, and one each at Boston, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Louisiana State, and the Universities of Arizona, California at Los Angeles, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, & Pennsylvania. We conducted a similar search to locate our Latin Americanist faculty and have now accounted for almost everyone and have posted contact information at http://rtsclasblog.blogspot.com. Jimmy Huck has also created a blog specifically for undergraduates to communicate and reestablish contacts. Undergraduates can reach this special blog from the address http://rtsclasundergrad.blogspot.com/.
In every task, records on our computers were critical. Thankfully, our local server and other computers were safely stored in Jones Hall. They contained not only our undergraduate records, but also essential records that are required for our upcoming submission to the U. S. Department of Education for funding as a National Resource Center for Latin America (a competition now held every four years) and the software and data that supports our website. We plotted a mission to rescue these computers since our arrival at our disparate sites, but it was simply too dangerous to attempt until last Tuesday. With special permission from the university, Jimmy and Sue returned to the campus under escort and brought our vital computer equipment to safe ground. Valerie shipped an external hard drive to Covington, where Sue and Jimmy will copy all essential files and FedEx the drive to Austin, where LANIC and LLILAS have generously offered to mount a temporary server and website if necessary.
Jimmy and Sue found the Stone Center offices in Jones Hall, including our newly renovated conference room, our new visiting faculty offices and workstations for TAs, and our new file room, to be just as we left them. The Norton Student Lounge (“La Cueva”) and our auxiliary file storage room in the basement of Jones Hall were flooded to the ceiling. Our newly redesigned offices for Cuban and Caribbean Studies in Caroline Richardson Hall, which include Debbie’s office, a seminar room, and offices for visiting fellows took on an inch or two of water, and we hope that they can be cleaned and occupied without major delays.
We are now focused on planning course offerings for the spring semester, which will include an almost normal spring semester followed by a compressed nine-week semester. The purpose is to meet various situations that returning undergraduates might confront. These include students who took no classes in the fall, and others who took classes at other universities, but were unable to take some of the required proficiency courses or courses for their major. In most departments, there will be special priority given to lower-division sequenced courses that are prerequisite to more advanced courses. Latin American Studies will offer in the spring semester Latin American Studies 101, 102, and 400, and then 101 and 102 in the compressed semester. We also will be vigilant in insuring that all of our majors are able to meet our requirement to enroll in three Latin American content courses at the 600-level, and that a strong selection of courses be available for our graduate students.
There is no doubt that Tulane University and the Gulf states face major challenges in the immediate future. From every disaster there emerge prospects for leadership, reflection, and productive new direction. Tulane and the Stone Center have opportunities to apply our research and experience to the creation of programs that will examine critically social, economic, political, legal, and ethical issues associated with disaster response and recovery today and throughout history. As Latin Americanists, many of us bring to the Gulf region insightful knowledge of Latin Americans’ own experiences in planning and coping after massive dislocations and suffering caused by natural and human violence. Indeed, we might productively today consider forging paths that will allow us to work in conjunction with on-going real-life efforts in the Gulf region. I sense that many of our faculty, staff, and students are tired of feeling passive, and are waiting for initiatives that let them think more positively and proactively about rebuilding our societies. We welcome all who would join us in this quest to offer their thoughts and their labor as we prepare to return to our primary avocations as educators and problem solvers.
Tom Reese
Thursday, September 22, 2005
RTSCLAS Undergraduate Affairs Blog
Dear Latin American Studies Undergraduate Majors/Minors/Prospectives:
We have established a parallel blogsite to deal exclusively with Undergraduate Affairs for Latin American Studies. Please visit this blog regularly for updates and information. And don't hesitate to email me (rtsclasblog@hotmail.com or Dr. Edith Wolfe (edithwolfe@hotmail.com) if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions for this blog.
We have established a parallel blogsite to deal exclusively with Undergraduate Affairs for Latin American Studies. Please visit this blog regularly for updates and information. And don't hesitate to email me (rtsclasblog@hotmail.com or Dr. Edith Wolfe (edithwolfe@hotmail.com) if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions for this blog.
Updated Faculty Listing
Please note that the faculty contact list in the left side-bar column of this blog has been updated. Now, if you click on a faculty name, you will be redirected to a web page that will contain, in addition to email addresses, more detailed information (if we have it) for affiliated faculty members according to their home departments.
If you see a name that is missing on the list or if you would like to have information added or deleted from your own particular entry, please email Jimmy Huck with the particulars.
I am also in the process of setting up links to particular department websites. Please send me whatever departmental website information you might know of so that I can get the links posted prominently on our site. Thanks and keep checking back with the blog for updates coming out of the Stone Center.
In addition to working on our Title VI proposal, we are also evaluating our regular programs such as our Faculty Professional Travel Grants Programs to see what we can do to continue to support faculty and graduate student professional development during this semester. Stay tuned.
If you see a name that is missing on the list or if you would like to have information added or deleted from your own particular entry, please email Jimmy Huck with the particulars.
I am also in the process of setting up links to particular department websites. Please send me whatever departmental website information you might know of so that I can get the links posted prominently on our site. Thanks and keep checking back with the blog for updates coming out of the Stone Center.
In addition to working on our Title VI proposal, we are also evaluating our regular programs such as our Faculty Professional Travel Grants Programs to see what we can do to continue to support faculty and graduate student professional development during this semester. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Offer from Trevor Top
I received this email from Trevor Top:
Hello all at the Stone Center, obviously it has been very difficult to communicate and I'm glad to see all the department blogs pop up. As you may know I am a former MA at the Stone Center and now am at the Anthropology Department. I would like to extend the offer of assistance I have made to them as I am a member of the LA Air National Guard and have full access to the city. I am willing to check on houses, take pictures and e-mail them to you, empty refrigerators (although the time threshold is passing for them to be salvaged), assist in entrance to the city, and even repair roofs if necessary. An e-mail to trevtop@yahoo.com would be best but you could also call me at (504) 813-7138 if necessary. As you may all well know, Uptown did very well during and the after the storm, there are several trees down, many roofs have lost shingles, slate and felt, but there has been little or no residential looting. Unfortunately in the overzealous attempt to control the chaos, there are several vulnerable houses uptown that need immediate attention before a major rain storm enters the area. We've been lucky up to now, but if you have valuable books, they may be in danger. I'll be happy to do what I can. Best wishes to all and I hope to see you at the revitalized uptown campus in January, if not sooner. Power will likely be restored uptown before long and it is more liveable than you might think. Metairie, Harahan, Jefferson and Kenner are definitely back up and running.
Best regards,
Trevor Top
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Student Health Insurance Update
This is from Tulane's website, for those who haven't seen it yet:
Due to hurricane Katrina, Tulane University will not conduct classes for the Fall 2005 semester. We want to make sure those registered Tulane students who need insurance have access to the Tulane sponsored student health insurance plan and their benefits immediately.We will keep you posted as we get new info. Stay tuned to the RTSCLAS blog.
Please follow the necessary steps to ensure your enrollment in the plan:If you will be attending a “host” school for the Fall Semester or postponing your studies until the Spring Semester and wish to enroll in the Tulane plan, please go to http://www.chickering.com for information regarding the plan and enrollment instructions or call 877-375-7909. The new enrollment deadline is October 1, 2005.We encourage Tulane students to make an informed decision. Details of the plan are available at http://www.chickering.com. We appreciate your patience as we work through these difficult times.
If you will be attending a “host” school for the Fall Semester or postponing your studies until the Spring Semester and do not wish to enroll in the Tulane plan, no action is required.
Note to LAST Undergraduate Majors/Minors
Dear Latin American Studies Undergrad Majors/Minors - Please know that we are working very hard to try to bring some information to you about your programs and to create a forum where you can go to have your specific questions answered.
As you know, we were right in the middle of a transition with regard to the Undergraduate Advisor, and the hurricane completely disrupted that transition. I am currently working on a special blog link just for undergraduate issues; and we are working on a FAQ document which we hope to post on this blog within the next few days.
Please keep following this blog and touch base with us as needed. Also, please feel free to send your specific questions to Dr. Edith Wolfe, who is the undergraduate advisor. Her email address is edithwolfe@hotmail.com.
After some touch-and-go legwork, we just managed to get into our offices at Tulane and have retrieved much of the information on the Undergraduate Program that Dr. Wolfe needs and will be using to help advise you about issues related to your program.
In the meantime, if you read this, please send your current contact information -- as complete as you can make it -- to Dr. Wolfe (email address, phone and mailing address info, cell phone number, etc.). Also send to her any information related to where you are currently studying, what arrangements this institution is making for you, what your courses are, and any other information relevant to your status at Tulane (i.e. Honors thesis, core curriculum requirements, concentration areas, etc.)
Please know that we value your contributions and parts in our overall program at Tulane and we will be bringing you information speedily over the next few days.
In the meantime, keep your spirits up and stay in touch with anyone at the Stone Center.
Paz y solidaridad!!
As you know, we were right in the middle of a transition with regard to the Undergraduate Advisor, and the hurricane completely disrupted that transition. I am currently working on a special blog link just for undergraduate issues; and we are working on a FAQ document which we hope to post on this blog within the next few days.
Please keep following this blog and touch base with us as needed. Also, please feel free to send your specific questions to Dr. Edith Wolfe, who is the undergraduate advisor. Her email address is edithwolfe@hotmail.com.
After some touch-and-go legwork, we just managed to get into our offices at Tulane and have retrieved much of the information on the Undergraduate Program that Dr. Wolfe needs and will be using to help advise you about issues related to your program.
In the meantime, if you read this, please send your current contact information -- as complete as you can make it -- to Dr. Wolfe (email address, phone and mailing address info, cell phone number, etc.). Also send to her any information related to where you are currently studying, what arrangements this institution is making for you, what your courses are, and any other information relevant to your status at Tulane (i.e. Honors thesis, core curriculum requirements, concentration areas, etc.)
Please know that we value your contributions and parts in our overall program at Tulane and we will be bringing you information speedily over the next few days.
In the meantime, keep your spirits up and stay in touch with anyone at the Stone Center.
Paz y solidaridad!!
