Two Crazy Days at UANL

La Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León is a pretty neat place. I wish I had more pictures, but I didn’t have time, this trip. I feel like I had time for nothing but attending conference sessions and social events, and trying very hard to understand all the rapid-fire Spanish being spoken everywhere around me. I was also sort of the leader of this delegation, two of whom spoke very little Spanish and two more of whom were grad students. I worried about my five companions a lot. Where are they, did they get on the bus to the hotel, are they going to make it to the restaurant, why aren’t they in the session, did they find the meeting room, are they having fun, etc.

Lesson #1: I don’t want to be a politician. This kind of thing is exhausting, but not in a healthy, feel-the-burn way.

When I say “UANL,” I’m really talking about the Facultad de Psicología (psych dept) there. They have their own mini-campus, set several miles from the main campus, located near a large hospital, for historical reasons that I don’t quite remember. This mini-campus is less opulent than most U.S. universities, but green and homey. Semitropical trees and ground cover, birds, fountains, and a dog or two — friendly strays adopted unofficially by everyone, who now reportedly bark and snarl at strangers wandering onto the campus after hours — stone benches, raised walkways, and lots of students. I snuck out of a session on Thursday to meander around the little quad, sit on the stone benches, and go check out a soccer match between the psych dept’s “Jefes” (Chiefs) and the team from some other part of the university. Chiefs? Yup, with a statue of a very 1950s Indian Chief. But I guess when virtually everyone in a nation is part Native American, you can have names like that without fear of a PC backlash.

The Psych Department has its own soccer team? Yes. They were playing in a half-dirt half-grass field off to the side of the campus area, surrounded by weed-grown industrial and abandoned lots on two sides, and the sounds of a very loud highway not too far in the distance; but they had uniforms, a handful of cheerleading undergrad supporters, and referrees. And they were pretty good.

As in other visits, there were students selling custom-made (and flagranty trademark-infringing) T-shirts and other psychology-department-themed items, raising money for something-or-other. There were also some tables set up, this time, by the traveling “Indio” vendors, hawking a mix of truly indigenous and suspiciously mass-produced-looking handicrafts. It was pretty charming. I bought gifts for my wife and her best friend.

Almost immediately upon arriving, I started seeing what looked like student government campaign signs. Vote for Francisco. Arriba Manuel. Vota X El Papito de Johnny in scotch tape block letters on some guy’s polo shirt (no actual “vote for Pedro” shirts, sadly). The professors later explained that this was a handsomeness/personality/academic competition called “Mr. Psigología.” The candidates solicited votes and promoted their qualifications, then everyone went on a weekend to a dance club, where the beauty-pageant-esque judging and voting would happen. The voting was by fellow students. The judging was by a panel of psychology faculty. I hope my guests were not offended when I started laughing out loud. I tried to explain how wonderful I found this evidence of community sentiment and familiarity among the profs and students, but that this would never happen at our university, at least not with faculty involvement. I don’t know the word for “lawsuit” in Spanish.

They fed us, of course. Boy did they feed us. What do they eat in Monterrey? Imagine the basics of Mexican food — beans, rice, tortillas (flour; this is the North), chiles, salsas, eggs, nopales, cheeses — and add lots and lots of meat, mostly beef. Really good beef. I need to join a gym, now. Wednesday night they even had a Rondalla during our cocktail reception, with a conjunto of very talented young men (like 15 of them) serenading us with lovely traditional songs. My colleague Amy leaned over to me and said, “I just saw Danny giving cash to those guys and pointing at me!” Danny was one of the grad students along with us. Sure enough, the musicians sang Las Mañanitas for Amy, because it was her birthday. Way cool.

The presentations were surprisingly good. One Dr. Etienne Mullet, from Tolouse University (France) talked about measuring reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Unsurprisingly, the Hutus feel more reconciled than the Tutsis do. Another guy, from Colombia, spoke about the creation of “peace observers” and “peace observatories” in Bogotá and other places, where violence levels had risen to insane levels (4 to 10 times higher than major cities in the U.S., whose levels are already higher than most cities in Europe, by roughly the same amount). The homicide rates were so high (89 per 100,000 in Bogotá, I think; and an insane 280 or something in the most violent town) that these community invervention specialists started programs like teaching thieves how to rob people without killing them. Yeah. Not gonna be visiting Colombia any time soon.

The Colombia guy made me crazy, by going over his time. 45 freaking minutes. So, of course, when it was my turn to speak, people were late for lunch, and I was the one standing in front of them. There seemed to be no hard feelings, however. I guess this is still Latin America. Felicitously, due to my attempt to shorten my presentation for the situation, as well as my overpreparation and careful choice of words for presenting in Spanish, it was probably my best presentation ever ;)

In summary, it was exhausting but generally enjoyable and productive. We were all struck by the feeling of cameraderie and community-style closeness among the faculty and students, and we’d love to have our University develop something similar, though we have no idea if that’s realistic. We were impressed with much of the research that is happening there. We are hopeful for future collaborations (the real reason for the trip), possibly with faculty from Ciudad Juárez, Mérida, and Argentina. Good experience.