Presentation To Directors

The School of Transborder StudiesArizona State University

Mission

Guided by the principles of the New American University, the School’s mission is to offer an integrated learning, research, and community- engaged environment that will make Arizona State University the leading institution for transborder knowledge and programs in the United States and internationally.

Premises• The Southwest North American and Northern Mexican

Region comprise the integrated economies of the six Mexican and four American Border States, the shared physical ecology of an arid region, and their constitutive populations. In addition, there are extraordinary transnational and transborder economic and political processes beyond demographic trends that have resulted in the growth of this border region. The Southwest North American and Northern Mexican Region is now a central ecological, geopolitical and economically integrated complex from which commerce, people, language, culture, ideologies, and institutions radiate throughout the United States, Mexico, and Latin America. This region and its evolving dynamics are the starting point for our endeavors.

Theoretical and Comparative Rationales for the School

theoretical orientation emerges from the co-evolving dynamics of the U.S. Mexico Region as the crucial starting point.

emphasizes the co-evolutionary transnational dynamic of the region and cross cuts and transcends the political definitions created since the 19th Century

a processual and dynamic approach that begins with the region but radiates out to other co-evolving regions in its analysis.

Major Goals

• engage in the search for policies that deal effectively with the

challenges and opportunities posed by large populations of temporary or immigrant workers in a nation with an aging population which can have worldwide implications and therefore welcomes comparative studies and approaches.

• the identification and implementation of economic, political, educational, scientific and social solutions of human capital formation and health within the context of co-evolving transnational dynamics.

• address the unique challenges facing The Southwest North American and Northern Mexican Region that are distinct and of pressing regional and national importance.

Specific Objectives• First, to conduct an integrated undergraduate and graduate

program that addresses four major academic and scholarly dimensions: – a. the study of the dynamics of transborder economy,

migration, political ecology, social relations, and educational development of Mexican origin and other Latino populations of the transborder region and beyond;

– b. the study of the expressive culture of the transborder region and its attending populations;

– c. the study of the shifts and changes in regional, community, and local physical and mental health of transborder populations;

– d. the study of the patterns and issues specific to the development of successful culture, language, and learning programs K-16 for transborder populations.

Specific Objectives

• Second, to develop integrated research and development projects that when implemented enhance the economic, political, cultural, health, social, and ecological well being of transborder populations.

Specific Objectives

• Third, to support the academic and research initiatives of the Interdisciplinary Program in Comparative Border Studies. Our ultimate aim is to place the School and university faculty and graduate students in conversation with scholars who are thinking and writing about transborder issues elsewhere.

Specific Objectives

• Fourth, to initiate community, regional, and transborder oriented research, instructional, and developmental partnerships with agencies, NGOs, institutions, and organizations whose joint projects result in the enhancement of local and regional communities throughout the transborder region.

Specific Objectives

• Fifth, to function as the coordinating unit for the Southwest Borderlands Initiative (SWBI). The coordinating function for this effort would be primarily to develop academic and scholarly programs which bring together those supported by the SWBI program.

Specific Objectives

Sixth, to cooperate with the North American Center for Transborder Studies as a partner that will fund development opportunities for proposal design and assist in generating extra-mural revenues.

Specific Objectives

• Seventh, to cooperate with the Office of the Vice President for Education Partnerships as a partner with whom we will share research resources in order to design, develop, and submit intensive and extensive longitudinal applied educational and social science research

Specific Objectives

• Eighth, to develop The Student Social Support Coordinate as an undergraduate student-centered clearing house in which the School will coordinate the available social scaffolding in the university with the intellectual and academic training and instruction being carried out by units serving Mexican origin and Latina/o students within the university and the region.

Specific Objectives• To continue to develop faculty, instructional and research

partnerships with:– The College of Nursing,– The Department of English, – The School of Geographic Information and Urban Sciences, – The School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies,– The School of International Letters and Culture, – The School of Human Evolution and Social Change, – The School of Political Science and Global Studies,– The School of Social and Family Dynamics, – The School of Social Transformation, – Mary Lou Fulton Institute and School of Education, – the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

Specific Objectives• To continue to develop transnational research and

instruction:– Colegio de la Frontera Norte (research and instruction), – the University of Veracruz, Jalapa (research),– the Autonomous University of Michoacán (research and

instruction), – the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Culiacan and

Mazatlan (research and instruction),– Future development: Center for the Study of the United

States, Universidad Tecnologico de Monterrey.

ALLIED AND COOPERATING RESEARCH PARTNERS UNITS

Administrative Structure

Contact InformationCarlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez Motorola Presidential Professor of Neighborhood RevitalizationProfessor of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies and School of Human Evolution and Social ChangeChair, Department of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, RiversideArizona State University College of Liberal Arts & SciencesTempe, Arizona 85287Carlos.Velez-Ibanez@asu.edu(480) 965-4908(480) 965-5091http://transborder.asu.edu