Section Annual Reports
2024
LASA Student Section Annual Report
Student Section Business Meeting
On June 14, 2024, at 5:40 PM COT, the Student Section held its annual business meeting, attended by three members. Laura Cucchi and Veronica Valencia Gonzalez will continue as co-chairs until June 30, 2024. Koby Hansen was nominated and will assume the chair position on July 1, 2024.
Membership Growth
We actively campaigned to expand our membership, and we are delighted to report that the Student Section now has 81 members, reflecting significant growth.
Panels and Member Achievements
In 2024, we organized panels at the LASA Congress on funding and publishing. We highlighted member achievements on social media through monthly calls for accomplishments.
Travel Grant Award
This term, we awarded a travel grant to Ana Lucia Pelaez Echeverría from the University of Cambridge for her work on hydroelectric conflicts in Guatemala. The selection committee included Laura Cucchi and Veronica Valencia Gonzalez.
Collaboration with the US Library of Congress
We worked with the US Library of Congress on a focus group to understand students' bibliographical research needs. Participants shared experiences and provided feedback on improving the HLAS resource.
Plans for the Upcoming Year
In the coming year, we will continue to highlight the achievements of our section members and spotlight those entering the job market. The upcoming year the section will have two paper awards—one for undergraduates and one for graduates. Additionally, we aim to host workshops and working groups to support our members' professional development.
2023
1. Business Meeting
The Annual LASA Student Section business meeting was held on Friday, May 26, 2023, at 5:15pm (PDT). There were 2 people present for the LASA Student Section business meeting.
Currently the LASA Student Section is co-lead by Laura Cucchi and Veronica Valencia Gonzalez who are co-chairs through May 31, 2024. The co-chairs are in a leadership position for a period of two terms. Elections for their replacements will be held during the upcoming term period.
The Student Section currently has 45 members meaning that there has been a decrease in members. We will be attempting a campaign to increase memberships during the upcoming term. Some ideas to increase membership in the section include having workshops for members on topics of interest for members (e.g., funding, publishing, academic job market, non-academic job market, etc.).
Another idea is to send out a survey to current and former members to find out more about their needs and interests. Additionally, we will also contact the other sections to promote the Student Section among their members.
During the previous term we highlighted member achievements on social media. We sent out monthly calls asking members to share their accomplishments which were then shared with the rest of the members. We will continue the practice of sharing member accomplishments this upcoming term.
We were in communication with Jennifer Cárcamo, Student Representative, University of California, Los Angeles to collaborate with LASA's student mentoring initiative. We also worked with the environmental section to coordinate a panel sponsored by our section at the 2023 Congress.
2. Awards:
Finally, this past term we also had the section’s student paper competition which selected two winners: the winners are Dalton Price from Oxford University and Jacqueline Martinez Cena from the University of California - Irvine.
The student paper section committee consisted of Emily Jordan Taylor, Laura Cucchi, and Veronica Valencia Gonzalez
2022
Business Meeting Student Section – LASA 2022
The meeting took place on May 6 with three participants.
New Co-chairs:
The two new co-chairs are Laura Cucchi and Verónica Valencia.
Report:
In this two-year term we developed a new website and newsletter, which are still running, organized a panel at the congress each year focusing on professional development, and set up the best paper award.
Best paper award:
The winners of the 2022 best paper award were Mike Levine and Emily Taylor. The selection was made by selection committee composed by the board of the section and one external jury.
2021
Reporte reunión sección estudiantil –Congreso LASA online 2021
La sección estudiantil de LASA tuvo su reunión de sección en el marco del congreso online LASA 2021, con la participación del chair (Oscar Aponte), la secretaria (María Paula Andrade), y cuatro miembros de la sección.
Los temas discutidos fueron los siguientes:
• Informe de número de miembros y presupuesto de la sección.
• Presentación de la misión y visión de la sección elaborados por la nueva mesa directiva.
• Página web.
• Boletín informativo.
• Premios e incentivos de la sección para LASA 2022 en San Francisco.
• Preguntas y sugerencias de los miembros de la sección.
La reunión llegó a las siguientes conclusiones:
• La participación en la reunión fue baja porque todas las business meetings estaban organizadas a la misma hora. Una sugerencia de los participantes fue que para próximos congresos no se hicieran las reuniones de sección a la misma hora, ya que los miembros de la sección estudiantil, por lo general, son también miembros de otras secciones.
• El boletín informativo y la página web se mantendrán como mecanismos informativos de la sección con sus miembros y otras personas participantes de los espacios de LASA.
• La mesa directiva de la sección enviará en el otoño de 2021 una encuesta a todos los miembros de la sección en búsqueda de sugerencias y comentarios acerca de la visión y misión elaboradas para la sección. Esta encuesta se planea como alternativa frente a la baja participación que hubo de la business meeting.
• Se espera que para la próxima reunión de la sección, en el congreso LASA 2022, se pueda abrir participación a más personas en la mesa directiva (tesorero, responsable de comunicación, responsable de premios, entre otros).
No se llevaron a cabo elecciones, ya que la presente mesa directiva fue elegida solo hace un año. Tampoco hay ganadores de premios este año, ya que la participación en la convocatoria de premio a la mejor ponencia fue baja. Se espera que para LASA 2022 el premio ya comience a funcionar.
Como continuidad a la discusión llevada a cabo en la mesa redonda organizada por la sección, en el otoño de 2021 realizaremos una nueva mesa redonda virtual para discutir elementos relacionados con el mercado laboral y las oportunidades para estudiantes graduados en las Américas.
Elaborado por: Oscar Aponte, chair de la sección estudiantil de LASA.
2019
The Students Section (SSection) of LASA was created after the last congress in New York, making LASA 2019 its fourth. At this moment, Section count with 117 members. Soon it will publish a call for candidates to all its leadership positions.
The current section’s executives are:
- Marcus Rocha (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, chair)
- Amy Kennemore (University of California,Treasurer)
Executive Council members
- María de los Ángeles Picone (Emory University) - two years
- Dámaso Rabanal (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) - two years
- Maria Cristina monsalve (University of Maryland) - one year
SSection organized two panels: Increasing controls and accountability: institutional change in Brazil and Identities, social movements, public policies, and the law in Latin America; one roundtable Section Roundtable entitled 'De la tesis al libro: sobre la publicación y otros desafíos del inicio de la carrera professional, and one Business Section meeting.
Together, these activities attracted roughly 120 people. All panels were organized by section members and selected trough a call for proposals.