The Summer 2004 Spanish and International Business Guadalajara Semester forms part of the twenty-eighth year of activity celebrated by the Metropolitan State College of Denver Language and Culture Institute (MSCDLCI).
The Institute was organized in the winter of 1976 under the joint sponsorship of the departments of Chicano Studies and Modern Languages. Initially, the programs operated only in the summer and spent six weeks in Mexico. In 1979 the schedule was reorganized and the six week period split into three weeks of intensive study at MSCD and three weeks in Mexico.

The first winter project was celebrated in January, 1984. It was structured as a two-week tour program featuring the Mayan culture of the Yucatan Peninsula. With the exception of the winter of 1989, programs have been offered regularly since the first pilot.

In spring 2003, MSCD, in partnership with the American Institute for Foreign Studies (AIFS), inaugurated the Guadalajara semester. This program operated for two years before AIFS left the Guadalajara campus and Metro State took over.

Since that time, the Guadalajara Semester has moved to a year-round schedule offering opportunities in the summer, fall and spring. Also, the Summer 2000 program for the first time, offered the opportunity for a full semester study session in the Summer.

The Guadalajara Semester offered the model for an initiative at Kukulkan in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico in summer, 2001. It was designed as an intensive activity constructed around five and a half hours of study per day. This allowed for participants to complete a full-time semester of study in eight weeks.

Since then, the program has returned to the University of Guadalajara. The present Guadalajara Semester study program is an intensive Spanish learning activity structured into four two-week modules, five hours a day. Each two-week module provides the equivalent three credit hours of courses at MSCD.

The International Business component of the Guadalajara Semester program provides for the two-weeks intensive Spanish study module followed by six weeks of study and internship.

Prof. Josafat Curti from the Spanish Program in the MSCD Department of Modern Languages and Dr. Larry Lopez from the Management Department of the School of Business will work with Prof. Javier Orozco from the University of Guadalajara to coordinate the travel, academic and cultural activities of the program. They will work under the auspices of the Institute for International Studies and Services and the MSCD Language and Cultural Institute.

The program plan to use an international airline to and from Mexico City as well as visit Mexico City, Teotihuacan, Taxco, Xochimilco and Guadalajara.

Copyright 2003-2004 | Metropolitan State College of Denver