The Center for Advanced Studies on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean (Spanish: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe or simply CEAPRC) is a private institute housed in the former San Ildefonso Conciliar Seminary in Old San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico that offers graduate studies in arts and philosophy. The center is currently accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and it publishes La Revista del Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe.
History
Under Ricardo Alegría
It was incorporated on February 28, 1968, by Pablo Casals, Luis Muñoz Marín, Roberto Busó Carrasquillo, and Jaime Benítez. However, it remained inactive and without organization until 1976, when Ricardo Alegría made a request before the Council on Higher Education of Puerto Rico to transform the center into an academic institution.
With the CEAPRC, Alegría intended for a small institution that possessed an intimate environment, with intellectual growth and the promotion of a region-wide Caribbean emphasis as its focus. In her 2002 book, Carmen Dolores Hernández credited the CEAPRC (which she labels an "experimental" institution "unparalleled in the island or the Antilles") with breaking away from the "cultural euro centrism" of higher education in Puerto Rico. The curriculum was intended to be different from that of the universities. Puerto Rico and the Antilles received a central role with historic archeology, local literature and history in the spotlight. Besides numerous local sites, archeological digs were also held by students in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Foreign professors such as Irving Rouse, Peter Roe, Mario Veloz Maggiolo, Sally Price and Lourdes Domínguez also collaborated with the CEAPRC. Students were allowed to take courses from other universities. On at least one occasion, a course was added due to student initiative.
The institution has had collaboration agreements with Universidad San Carlos (Guatemala), Universidad Autónoma (Dominican Republic, which included joint work with professors José Alcántara Almánzar, Pedro Vergés, Carlos Andújar and Marcio Veloz Maggiolo) and Universidad de Veracruz (Mexico). The classes of Puerto Rican Literature and History, Puerto Rican Society, Puerto Rican the Caribbean during the XX Century and Puerto Rican Culture were mandatory, while several electives involving literature, cinema, racial studies, law, Arts and other practices were offered. The CEAPRC's faculty worked on a contractual basis, allowing a revolving door of professors to come and go. During its early years it grew to include figures like Arturo Morales Carrión, José Arsenio Torres, Juan Rodríguez Cruz, Eugenio Fernández Méndez, Luis Díaz Soler, José Ramón de la Torre, María Teresa Babín, Carmelo Rosario Natal, Carmen M. Ramos de Santiago, Francisco López Cruz, Lidio Cruz Monclova, Andrés Sánchez Tarniella, Ernesto Jaime Ruiz de la Mata, Edgar Martínez Masdeu, Gervasio García, Arturo Santana, Héctor Campos Parsi, Luis Nieves Falcón and Esther Melón. Local figures such as Mela Pons (Alegría's wife) and Juan Antonio Corretjer, were involved in hosting conferences. Alegría himself taught the Culture of Puerto Rico course for decades. His work with the CEAPRC reached foreign academics such as Ángel Rama, who on August 10, 1983, noted in a letter that it had been a topic of discussion in a reunion held between him and Maldonado Denia at Paris. During Alegría's tenure as director, the institution had an "open doors" policy. Among those that the CEAPRC has hosted is a chief of the Soshone tribe.
Collaboration with foreign institutions brought the likes of Irving Rouse (Yale), Douglas Newton (Metropolitan Museum), Gordon Willey (Harvard), Jean-Batiste Romain (State University of Haiti), George Kubler (Yale), Nina S. de Friedman (Instituto de Antropología de Colombia), Eduardo Arcila Farías (Colegio de México), William Bascom (University of California), Manuel Moreno Fraginals (Universidad de la Havana), Wande Abimbola (University of Ife), Carlos Rama (Universidad de Barcelona) and Manuel García Arévalo (Universidad Nacional de Santo Domingo). Since then, Ángel López Cantós, Antonio Lorente, Pedro Vergés, Lourdes Domínguez, Lorenzo Rubio, Jesús Urrea, Juan Tena Ibarra, Demetrio Ramos, Jorge Febles and Lucio Mijares Pérez, among others have served as invited professors.