Westfield State University offers 700 study abroad programs for students.
Westfield State University announced it will establish an Institute for Hispanic and Latin American history, culture and education. At a press conference on March 28, athletic director Richard Lenfest Jr., center, and members of the varsity baseball team talked about their recent trip for baseball exhibition games in Havana, Cuba.
WESTFIELD — For Deryn Copeland, a sophomore at Westfield State University, going to Nicaragua helped her learn about another culture, but also gave her an opportunity to teach, which is her passion.
“I think traveling to third world countries opens your eyes in ways you can't do here. I think it makes people more accepting of other cultures when they come home, and it's important for people to get along and understand each other," she said.
Copeland participated in the school's Service Learning study abroad class with Director of Alumni Relations Katheryn Bradford.
The Service Learning program would be one of several offered in the Institute for Hispanic and Latin American History, Culture and Education, which university president Evan S. Dobelle, hopes to establish by 2014.
The school already has an extensive study abroad program. It also offers a Latin American and Caribbean Studies minor. The institute would include a curriculum focused on several courses that are already offered as well new courses.
“In 2008 we started to make this a priority. We had 13 colleges and universities in our study-abroad program. Today we have over 700 opportunities for students to study abroad,” Dobelle said.
“As the nation and the state have seen an increase in the Latino population, so has the university and we welcome and embrace that,” he said.
The 2010 Census Bureau reports that nearly 10 percent of Massachusetts residents identify as Hispanic. A large portion of the state's Hispanic residents live in Western Massachusetts, particularly in Springfield and Holyoke, where Hispanics make up 38.9 and 48 percent of the municipal population respectively.
According to the 2011 Community Survey 21.4 percent of residents living in Hampden County are Hispanic while Hispanics in Hampshire and Franklin counties make up 4.9 percent of the population in each community.
Dobelle said the university reflects the growth.
In the past five years, there has been an increase in the Latino population of 100 percent in freshman admissions and 166 percent in transfers. Right now Hispanic students comprise the highest number of students enrolling for the first time at the university, Dobelle said.
Currently there are 6,079 students enrolled at the school, 388 or 6.38 percent, who identify as Hispanic. Hispanics are the largest minority group represented at the university, followed by 277, or 4.56 percent, who identify as other or unknown and 244, or 4 percent of the student body, who identify as black, non Hispanic.
In the past four years, 273 students and 38 faculty members have participated in 26 courses in Central America, the Caribbean and Spain. These courses include environmental biology in Costa Rica, service learning in Nicaragua, and many more.
Assistant professor Brian Conz, who teaches geography and regional planning , recently took students on a trip to Belize, where they studied the country's vegetation, ecological systems and culture. Conz and Bradford would both teach courses as part of the institution's curriculum.
Timothy Parshall, an environmental biology professor, teaches environmental science courses in Costa Rica and Belize, while Enrique Morales-Dias, a professor in the World Languages Department, teaches a course on conversational Spanish in Puerto Rico. All of these professors would help create a curriculum for the institute.
Not only academic courses will be offered. Recently, Richard Lenfest Jr., the director of athletics, took the baseball team to Cuba to participate in exhibition games.
Curt Everette, a student in the master's degree program in public administration, said he was shocked when he arrived at the small island.
“It was amazing to see the difference. They are professional baseball players, and they were begging us for our socks,” he said. “ They don't have much, but they have a love for the game. It was a humbling experience.”
Dobelle hopes to use extramural funding to establish the institute.
"We will go to the community, to foundations and individuals interested in this demographic that is exploding in America and Massachusetts," he said.
Dobelle also hopes the universityl will be seen as a place where any student can feel welcome.
"I want to keep the dream of (founder) Horace Mann alive that we provide a quality education to anyone who wants it," he said. "I want Hispanic students to come here and feel like this is their school and that it is a place that embraces their culture and their history."