Last week, the Santiago Center was invited to present its book “Columbia University and Chile: Over 100 Years of History” at the General Bernardo O’Higgins School in Maipú as part of the school's Career Month, celebrated throughout May in honor of International Worker’s Day. Representing the Center was Carla Magri, Development and Communications Officer and chief editor of the book, which chronicles more than a century of the relationship between Chile and Columbia University.
Magri engaged with 5th-grade students who gathered at the school library, guided by teacher Sofía Pradines. They discussed the book production process and explored the first chapter, which highlights the life, work, and legacy of Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral. Mistral’s first book, Desolación, was published in 1922 by what was then the Institute of Spanish Studies at Columbia (currently the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures). Mistral was also a visiting professor of Literature at Barnard College in the early 1930s and was later awarded an honorary doctorate by Columbia during its 1954 bicentennial celebrations.
The students also analyzed and discussed Mistral's text “La instrucción de la mujer” (The Education of Women), written at the age of 16 and published in the newspaper La Voz de Elqui in 1906.
The Santiago Center’s book, published in September 2022, tells the story of how, over more than a century, recipients of National Awards, leaders of Chile’s suffragist movement, the country’s first Nobel laureate, renowned engineers and doctors who championed transformative public policies, pioneering astronomers, and Chile’s very own “antipoet” have left their mark at Columbia and in Chile. This book brings to light the life stories of these individuals and emphasizes the profound impact of co-creating knowledge across national boundaries.
