Cuba Isn't Off-Limits to Saint Leo

By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO The Tampa Tribune

Aug 2, 2007

TAMPA - A dozen Saint Leo University faculty members will leave for a 10-day research trip to Cuba next week.

Last year in Florida, that would have been an unremarkable statement.

But as of July 2006, state lawmakers banned Florida's public universities from spending money on travel to any nation labeled by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism, Cuba included. They also banned private universities - such as Saint Leo, a Catholic university in Pasco County - from using state money for such trips.

That makes Saint Leo's trip most remarkable now, among Florida universities.

"I'm really jealous that they're going," said Noel Smith, curator of Latin American and Caribbean art at the University of South Florida's Graphicstudio. She is organizing a fall sculpture exhibition with a Cuban curator via e-mail since she can't travel to Cuba.

One of several co-plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the ban that is set for trial in December, Smith applauds Saint Leo's trip: "They're very lucky that they're able to do this - and very smart."

Saint Leo spokeswoman Susan Shoulet said the professors are tapping privately funded faculty development money for the trip: "They were very careful that they had taken a look at all the regulations, to the letter of the law."

The group, including university President Arthur F. Kirk Jr., will arrive in Havana on Aug. 11 for nine days of meetings with a broad range of Cuban officials and professors. They will also meet with Catholic Church officials and Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of acting President Raúl Castro and the director of Cuba's National Center for Sexual Education.

"That one is for health care administration," Shoulet said. "If you look at GNP for Cuba, it's very low. But if you look at U.N. quality of life for health care, Cuba is rated well in the global marketplace. So she has firsthand knowledge of that."

The group will meet with chief Havana historian Eusebio Leal. And it will delve into some personal history of Saint Leo's historical ties with Cuba and those of Assistant Professor Jose Coll, who teaches social work at Saint Leo.

The group will visit Coll's hometown of Bejucal. He first traveled there after 25 years of exile two years ago on another research trip and decided after his return to try to organize a larger visit for Saint Leo professors.

The professors will return and make presentations on their whirlwind trip.

Law 'Very Destructive'

For other researchers, the state ban on most academic travel to Cuba this past year has had far-reaching effects on long-term research projects, according to Tom Auxter, president of the United Faculty of Florida. The group represents higher-education faculty across the state and surveyed members affected by the year-old law. He knows four dozen researchers whose work was affected.

"It's very destructive," Auxter said. "And how in the world we're protecting ourselves from terrorists, it's impossible to imagine. Anything that makes you dumber does not protect you from anybody."

The law, sponsored by Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, and Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Indialantic, never mentions Cuba. Instead, its ban targets travel to nations "designated by the United States Department of State as a state sponsor of terrorism." Today, there are five on that list: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Rivera said he was inspired to file the bill after two Florida International University professors were arrested early last year on charges that they acted as illegal foreign agents for the Cuban government. The couple pleaded guilty to lesser charges in December.

"I don't think Florida taxpayers want their money used to subsidize terrorist regimes," said Rivera, whose bill also bans "non-state funds made available to state universities" for such travel.

Just before the bill passed last year, Erik Camayd, an FIU associate professor of Spanish, had won a privately funded grant through FIU's Cuban Research Institute to travel to Cuba. For a decade, he worked on a research project about Cuba's Presidio Modelo that has housed political prisoners throughout its history from 1926 to 1967.

He has researched political prisoners held there since the rule of Cuban President Gerardo Machado, who ordered its construction. He studied Fidel Castro's imprisonment there from 1953 to 1955. He interviewed former political prisoners in exile.

And he had successfully secured a sabbatical semester last fall to make the trip to visit the prison, now a museum, to interview aging former prison employees.

"I was ready. Now my research is at a standstill," said Camayd, who was counting on the book project to aid a hoped-for promotion to full professor next year. "Without this major project, I'm reduced to doing short projects, talks and articles. And forget about the book project. I don't see with this ban how I'm going to be able to do it."

Rivera said such projects should not be limited by the law he sponsored if a private foundation is willing to fund them directly.

"Foundations don't usually give money to the professor. They like to have it funded through the university," Rivera said.

'Should Be Ashamed'

As for Saint Leo's trip, Rivera is succinct: "Given the level of persecution against the Catholic Church in Cuba, Saint Leo should be ashamed of itself for traveling to Cuba."

Shoulet said the timing of the trip, a year after Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raúl, will offer the professors a "once-in-a-lifetime" learning experience.

"It's obvious that Cuba is in transition right now" Shoulet said. "In the next few years, it's going to change entirely. And that, for faculty, who are curious people, makes it a fascinating study."