The Latino Studies Program (LSP) at Cornell is poised to become a premier center for both undergraduate education and faculty research, says Pedro Cabán, a visiting professor of government and the program's director for the academic year 1999-2000.

To evolve, the LSP will need across-the-board support from the administration, from faculty in diverse academic units and from the students themselves, Cabán says.

"Any kind of academic endeavor has to be a collaborative as well as a cooperative one," said Cabán, whose appointment was effective this past July 1. "At Cornell we have the resources, the location and the context to start building an integrated and intellectually challenging Latino studies curriculum that will expand educational opportunities — not just for Latino students — but for all students," he said.

Cabán is on leave from Rutgers University, where he is an associate professor of political science and Puerto Rican/Hispanic Caribbean studies. In addition to his director's duties at Cornell, he will teach a course titled "Latino Politics in the United States."

From 1990 to 1998, Cabán served as chairman of the Rutgers Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies Department. Prior to that appointment, he taught at Fordham University and served as director of its Puerto Rican and Latin American Studies Program from 1978 to 1988.

"I truly believe that Professor Cabán's arrival at Cornell will mark the initiation of a very productive period, not just for the Latino Studies Program but for all the constituent communities on campus," said Vilma Santiago-Irizarry, an assistant professor in anthropology and Latino studies. "Professor Cabán brings the kinds of intellectual, academic and administrative experiences that will enhance the program's national reputation and standing."

A statement issued by Philip Lewis, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Biddy Martin, senior associate dean of the college, announcing Cabán's appointment expressed the hope that "under Dr. Cabán's leadership ... it will be possible to overcome the conflicts among participants in the program ... and to establish plans for the program's future."

Cabán currently is the co-chairman of the Latina/o Section of the Latin American Studies Association, a member of the executive council of the Puerto Rican Studies Association, served on a task force for the Inter University Project on Latino Research, is the chairman for the Latinas/os in the U.S. program of LASA and was co-director of the Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture.

Cabán's academic interests include the study of the economic and political dynamics among the principal Latino communities in the northeastern United States and their counterparts in the Caribbean, Mexico and South America, subject on which he has written numerous articles and reviews. Westview Press recently published Cab‡n's first book titled Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1932 , and he is now engaged in a study on the emergence of the Chicano/Puerto Rican Studies movement of the late 1960s and its relationship to Latino studies today. Cabán was himself a student activist advocating Puerto Rican studies three decades ago.

"My hope is that this diversified background will be helpful as I try to move the program -- with the assistance of faculty, students and administration — forward in the direction we all would like to see," said Cabán. "It's going to be an important component of the intellectual life of the university. Students need to have a role in the program's development while realizing they are responsible for their own intellectual development."

Cabán's ultimate vision for the LSP embraces the entire student population.

"I want to get away from this notion that Latino studies is for Latinos; that's not my opinion," Cabán said. "When we're talking about Latinos in the next decade becoming the largest minority in the United States, I think it makes sense for people to understand how that community fits into the larger scheme of things. If we know America to be a great complex society with a rich, diversified historic formation, I think it makes sense for us to recognize that what is done in Latino studies has an impact beyond the field. So students who are not Latinos should be aware that learning about Latinos in the U.S. is something that benefits them by deepening their knowledge of the history and political and dynamics of this country."