University Set to Launch Academic Program in Cuba
After 18-month-long process, U.S. grants College a one-
year academic exchange license

By Justine R. Lescroart
Contributing Writer

The Harvard Crimson - Oct. 2, 2006

http://www.thecrims on.com/article. aspx?ref= 514630

Harvard is preparing to launch a spring-semester study-
abroad program at the University of Havana, despite
strict federal regulations on U.S. travel to communist
Cuba and activists' concerns about academic freedom in
the island-nation.

The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
(DRCLAS) and the Harvard College Office of
International Programs (OIP) have obtained a federal
license for a joint effort with Cuba's preeminent
educational institution.

The U.S. government's current embargo on trade with
Cuba has stymied Harvard students' past attempts to
study in the country with programs that were not
College-affiliated. Current law forbids student travel
to Cuba unless the student is from a university that
has applied for and received an academic exchange
license from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The arduous process of obtaining this license took 18
months, and permission lasts for only one year,
according to Harvard's vice provost for international
affairs, Jorge I. Dominguez.

The Cuban-born Dominguez wrote in an e-mail to the
Crimson, "We will apply again for a license [next year]
but have no certainty whether we will get it or by what
time."

Even now that Harvard has a license, Cuba-bound
undergraduates must participate in a formal 10-week or
longer academic program that counts for College credit,
according to the DRCLAS program associate who manages
the center's Cuban Studies arm, Lorena Barberia.

The ban on trade with Cuba makes for several unusual
travel rules in addition to of the required letter-of-
license. When returning home, students will be
permitted to carry only $100 worth of merchandise, for
which they must have receipts, according to the OIP.

The OIP instructs students not to take cell phones into
Cuba. Cell phones can only be carried in the country
with official authorization, according to the U.S.
Commerce Department.

The 2007 program will run from late January to early
May. For these four months, students will live in
Havana, the country's capital, which is home to 2.2
million residents and is the island's cultural,
educational, and industrial center.

All students in the program must take one mandatory
course on U.S.-Cuban relations, according to the OIP.

According to a fact sheet from the U.S. State
Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs,
academic freedom is "limited" in Cuba, and "some fields
of study, such as the social sciences, are denied to
those who lack the proper revolutionary zeal and
political awareness."

A March 2006 report from Amnesty International
described freedom of _expression in Cuba as "very
restricted," and said that 72 dissidents are currently
being held as "prisoners of conscience" in the country.

DRCLAS and OIP officials expressed enthusiasm about the
program. OIP Acting Director Leslie M. Hill wrote in an
e-mail, "This is a unique intellectual opportunity for
a small group of Harvard College students to study at
an outstanding Latin American university, live in a
dramatically different social, political, and economic
landscape, view the world from a Cuban vantage point,
and hear some of the world's greatest music live!"

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