With its goal of sharpening UCF's international focus in mind, the UCF Global Perspectives Office held a forum discussing changes in Latin America in the Student Union's Cape Florida Ballroom Tuesday.
"Being in Florida, Latin America is near and dear to almost everyone's hearts here," said Mark Freeman, public affairs coordinator for the UCF Global Perspectives Office. "Talking about Latin America and U.S./Latin America relations, Florida's the central point."
To kick off the forum, about 50 high school and college students were shown a video conference of the first Diplomacy Briefing Series meeting discussing U.S. relations with Latin America, which took place in December with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Freeman said the forum coincided nicely with the video conference because it touched right on with what Clinton had to say. The video showed specifically what the U.S. thinks democracy is, Freeman said.
Jorge Pinon, who was the speaker for the event, is an energy fellow at the Center for Hemispheric Policy of the University of Miami and a member of the Brookings Institution task force on Cuba.
Pinon talked about changes in Latin American countries, such as Brazil's oil production. It is predicted that by 2015, Brazil will be the largest oil producer, surpassing both Mexico and Venezuela, he said. However, not all changes represent changes in the political and economic models, he said. An example would be people in Cuba being allowed to have cell phones and enter hotels.
"Cuba's an interesting place," Freeman said. "They still have the economic model, like [Pinon] said, but there is a growing interest among people there and here now that Castro is pretty much out of power. His brother is there, but what's next? How is that gonna affect the United States?"
Due to work and weather issues, Ambassador Myles Frechette, a senior associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ray Walser, a senior policy analyst for Latin America, and Maria Elsa Viteri, minister of finance in Ecuador, were not able to attend the forum. However, Freeman said the office would like to invite the speakers back for another forum in the future.
The event was sponsored by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, UCF Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program, UCF Political Science Department, UCF International Services Center, Lawrence J. Chastang and the Chastang Foundation, UCF LIFE and the Global Connections Foundation.
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