University of the Americas, Trip Report
www.udlap.mx

Report on my visit to Universidad de Las Americas.

I was able to spend most of the afternoon at UDLA on Wednesday 24 May, 2006. I talked to two main people, Yesenia Lopez Andere, an assistant in the International Affairs office and Professor Marco Antonio Rosales in the department of Physics and Electrical Engineering. Overall I was left with a very good impression. If we want an environment with minimal stress impact on our students, this is an excellent candidate.

The school seems to be very comparable with Samford. It is a closed campus with a nice cafeteria and a beautiful environment. I did not ask about dorms, but it took me as a residential school, much more than any other school that I have been at in Latin America. They are used to having foreign students, especially English speaking. The physics professor that I talked with said that they had a program with Notre Dame where their pre-meds come down for a fall semester and take the correct physics course among their other courses. I think that this kind of program would be attractive to our pre-meds also, depending on their level of math preparedness.

Regretfully, I did not have the chance to discuss the specific program, so I have no indication whether they have exchanges designed like our Hong Kong program. This will have to be determined before we progress much further. If desired, I would be pleased to start a greater dialog with the head of the International Affairs office. Additionally, I would also desire to attend a future official visit, along with heading up the exchange program on campus. I believe that if we can decide on an appropriate program, we could implement this program in time to start students by the Fall of 2007. There is a possibility that I could propose my Fulbright in conjunction with UDLA and I hope that this will be the Fall 2007.

I took some pictures and they follow:

The main campus entrance:

Around the campus:

The fountain outside the cafeteria and bookstore:

The quad inside the science and engineering building:

The town of Cholula is also very nice. It is is 30 minutes walking to the square, (less if you are not carrying your luggage.) The town square is very laid back:

Near the town square is a buried Aztec (Actually Cholutotec, but who knows them?) pyramid. The Spanish built a cathedral on top of the dirt mound, not realizing that there was a 9 level pyramid hidden underneath. The man was our guide and the women is Dr. Beth Ann Thacker, a colleague from a conference that we were attending in Puebla. She is from Texas Tech in Lubbock. We were told that the department of Archaeology at UDLA was in charge of the current work, which indicates that our students may be able to gain pyramid access. 

The city's nearby volcano is also accessed by the geology department of UDLA, which would be another outstanding opportunity for our students.