Chancellor to receive honorary degree, promote research collaboration in Peru

LAWRENCE -- The oldest university in the Americas will honor University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway Monday in Peru with an honorary degree, citing his national leadership in higher education and promotion of multicultural literature.

While in Peru, the chancellor will meet Peruvian government and university leaders as well as the U.S. ambassador to promote further research and educational collaborations between KU and the Republic of Peru. In addition, Hemenway will host a reception for more than 60 KU alumni and current KU students and their parents who live in Peru. KU typically has enrolled 15 Peruvian students each year at its Lawrence campus.

"There is no better time than now to strengthen KU's international position in higher education," Hemenway said. "KU has enjoyed longstanding ties to Peru. Future opportunities in Peru for our students and faculty to engage in serious scientific research and explore an international cultural exchange are boundless."

No state funds are being used to finance the chancellor's trip.

Hemenway will receive his honorary degree at a formal ceremony at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru's national university founded in 1551 by royal decree and confirmed by a papal edict of 1571. The chancellor is being honored for his scholarship and leadership in higher education and his commitment to the value of promoting diversity in society.

"It is a very special honor for us at KU to have Chancellor Hemenway be awarded a doctorate from one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Latin America," said Anita Herzfeld, KU associate professor of Latin American studies who has extensive academic ties to Peru. "What better way to show our commitment to international understanding? This will undoubtedly strengthen our existing links with Peruvian institutions."

The chancellor is scheduled to meet with:

 • U.S. Ambassador to Peru John R. Hamilton

 • Manuel Burga, rector of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos

 • Dr. Oswaldo Cegarra, rector of Cayetano Heredia Medical School, Peru's largest medical school

 • Nicholas Lynch, Peru minister of education, and Juan Abugattas, vice minister of education

 • Rafael Santa Cruz, leader of the Afro-Peruvian cultural and literary movement.

Hemenway also will meet with the the rector of the National University of San Antonio Abad of Cuzco, with historians and researchers in the ancient Incan settlements of Machu Picchu and Cuzco, and with the dean of the School of Business of the Pontificia Universidad Catolico del Peru, who is a 1977 KU graduate.

Hemenway also will visit the internationally renowned Anne Sullivan Center, a Lima school for poverty-stricken children with autism or severe mental retardation. KU has a faculty exchange program with the center, which was founded and is operated by a KU graduate.

During the trip, the chancellor hopes to renew a collaborative research and educational agreement between KU's Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center and the natural history museum at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, for forthcoming studies in Peru's northern Amazon region.

The chancellor will be met in Peru by Bartholomew Dean, KU assistant professor of anthropology; John E. Simmons, collection manager of KU's Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center; and Herzfeld.

Dean has worked among the Urarina people of Peru over a 15-year period. He and his wife, Michelle McKinley, anthropology researcher at KU's Museum of Anthropology, have studied the language and culture of the Urarina and have become advocates for the preservation of the Amazonian peoples. They also have helped to direct the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos' new graduate program in Amazonian studies.

Herzfeld is a former associate director of International Programs, former associate director of the KU Seminar on Higher Education in the Americas and a former Fulbright adviser at KU. She is acquainted with many of the KU alumni and Peruvian university officials the chancellor will meet.

Since the 1960s, KU's Biodiversity Research Center has explored and documented the animal and plant diversity of Amazonian regions in South America; the work in Peru involved research and educational collaboration with Peru's natural history museum, the Museo Javier Prado, including field expeditions and graduate studies at KU by Museo staff members and students.

The current KU Peruvian project is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation and by the Occidental Petroleum Company, with whom the Biodiversity Research Center formed an "Alliance for Biodiversity Assessment" in 2000 to help preserve biodiversity and environments on lands leased for oil exploration. As part of the project, faculty and staff from KU and the Museo will survey species of plants, beetles, butterflies, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals at several sites in the Amazonian rain forest, which will provide excellent research experiences for graduate and undergraduate students at both institutions.

The Anne Sullivan Center was founded by Liliana Mayo, who earned two postgraduate degrees in human development from KU. She cleared out her parents' garage in Lima in 1979 and created a school to teach eight poor children with autism or severe mental retardation. Named after Helen Keller's teacher, the Anne Sullivan Center teaches 200 children with severe developmental disabilities how to function independently in society. In 2000, Mayo received the Queen Sofia Award -- Spain's highest honor -- for her humanitarian efforts.

KU's Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies has helped Mayo develop and expand her special school. Every year the institute coordinates trips to the center, sending 10 to 15 professors there to help Mayo and her staff.