September 27, 2011
AmCham Panama Meets with LASPAU to Discuss Improving Education in Panama
Peter DeShazo, Executive Director of LASPAU: Academic & Professional Programs for the Americas, affiliated with Harvard University; and Ms. Amy Whitish-Temple, LASPAU’s Program Development Officer for Panama, met with AmCham Panama’s Executive Director C.E Maurice Belanger and other Amcham members to discuss ways to strengthen education in Panama using LASPAU’s academic and professional training programs. Also present at the meeting were Ms. Jilma Batista of Solusoft, and Ms. Italia Vergara Arenas, Managing Director of the American English Overseas Center.
Founded in 1964 as a cooperative enterprise between Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and the Colombian student educational loan agency ICETEX, LASPAU is the leading educational exchange organization focused solely on Latin America and the Caribbean. The non-profit organization designs and implements academic and professional enrichment programs to meet the complex social, political, and economic challenges facing the Americas. LASPAU is dedicated to the development of human capital in the region through work in three primary areas: Scholarship Administration, Teaching and Learning Initiatives and Testing and Assessment.
The purpose of LASPAU’s visit with AmCham Panama was to establish contact with distinguished members of AmCham’s business community in an effort to increase private sector participation in LASPAU’s proposed programs and scholarships in Panama.
DeShazo believes that the formation of strategic alliances between the private sector, the Panamanian government and centers of higher education in Panama would make an important contribution to academic innovation and the development of needed human resources. He stressed LASPAU’s interest in partnering with AmCham Panama to help further these objectives. English teaching is another area that DeShazo and WhitishTemple identified as a key priority to broaden opportunities for larger sectors of society.
Increasingly, LASPAU’s programs have focused on science and technology and the promotion of innovation in the Latin American region. Over the past 47 years, LASPAU has dedicated itself to faculty development in institutions of higher learning in the Americas, with impressive results. Since 1964, the more than 20,000 academics, scientists and professionals that received grants or participated in programs administered by LASPAU have made enormous contributions to society. Of those 20,000, approximately 500 were Panamanians.
To learn more about LASPAU, please visit its website: www.laspau.harvard.edu.
About Peter DeShazo
Ambassador Peter DeShazo is the Executive Director of LASPAU. DeShazo was director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. from 2004 to 2010. Before joining CSIS, he was a member of the career U.S. Senior Foreign Service, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs and Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States. During his Foreign Service career, Ambassador DeShazo directed the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the State Department and was Director of Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. Information Agency. He served in U.S. embassies and consulates in La Paz, Medellin, Santiago, Panama City, Caracas, and Tel Aviv.