Latin American Universities and the IIE
Holcomb, Michael
Another aspect of the IIE is CHEAR, the Council on Higher Education in the American Republics, a small organization the IIE oversees. CHEAR's basic income cones from the Carnegie Cornoration and...
...response to Latin American revolutionary aspirations and activity, demands that this country do something about the universities in Central and South America because it is on the campus that the demand for social and economic change is most vocal...
...It is sponsored by: the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the World Bankd AID, and the Special Fund of the U.N...
...the Univ...
...Some programs obviously embody less manipulation than others, but ultimately, I suppose, the degree to which we condemn a particular U.S...
...He observes "this machine we have created goes faster and faster.t" (Nat'l Devel...
...Basically, they are in opposition for two reasons...
...material assistance beneficial as the humanitarian rhetoric claims...
...Thy is U.S...
...In some countries, the universities have become the center of urban guerilla activity and of recruitment for its counterpart in the rural areas...
...Paul Miller (formerly rovost of IIichigan State and now President of West Virginia University) to ;!study higher education in Colombia and to suggest an improved framework for teaching, extension and research...
...First, the Latin American universities, at present, do have relative autonomy from their governments and other political forces...
...And obviously, it is easier to manipulate a few administrators, than the thousands of students they control...
...The foreword to the '64 Lima report, "National Development and the University" continues: Led by Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, and supported by both Latin American and North American university executives who exercise direct influence in the education and national affairs of their countries, this dialogue raises issues and explores solutions of current vital interest to.all concerned with hemispherical cooperation and unity as well as national and educational developments...
...Second, students hold power to control a great deal of the oerations of the university...
...We have thirteen rural normal schools...which are relatively well endowed as to buildings and grounds (and) are a magnificent base for constructing a sort of junior college...We are also in discussion with some departmental units...the means of orienting and unifying the curriculum of intermediate education and attaining uniformity...
...One question about U.S...
...All of this remains possible for several reasons...
...Two key institutions" are involved in transforming Peruvian education: the autonomous" Agrarian University at La Molina and a dependency of the Ministry of Agriculture called the Service of Investigations and Promotion of Agriculture -- SIPA, which has "the primary responsibility for national programs oI research and extension...
...But the U.S...
...With its emphasis on research, the knowledge factory has become "the focal point for national growth" (Uses, p. 88...
...The aid programs documented below must be seen in this context...
...Nat'l...
...CHEER refuses to make ublic the actual amount of its budget, however...
...This view is perfectly compatible with the university as a service station, a neutral vendor of techniques, and as not relevant to the political conflicts in society...
...Using the rhetoric of national development and hemispheric cooperation, liberals try to isolate the technical development of a country from its political system and conflicts...
...the UN Special Fund, which made a substantial grant to assist in the development of the new Faculty of Agricultural Engineering...
...In addition, many o the leadership positions within stuuent organizations are held by radical leftists who militantly oppose the U.S...
...interest in Latin American higher education intensifying, as evidenced by increased consulting, exchange programs and financing of Latin American educational reforms...
...Those students must be pacified...
...The university in Latin America must be de-politicized if the U.S...
...counterinsurgency plan is to be effective...
...Instead of a ruling elite, Kerr sees as the rationale behind this society a tendency toward national development...
...put together from presentations at seminars in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Terrytown, New York...
...As far as agricultural education goes, stuuents would pass from primary schools into vocational schools...
...According to Kerr, Every industrial society has been organized and run by one type of elite or another....,, (Nat'l.D...
...Michigan State entered Colombia a few years ago with a program financed by an AID contract and the Kellogg Foundation designed to strengthen Colombia's three higher schools of agriculture...
...the second reason is that the use of technology will not benefit the society until the political system is rebuilt...
...Another facility beihg developed is the National Center of Agricultural Education, Research and Extension at Chapingo near Mexico City...
...He began with his views (which are best put forth in his book, published in 1963, The Uses of the University)th.t the university is an instrument of national purpose...
...and 2) in its words, administers a few carefully chosen -projects tlat rel a to strengthening inter-American university relationships...
...the Rockefeller Foundation, which has also given to the "autonomous" university...
...pp...
...Kerr sees around him the obvious: a society carefully organized and geared to acquisition and consumption...
...The University has applied for a long-term loan o $6 million from the Alliance for Progress...
...involvement in latin ,3lerican higher education is rovided by CHIR'is recent series of reports: Ita;i;Dnal TCevelo)ment and the Universityl(50 p ) -talen from tapes made of discussions ding-- 7 -a CHEER conference in Lima, Peru, on February 28, 1964...
...if they cannot be persuaded to shift their concern from politics to purely academic questions, then their power must be undercut...
...C.H.,as activity_ s are twofold: 1) it holds conferences and publishes resulting recorts...
...The president of IIE is Secretary General o CHEAR...
...Ag...
...the Univ...
...MEXICO: "The Rockefeller Foundation has been privileged to play a role in building a Mexican technician sector since 1943, when it entered into a cooperative program of research and training with the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture" according to Lewis Roberts, Associate Director, Agricultural Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation...
...a third, 'The Arts and the University" (48 pp...
...U5hile it is d -ficui' Lo track down: secific CHEAT projects documentation of U.S...
...material support, the Indian government would probably collapse...
...17) Documentation of how the United States is molding Latin American higher education is plentiful in the CHEAR report on the "Agriculture and the University" conference...
...The students relate their demands for change with the need to stop U.S...
...also taken from tapes of a Lima conference (February 27, 1964...
...the first is that the reforms must be initiated and controlled by Latin Americans, not by the United States...
...Since CFIIAR's inception in l2) the IIE has provided "administrative support" consisting of the hidden budgetary arrangement...
...p. 19) Kerr realizes that the insatiable passion for more demands that the university not shirk its duties as an institution commanding many resources...
...19) Being more concrete about what he means, Kerr tells it like it is: "The market pretty well determines how education will develop...
...presence in their countries and who consider the university as a staging area from which to attack their own corrupt governments...
...hen asked by phone if CHEAR filed its )990-A form with the Internal Revenue Service (whose non-profit organization files are public) a representative relied that CHTAR haa not...
...ruling liberals veil their political goals with humanitarian language...
...The university's resources, symbolized by the slogan "Knowledge:,, are absolutely essential for the U.S...
...They are The School of Agronomy and Animal Husbandry of the Institute of Technology at Monterey, another Rockefeller Foundation project, and The School at Hermosilla, Sonora, which maintains "a close relationshi" with the University of Arizona...
...thus rendering them a major threat to the U.S...
...no one is expected to represent his country, his institution (and) no attempt is made in these meetings to draft resolutions or prepare statements of general policy...
...goal of a stable Latin America...
...Political stability is again the key concept, but one of the things the United States is doing to insure stability is bending Latin American universities to a s- ecific mold...
...That is, the Rockefeller Fobundation helped pay for Mexicans to study in the United States...
...motives first: Isn't some U.S...
...imperialism in their countries...
...The decentralized structure of higher education in Latin America makes it easier for the students to maintain their strength...
...Counterinsurgency, as a national U.S...
...office space in IIE's gleaming building, and IIE-supplied staff...
...He stated that CHIEIAR's income .is reported with that of its parent organization", the IIE...
...For them, the University should serve as an active agent for change in their society...
...Their unshakable perspective, the basis from which they ac-i...
...Participants do not represent their country or institution -- they represent their class, the American (North or South) power elite...
...and the Ford Foundation, which is considering, with the Rockefeller Foundation, a grant to SIPA's Faculty of Social Sciences...
...The CH&LO liberals state they want to see the whole Latin American educational system tightened u, rushing people through faster under heavier work loads, training and socializing better...
...interest in Latin American higher-- 8 -education isn't so innocuous as the interest in India's ability to feed herself...
...to continue to grow at its present breakneck pace...
...Latin American students will lose power if the United States is successful in its attempt to integrate and centralize the structure of their universities...
...the following attempts to clarify the "stability" ideology of Kerr and the other university executives...
...The Kellogg Foundation helped Colombian education in a more direct manner in 1960 by partly financing "a joint American-Colombian committee headed by Dr...
...And by breaking down the benevolent-sounding rhetoric, we see that the corporate liberals who put up money for these various overseas helping-hand programs are operating in a very sharp logical fashion to Americanize the countries in whose economies they now participate...
...program depends on our personal rage...
...It was not until two years ago that "the responsibility for its (the program's) direction and administration" was transferred to Mexicans at the National Institute of Agricultural Research...
...36) PERU: Roberts (of Rockefeller Foundation) offered the following comments about Peruvian education...
...the U., p. 16) But the 19 6 0's the United States is an exception...
...The ICA is to gradually mold the entire higher agriculture school system of Colombia along the following lines: ICA will have close contact with secondary and intermediate (junior college education...
...the university as a prime value -- transmitting agency functions quite efficiently in molding conformers...
...Trying to make this into a coherent view, he suggests that society is developing "its own logic, not serving class interests, not serving ideology...
...and think, is one which sees Latin America, and all other countries the United States now: has access to, as a frontier to be Americanized, thus guaranteeing future access -- access to raw materials, labor pools, and markets...
...In the foreword to these reports, William C. Spence , Assistant Secretary General of the IIE, clarifies the framework in which the contents are meant to be viewed: Ideas and opinions expressed by participants are personal ones...
...As Kerr recognizes, "The university as producer, wholesaler and retailer of knowledge cannot escape service" (Uses p. 114...
...The most important product of the knowledge assembly line is socialized people -- standardized and repressed...
...grain shipments to India certainly benefit the people and are not directly imperialist, but without U.S...
...Students who oppose the U.S.-influenced reforms or Latin American universities are not, per se, against increased specialization and the acquisition of more technical skills...
...On the basis of the Miller report, a national Agricultural Institute was established in 1963, and another school, Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) is now being launched...
...SIPA is directly linked to: North Carolina State College under a US AID contract...
...Agriculture and the University (236 pp...
...D. and the U.", p. 10) But because of the contradiction between their equalitarian facade and their actual -osition of corporate power, U.S...
...These are only four-year institutions at the present time, but the Ministry of Education is considering extending them to six years in order to make available a more complete vocational education...
...It sends grain to maintain political stability so that India will remain an East-West buffer zone and to help relieve internal economic strains which cause political upheavals...
...Comments the Rockefeller Foundation's Roberts on the ICA, "The Ford, Kellogg, and Rockefeller Foundations have already indicated interest in continuing to cooperate in this tremendously exciting new venture...
...37) Although we're not able to exactly measure the impact these projects are having on Latin Americans, it is clear from the examples that the United States is significantly molding Latin American higher education to the factory model...
...counterpart has...
...4) The prototypical university executive is Clark Kerr of Berkeley, who opened and closed the '64 Lima conference on National Development and the University...
...CHEAR's basic income cones from the Carnegie Cornoration and the Fora Foundation...
...Once education is centralized, the administrator necessarily gains more oower...
...The administrator in Latin America has not ascended into the position of power that his U.S...
...p.36)-- 10 -During the discussion Director Fernando Penaranda of the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario, Bogota', described the ambitiousness of the U.S.-supported projects...
...34, 35) COLOMBIA: Rockefeller Fobundation involvement in Colombia dates back to 1950 when it supported a cooperative research program to train agronomists and provide scholarships for study "abroad...
...Too,, the United States is not particularly sneaky about its motives concerning "foreign aid,, grain...
...This is supplemented by money from other agencies and foundations including the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the State Departnent...
...Two other U.S.-suDoorted Mexican agricultural schools are not on what Rafael Samper (a Colombian attending the conference) called the "grand scale" of the Chaoingo school, but they are still significant...
...recognizing the educational system as a owerful tool, Kerr stated at the Lima National Develonment Conference that one of the keys to the United States resent-- 9 -vast roductive capacity is that the United States "got started very early using education largely, or at least philosophically, for political reasons...
Vol. 1 • December 1967 • No. 9
