Participants may attend either or both sessions.

Classes are held at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico.

Ideally situated in the heartland, Querétaro has well preserved colonial and early republican structures, an historical center with beautiful period architecture and lively arts. The cultural center of the city has several plazas, jardines, and alameda, and plazuelas with cafes are connected by traffic-free pedestrian walkways. Museums and theatres are located in the center. The city is unusually clean, with a very modern public transport system. While tourism is mostly Mexican nationals, there is a wide selection and price range of restaurant-bars, arts and crafts shops, book stores, and a few dance spots. Santiago de Querétaro celebrates its founding (1512) with a large festival on July 25. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Querétaro has been at the center of Mexico's dramatic moments-colonial mining center, cradle of the 1810 Independence, site of the treaty ending the Mexican-American war in 1848, where Maximilian's empire fell in 1867, and where the revolutionary 1917 constitution was signed.

Querérato, with a population of one million, has comparably low unemployment, due to the strong presence of diverse industries-500 foreign enterprises alone, as well as being the commercial center of the region, with familiar global supermarkets, as well as popular ferias.

Bus connections from the airport in Mexico City to Querétaro are once an hour, with a scenic trip of three hours on comfortable, economic, express buses. Querétaro is strategically located, with easy regional accessibility to pre-Colombian, colonial, and natural sites such as Guanajuato, as well as direct connection to the central valley, including Teotihuacan and Mexico City itself. Querétaro also connects well in other directions such as comfortably with Morelia and Patzcuaro, or Jalapa and Veracruz.

Querétaro is seismically stable, with a mountain climate and low rainfall; monthly average temperature for June is 21C/69F and July is 20C/68F-hottest summer day temperatures can rise to mid 80'sF, but with low humidity, and pleasant evenings.

The Tecnológico de Monterrey in Santiago de Querétaro is our host institution. The Tec of Querétaro offers the most updated technology available. Classrooms are equipped with multimedia systems. There are around 300 computer units with access to the Internet. There are many sport facilities on campus including a swimming pool, and different courts (tennis, basketball, racquetball, and football). All UNISSIST students have access to these facilities and do not need to bring their own sport equipment, the Tec will provide them. Students will also have access to the library that has an extensive collection of books related to Spanish and Latin American literatures and cultures, as well as magazines, cd-roms and videos. The Tec also offers a cultural workshop depending on the interest of the majority (ex. dance, music, ceramics, etc.) The Tec's cafeteria offers good fair and pleasant patio eating. The Tec also manages a fine family system, as well as excursions.

Click for picture of 2003 group.

Pictures of 2005 program:

Spanish Grammer Review
Research Methods in Culture and Literature
Topics in Literature and Culture: Panorama Literario y Filmico del Mundo Hispanio
Spanish American Literature: Desde el Boom hasta el Presente
Symposium in Language, Culture and Literature in Hispanic Film*

Session II:

Spanish Grammar Usage
Spanish American Literature: Short Story
Hispanic American Culture and Civilization
Spanish Literature: 19th Century Novel
Golden Age Literature: Theater
Symposium in Lnaguage, Culture and Literature*

*Students wishing to obtain this one credit course will be assigned to take it in either Session I or II

All literature courses will select works from the M.A. Standard reading lists.

Robert Krueger, Ph.D. (Co-Director); Ivonne Cuadra, Ph.D. (Co-Director); Luis Linares, Ph.D.; and faculty of ITESM Campus Querétaro.

A word about last minute registrations: We frequently receive inquiries shortly before the beginning of the program from students wanting to know if they can still register. While we do not have a calendar date application deadline, we close registration when we have reached the maximum number of participants we are able to serve. This has happened as early as January and registration is traditionally closed for all programs at least by a month before departure. Even if the program is not full, last minute registrations are usually not possible: All participants MUST be admitted to UNI graduate studies before they can be registered, and no admission decision can be made until all required official transcripts have been sent directly by your institution(s) to the UNI Registrar’s Office. (See eligibility.)

Since UNISSIST is an intensive academic program, students who arrive more than one day after the beginning of a session, unless the causes were beyond their control, will not receive credit for that session.  Likewise, permission for early departure from a session will be considered only in emergency situations.