Get it: Thirteen Tufts students will study in Cuba for six weeks

Tufts Daily 

Thirteen Tufts students will have the opportunity to study abroad in Cuba this summer through Norfolk State University's (NSU) six-week program.

The program will award two course credits to Tufts students and is offered in Havana at Casa de las Américas in the Academic Unit of the Schools of Letters and Art History at the University of Havana. Both undergraduate and graduate students can enroll.

"[Casa de las Américas is] one of the biggest intellectual centers historically in Cuba," Nina Gerassi-Navarro, an associate professor of Latin American literature and culture and director of the Latin American studies program, said. 

Professor emeritus Claudia Kaiser-Lenoir, a former associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and coordinator of the trip, suggested that Tufts students be invited on NSU's program after a recent regulation change allowed universities to include students from other universities on their Cuba programs.

Kaiser-Lenoir taught classes in Cuba last summer when NSU first brought students to Cuba in a ten-week program.

Lodging will be in the Casa de las Americas dormitories, and the program will have an estimated twenty-four participants in total, Director of International Programs at NSU William Alexander told the Daily. 

Courses, including Kaiser-Lenoir's "Special Topics in Cuban Culture and Society Since the 1959 Revolution," will give students access to local experts. 

"I taught a similarly organized course at Tufts, but we didn't have any Cuban experts, just experts on Cuba," Kaiser-Lenoir explained. "Cuba attracts people from all over the world that flock there to see how things are put together. It's not that everything works well, but there are some things that work intriguingly effectively, so it's an interesting laboratory… [Cuba has] very impressive records in many key areas that are of central importance to people like health, education, and the environment."