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ASU to launch new degree program in transborder studies


School of Transborder Studies
April 05, 2012

The School of Transborder Studies will launch a new Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Transborder Studies starting this fall. The program, designed for the post-baccalaureate student, will offer training that integrates the complex economic, political, educational, ecological, social and cultural issues of Mexican-origin and Latino/a populations of the southwest Northern American region of the United States and Northern Mexico. 

Master’s students will be able to specialize in transborder migration, health and applied social policy, transborder media and expressive culture and transborder culture, language and learning. In addition to a research-based focus, the program offers mentoring from leading scholars in these and related fields. The school also has strong ties to community agencies and partners that provide extensive internship opportunities.  

Carlos Vélez-Ibañez, Regents’ Professor and director, views the internships as a “key component of the program since they also reflect the program’s mission to the transborder region as a space and place for study by providing students opportunities to situate themselves in this space engaged in situated learning experiences related to their professional interest within the program’s priorities. We are also hoping to provide scholarship support to qualified students.”

The new program will offer foundational courses in the fall that include the history of the U.S and Mexico populations of the region, as well as a course in epistemologies and transborder thought. “MAS students will discover, examine, and reinterpret the transborder world and then apply this knowledge to better serve the Latino population with whom they work,” says Norma Valenzuela, an academic success specialist excited to be working with prospective students interested in the program.

The 30-credit MAS program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences can be completed in 18 months and will offer late afternoon classes structured in 7-1/2 week sessions in classrooms conveniently located on the Tempe campus.

Applications for the inaugural MAS program are being accepted for fall 2012. More information is available at sts.asu.edu or by contacting Norma Valenzuelaa at (480) 965-5091.

The School of Transborder Studies was established Sept. 1, 2010. Its mission is to develop cutting-edge transborder knowledge for and with the populations of the U.S. Southwest-northern Mexico region, and beyond, through socially embedded scholarship, applied research and rigorous instruction.