The Midwest Consortium for Latino Research (MCLR) was first conceived almost a decade ago by a small group of Latino faculty who found themselves isolated in a great many institutions--large and small--and scattered across a seven-state area. The original objective of MCLR was to develop and identify Latino scholars doing research on issues important to the growing Midwest Latino population, and to offer support.

With the help of a Joyce Foundation planning grant, MCLR developed a strategy for reaching those objectives. Housed first at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the MCLR secretariat was moved to Michigan State University (MSU) in response to MSU's generous offer of financial support, and the collegiality offered by the Julian Samora Research Institute. Founding and continuing members of the Consortium include the University of Wisconsin-Madison, The University of Iowa, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Indiana-Bloomington, Michigan State University, DePaul University, Wayne State University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor has joined the consortium more recently.

After establishing a highly successful national electronic network that includes international subscribers, launching a member newsletter, and sponsoring and co-sponsoring several meetings and retention conferences, MCLR returned to its original goals in the summer of 1994 to sponsor the first Schoars Roundtable. Fifty-four of ninety invitees from eight Midwest states attended the Scholars Roundtable which was held at the University of Indiana-Bloomington. With financial support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, MCLR sponsored all fifty-three scholars. With additional financial support fully twice the number of participants representing the majority of Latino scholars in the Midwest would have attended the Roundtable.

Participating scholars were placed in working groups with scholars from related disciplines

Arts and Literature; Social Sciences; Mathematics and Science; and Education.

Over the course of the two-day Roundtable, the working groups were asked to address two related questions:

2) What is the status of Latino scholars in the Midwest in your disciplines?

Each of the groups was asked to respond to the questions, but also to make concrete recommendations for addressing the issues raised by each group. What follows is a report on the results of the Roundtable. Several of these recommendations are already being implemented. One major set of recommendations will be addressed in the 1995 Scholars Roundtable:

The Tenure Process for Latino Scholars.

The roundtable will be held at Michigan State University in August 1995.

We believe that the series of meetings at the Scholars Roundtable were informative and useful to the participants and that the resulting report will be instructive and helpful to our member institutions. We hope that you will agree.

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Last Updated: March 11, 1996