Trinity University’s Mexico, the Americas, and Spain Program (MAS) has received a $2 million donation from Carlos and Malú Alvarez. This generous gift will support the MAS program which connects the University to the cultures, experiences, curriculum, and enhanced opportunities within the dynamic field of the vibrant Hispanic community surrounding Trinity’s campus.
Carlos and Malú are longstanding philanthropists with a passion for supporting Trinity University’s efforts in the global community. As Carlos states, “Malú and I were involved as founding supporters when the Mexico/Americas/Spain program at Trinity was first launched, and what was true then remains even more so today. The MAS program has leveraged Trinity University’s geographic location in San Antonio, itself a confluence of the cultures of Mexico, Spain and the Americas, with Trinity’s depth of faculty expertise, curricular offerings and programming to help students gain critical knowledge of the global Latino and Hispanic world and culture.” The Carlos and Malú Alvarez Fund for MAS opened doors for students to engage with visiting lecturers and scholars, readings, performances, internships, and workshops, and to become Alvarez Fellows.
“We are incredibly grateful to Carlos and Malú Alvarez for their generous gift,” says Danny J. Anderson, Trinity president. “Carlos and Malú have been strong advocates of the MAS Program since 2005, which promotes and enriches a bilingual and bicultural environment on and off of Trinity’s campus by providing students with opportunities for engagement with life and culture from Latin America, the U.S. Latina/o contexts, Mexico, and Spain.”
MAS students immerse themselves in projects with partner institutions in Mexico, connect with business and internship opportunities in Madrid, Spain, and gain hands-on experience through fieldwork in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Cuba, thanks to MAS’s groundbreaking series of international study programs. Students also have the opportunity to engage in experiential learning in San Antonio and other cities in the United States by working as interns with nonprofits and NGOs that advocate for issues that affect the Hispanic community.
“The MAS Program opens students up to new majors and interests, to perspectives and opportunities they wouldn’t have considered before,” says Spanish professor and MAS director Dania Abreu-Torres, Ph.D. “This is about more than academics or programming; it’s about service, international engagement, and community.”
MAS has become one of the premier interdisciplinary programs at Trinity, and an umbrella organization for efforts of every kind to more deeply engage with the MAS world.
Carlos and Malú Alvarez’s interest and support of higher education, Latin America, world affairs, and Trinity University’s efforts in the global community led to the establishment of the Carlos and Malú Alvarez Fund for MAS in 2005. Through this fund, several named initiatives were created including the designation of the Alvarez Visiting Lecturers and Scholars, an Alvarez Seminar (a series of lectures, readings, performances, films, and workshops that provide an examination of critical themes in the MAS world), and Alvarez Fellows–a summer internship grant program. This new endowment builds upon the legacy of the Alvarez family in bolstering the cultural knowledge of the Latino and Hispanic world at Trinity and in the San Antonio community and will provide enduring support for the MAS program.
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