Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records #40089, University Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Periodic transfer from the offices that create these records.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: University Archives Staff

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, October 2020; Dawne Howard Lucas, December 2021

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Education, Higher--North Carolina--History.
• Gil, Federico Guillermo.
• Latin America--Study and teaching--North Carolina--History.
• Leavitt, Sturgis E. (Sturgis Elleno), b. 1888.
• Research institutes--North Carolina.
• Universities and colleges--North Carolina--Departments.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--History.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Research grants.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Institute of Latin American Studies.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Inter-American Institute.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--History.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Research grants.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Institute of Latin American Studies.

• University Archives started archiving selected websites of the academic and business units of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina General Administration, and student groups and organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in January 2013. To see if websites for this department or related departments have been archived visit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Harvested Websites (#40417).

The Institute of Latin American Studies was established by Consolidated University of North Carolina President Frank Porter Graham in 1940 as the Inter-American Institute. It grew out of the efforts of Professor Sturgis E. Leavitt to expand the university's research materials on Latin America. The Rockefeller Foundation provided funds for the acquisition of these materials and the use of this funding was supervised by the Inter-American Institute with Leavitt as director.

During the early years of the program, the major activity was the winter "summer school" for Latin Americans. From 1941 through 1945, the grant-funded schools brought hundreds of Latin American scholars to the Chapel Hill campus. In 1947, the Carnegie Corporation funded expansion of the program and the name became the Institute of Latin American Studies. With the Carnegie and subsequent foundation support, the Institute broadened its efforts to include curriculum development and coordination, graduate student support, funding of travel by Latin American scholars to the United States and of American scholars to Latin America, support of professional organizations such as the Southern Conference on Latin American Studies and the Latin American Studies Association, and support for publication of research papers and translations.

More recently, the Institute has operated the Mexican Visiting Scholars Program. Under a grant from Pepsi Cola of Mexico, twelve scholars were selected in 1979 for advanced study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The following year, the program was expanded to include six Venezuelans in addition to twelve Mexicans. This program continued through the spring semester of 1983. In 1989, UNC-Chapel Hill joined with Duke University to create the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Currently, the Institute is organized as a program within the College of Arts and Sciences and is supervised by a director and an advisory board. It is composed of historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, economists, and linguists actively engaged in the study of Latin American life and culture. Through the activities of the Institute, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has become recognized as one of the major centers of Latin American studies in the United States.

Directors of the Institute have been:

• Photographs (P-40089/1-140)