Guatemala Project records

Record Group

Identifier: UA-2.9.5.9

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The majority of the material deals with administrative concerns such as the budget, contracts, details of meetings, administrative notes, documents pertaining to various organizations and correspondence. Also included in the collection are documents pertaining to the development of proposals, programs and projects. Finally, the collection contains the reports from various projects and organizations as well as publications generated from the research. An addition to the collection was made in May 2006. Much of the collection is in Spanish.

Dates

Creation: 1960 - 1968

Creator

Michigan State University. Guatemala Project (Organization)

Language of Materials

Some of the records are in Spanish.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research. Personnel files restricted for privacy.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Historical Note

Michigan State University's Guatemala Project lasted from 1962 until 1965. The project was underwritten by the U.S. Agency for International Development and was administered by Michigan State University's College of Education and Office of International Studies and Programs. Dr. Richard O. Niehoff headed the program in East Lansing while Dr. Karl Hereford was the onsite coordinator in Guatemala for most of the project.

The project was located at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala and focused its attention on education in Guatemala, but it expanded to include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. The Instituto de Investigaciones y Mejoramiento Educativo (IIME), created to run the project, was staffed equally by representatives of MSU and the University of San Carlos.

The IIME studied the situation, diagnosed problems in the educational systems and attempted to provide leadership for the governmental agencies and universities in order to improve education in Central America. Twenty-four basic studies and nine independent studies were undertaken generating 120 manuscripts and working papers, five doctoral dissertations, and six theses.