Since at least 1908, Costa Rican students have been attending the University of Illinois. Early Costa Rican Illini have included civil engineers, economists, educators, electrical engineers, industrial engineers, journalists, linguists, mechanical engineers, politicians, singers, soccer players, university professors, and a vice president too.
Read on to learn more about early Costa Rican Illini!
Illinois – Costa Rica Connections
In 1941, Journalism Class of 1935 Mr. John L. Strohm (Record Series 26/20/75) visited Costa Rica during a publicity trip across Latin America, and his experiences are documented in photographs and his journals too. Of course, the CIC-AID Rural Development Research Project File (Record Series 8/4/40) includes many land grant university collaborations with other nations including Costa Rica during the 1950s and 1960s. In March 1960, University of Costa Rica personnel director Mr. Enrique Castro visited campus to observe Illinois higher education administration. In 1962, Urban Planning Professor William I. Goodman (Record Series 12/8/26) wrote a report on the urbanization of San Jose, for Costa Rican government. During the early 1970s, Education Professor John A. Easley (Record Series 10/7/24) was working with colleagues in Costa Rica. By the early 1980s, Agriculture Economics Professor Alfred G. Harms (Record Series 8/4/42) international research had included Costa Rica too.
Alumni
Mr. Ulysses Simon Fitzpatrick, (A.B. L A, 1910), of Orange, California, would complete a law degree at Harvard before becoming Vice Consul in Costa Rica from 1913 until 1916. [1] Mr. Fitzpatrick married fellow Illini Ms. Olga Fern Moser, (B.M., 1913), of Sigel, Illinois, and they married in 1917. [2]
When the governments of Costa Rica and Panama had a boundary dispute, the U.S. oversaw the arbitration and a U.S. commission of engineers, including many Illini, were part of the project. Mr. Marion William Grigsby, (B.S. Civil Engineering, 1911), of Cuba, Illinois, worked briefly with Davenport-Muscatine Railroad before becoming a civil engineer with the Costa Rica – Panama Commission in 1912. [3] Mr. Evart Montgomery Watkins, (B.S. Civil Engineering, 1911), of Richmond, Kentucky, originally arrived in Costa Rica as a member of the Commission in 1911. [4] However, the following year he became Assistant Engineer on a railroad based in Port Limon.
Students
The first Costa Rican Illini might have been Electrical Engineering Research Fellow Mr. Antonio Guell, of San Jose. [5] After preparing in public schools in Costa Rica, Mr. Guell completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Louisiana State University, where he worked as an instructor in mechanical engineering and romance languages, until he arrived at Illinois. From 1908 until 1910, Mr. Guell studied the mechanical stress in transmission lines, which he published as Bulletin 54, of the University of Illinois Engineering Experiment Station, in 1912.
But it might have been the 1940s, when regular Costa Rican enrollment first began. Some of the earliest Costa Rican Illini were civil engineers. As early as January 1946, we know that Mr. Alvaro Martinez (B.S. Civil Engineering, 1947) gave a talk on Costa Rica to the Urbana Rotary Club. Just two months later, Mr. Martinez was part of a Latin American student “troupe” which performed skits and songs at the University of Illinois’s 78th celebration. Later that year, he was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club soccer team too. Finally, at the 1947 Spanish Night, as part of the group Los Romanticos, Mr. Martinez and three other students sang several Spanish songs.
In October 1946, Mr. Enrique Cabezas (B.S. Civil Engineering, 1948), performed multiple songs with five other students at the Latin American Coffee Hour at Illini Union.
The first graduate student Costa Rican Illini might have been Mr. Luis A. Truque Gurdian, (M.S. Civil Engineering, 1948), was a member of the 1947 Cosmopolitan Club soccer team. The following semester, in March 1948, Mr. Truque and another student were interviewed by local radio station WILL for their perspectives on contemporary Central America.
During academic year 1954-55, Fulbright student Mr. Óscar Castro Vega came to Illinois to study journalism, and he may have been the first Costa Rican to graduate from a journalism program in the United States too. [6] Before coming to Illinois, Mr. Vega was already an experienced writer, with a career at the newspaper La Republica, and he was Secretary of the Constituent Assembly which wrote the 1949 Costa Rican Constitution. As a student, Mr. Vega had at least one publication in The Daily Illini which was a political analysis of Costa Rican and Nicaraguan relations. After graduation, Mr. Vega worked as a newspaper editor and later served as the Costa Rican ambassador to El Salvador.
In 1957, at the annual International Student Welcome Weekend at Allerton Park, an unidentified Costa Rican led Latin American dancing late into the night, the DI reported.
Of course there were graduate students too, including Mr. Arnoldo Soto (M.S. Civil Engineering, 1956), Mr. Luis Liberman (M.S. Economics, 1970; PhD Economics, 1972), Ms. Alicia Gurdián Fernández, (M.A. Education, 1976), Mr. German Enrique Molina (PhD Leisure Studies, 1999), and Ms. Munia Cabal-Jiménez (PhD Spanish, 2013).
While more documentation about Costa Rican Illini has not been identified yet, enrollment figures document uninterrupted Costa Rican Illini enrollment since at least the University centennial in 1967 and hopefully for much longer too.
Are you a Costa Rican Illini? Do you know someone who is? We’d like to hear from you! Please send us a message or leave a comment below. We want to include you and your story, as we celebrate the first 150 years of the University of Illinois.
Happy First 150 everyone!
References
[] As always, a special thank you to all students whose tireless work for student life and publications (many of which are available at the University Archives) help preserve the memories of Illini everywhere.
[1] “Ulysses Simon Fitzpatrick”, The Semi-Centennial Alumni Record of the University of Illinois, Edited by Franklin W. Scott, page 376.
[2] “Olga Fern Moser”, page 503.
[3] “Maron William Grigsby”, page 419.
[4] “Evart Montgomery Watkins”, page 441.
[5] “Antonio Guell”, page 771.
[6] “El Periodista de la Constituyente“, Primera Plana, March 26, 2009.
