2003-2004 Lectures
The Center for U.S. – Mexico Studies cordially invites you to its Lecture Series 2003 – 2004.
The Center for U.S. – Mexico Studies, seeking to foster greater understanding between our two nations, is pleased to host lectures on issues of interest to both Mexico and the U.S. Previous lectures have included such issues as the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), analysis of domestic politics and foreign policy, issues in science and technology, transborder population, and cultural development in both countries. The Center has hosted Carlos Fuentes, Ezequiel Padilla, Andres Oppenheimer, Elena Poniatowska, Ana Maria Salazar, among others, under the frame of this series. Ana Cervantes, Peter M. Ward, Habib Chamoun-Nicolas, Alfonso Onate, and Monica Verea are scheduled in this academic year. The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) students, faculty, and staff and those interested in U.S. – Mexico affairs from The University of Texas System (UT) and from the metropolitan area of Dallas – Fort Worth will benefit from the different perspectives presented by these scholars, regarding Mexican classical music, Texas-Mexico affairs, US-Mexico management relations, North America labor affairs, and US-Mexico migration after September 11.
If you have questions or need further information, please contact Gabriela Carrera, Lecture Series Coordinator.
We look forward to seeing you in this series.
Water and Stone – Piano Performance, Ana Cervantes
October 4, 2003, Jonsson Performance Hall, 8:00 p.m.
Soloist and collaborative artist of a Mexican father and a Nebraska mother, Ana Cervantes gives evidence in every performance of her special ability to serve as an interlocutor between cultures. Graduate of Bard College, Cervantes counts Joan Tower and Theodore Lettvin as her most significant teachers. She has served on the adjunct music faculty of Princeton University, on the artist faculty at Rider University’s Westminster Conservatory and the Fine Arts faculty of The Peddie School in New Jersey, USA. In 1999, Cervantes was given the prestigious Fulbright-Garcia Robles award, so that she could go to Mexico to develop repertoire of Mexican contemporary music for subsequent performance in the United States. In June of 2002, Cervantes was awarded an Individual Artist grant from the Bossak-Heilbrun Charitable Foundation (USA) in order to further develop repertoire from the US and Mexico, to be performed in both countries.
Cervantes has performed the premieres in the US and Cuba of works by Mexican composers such as Marcela Rodriguez, Georgina Derbez, Ramon Montes de Oca, Joaquin Gutierrez Heras, among others, and as invited artist in venues such as the Warner Theatre, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; the Americas Society in New York City; the Chanticleer Summer Music Festival in Richmond, IN; William Paterson University (New Jersey); the XV and XVI International Festivals of New Music of La Habana, Cuba; and the XXIX and XXX Festival Internacional Cervantino.
Cervantes now maintains an extensive concert and teaching activity in this hemisphere and is based in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, where her Mexican grandparents were married in 1914. There she teaches chamber music and collaborates in academic and musical projects at the University of Guanajuato with composer Ramon Montes de Oca (associate professor of the School of Music of that University), as well as serving as advisor to the Institute of Culture of the State of Guanajuato.
Colonias and Housing Policy in Texas: Learning from Mexico, Peter M. Ward
October 21, 2003. Jonsson Building 4.102, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Peter M. Ward earned his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Liverpool in 1976. He held senior teaching positions at University College London, The University of Cambridge, and The University of Texas at Austin where he holds the CB Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in US-Mexico Relations and is professor in the Department of Sociology and in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
In 2001 he was appointed Editor of Latin American Research Review. In the sociology department he directs the Mellon Latin American Doctoral Program. He has worked as government advisor to various Mexican government ministries and agencies. In 2000 he was awarded the Ohtli Medal by the Mexican Government for his record of scholarship on Mexico and for his services to bi-lateral understanding.
Dr. Ward is author of 14 books and over 70 scholarly articles, such as Self Help housing: a critique (Editor), Housing, the State and the Poor: Policy and Practice in Latin American Cities (CUP with Alan Gilbert), and Mexico City: The Production and Reproduction of an Urban Environment. In recent years he has worked extensively on urban governance and politics in Mexico.
Management Negotiations between U.S. and Mexico, Habib Chamoun-Nicolas
November 3, 2003. School of Management Building 2.117, 2:15 – 3:15 p.m.
Over the past 20 years Dr. Chamoun- Nicolas has been doing business development activities in several sectors; industrial, commercial, institutional, for sales and marketing of services and products. He has provided professional services to leader companies such as ICA Fluor Daniel, Brown and Root, and Elf Aquitaine, among others in mainly the U.S., Mexico and France.
Dr. Chamoun was born in Mexico and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin and the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He has trained more than 5000 business professionals on a business development approach on sales and negotiation and has conducted research on how Mexicans negotiate. He has participated in several executive programs such as the Program on Negotiation at Harvard University and the Brazilian Seminar at the International School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Chamoun has also been invited as a guest speaker to several academic institutions such as the Thunderbird School of International Business in the MIMLA program, The University of Texas Panamerican and the University of Houston. He is the author of two books: Desarrollo de Negocios (2003) and Trato Hecho- Guia para una Negociacion sin Fallas- (2003).
Dr. Chamoun is the founder of Global AZEZ and Keynegotiations, LLC, whose mission is to bring all possible resources to help clients developing business in the Spanish speaking countries through workshops, seminars, simulations and consulting services.
Labor Relations after NAFTA, Alfonso Onate
February 3, 2004. Jonsson Building 4.614, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Alfonso Onate was appointed jointly by the Minister of Labor of Canada, the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare of Mexico and the Secretary of Labor of the United States, as the Executive Director of the Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation (the NAFTA Labor Commission). As the Executive Director of the Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation, he leads a unique multinational institution devoted to advancing labor rights and labor standards as an integral part of expanding trade relations in the North American region. Under his direction, The Secretariat undertakes labor-related research and public information, and assists the member countries with the cooperative activities. Before his present responsibility Onate´s professional career evolved along two main fields: Academic life and Civil Service. His governmental experience comprises Mexican Government’s three branches, i.e., Judiciary, Legislative and Executive. Many of the activities developed for the Mexican Government have dealt with planning of new structures for governmental agencies starting from project definition and concluding with its implementation. Probably, the most important of the latter has been to bring into existence the new structure of the Mexican Federal Judiciary due to the Constitutional Reform of 1994.
Alfonso Onate obtained his law degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and two master degrees, one in philosophy and the other in law in Oxford. He also obtained his Ph. D at the University of Oxford in England in 1981.
His academic life has always included teaching as well as research, in several Universities both in Mexico and abroad. Part of the research developed in this area dealt with the project of the curricula under the Social Sciences and Humanities division of the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. Academic experience has included supervision of research projects required to access bachelor’s degrees as well as graduate degrees.
US-Mexican Migration Relations: Before and After September 11th, Monica Verea
March 2, 2004. Jonsson Building 4.614, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Monica Verea is the Director of the department of interinstitutional collaboration at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. She is a specialist in contemporary migration in the North American region as well as in Mexico-U.S.-Canada relations. She received her bachelor and masters in sociology and international relations correspondingly, from the Political and Social Sciences School of UNAM. She has also made certifications on American Studies in The University of North Carolina and in Quebec Studies in the Mc Gill University in Quebec, Canada. In 1982, Monica Verea created the master degree in Mexico-U.S. studies at the National Professional Studies School of Aclatan-UNAM. She teaches several courses at the master’s level as well as for the certification she founded and coordinates: “U.S. and its Relations with Mexico: A Close Multidisciplinary and Regional Outlook”. Monica Verea is the author of multiples essays and book’s chapters with a bi-national perspective in different issues such as migrations, labor and politics between Mexico and the U.S. Monica has written two books on migration between the two countries: The Illegal: Mexico and the U.S. in front of Migrations of the Illegal and Temporary Migration in North America: Proposals and Answers.
She is currently the coordinator of fifteen books focused on the study of Mexico-U.S.-Canada borders with diverse agendas such as women’s role toward the end of the millennium, cultural differences and the democratization in Mexico. She has served as an advisor for the International Labor Commission during her sabbatical years. Last March of 2003, she received the Juana Ramirez de Asbaje award for her excellent contribution in the cognitive area of North American Studies as well as for her outstanding academic development.
A Common Destiny: Mexico and the United States, Tony Garza
March 25, 2004. School of Management (SM-Auditorium) 1.118, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and was recognized as one of five Outstanding Young Texas Exes in 1989. He received his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1983 from the Southern Methodist University School of Law. In 1988, Ambassador Garza was the first Republican elected to countywide office in traditionally Democratic South Texas. He was re-elected with nearly 60% of the vote, and continued to serve as Cameron County Judge until 1995. In 1994, shortly after George W. Bush became Governor-elect, he made his first appointment, naming Ambassador Garza as Texas’ 99th Secretary of State and a Senior Advisor. During his 3-year tenure as the State’s Chief Elections Officer, he worked with the 74th and 75th Legislatures to reform Texas Election Law. As a Senior Advisor to then-Governor Bush, Ambassador Garza served as the lead liaison on border and Mexico affairs, working on issues as diverse as free trade, the environment and other border-specific concerns. Before being sworn in as Ambassador, Mr. Garza was Texas’ 41st Railroad Commissioner. Elected in 1998, Ambassador Garza was a partner in the Austin office of Bracewell & Patterson, L.L.P., a Houston-based law firm. As Railroad Commissioner, he was committed to keeping the energy sector strong and healthy. In February of 2001, Ambassador Garza received the SMU School of Law’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. Hispanic Business Magazine has twice named him one of its “Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics.”