The Outreach office annually sponsors the Latin American Film Festival in five North Carolina cities. During 1998-1999 approximately 1,000 non-university individuals attended these showings. The film & video collection is accessed by more than 400 people a year who are not related to the university. Over 700 people were present for the program's annual Day of the Dead exhibit and cultural celebration. In 1998-1999 four major public cultural events were co-sponsored by the Duke-UNC Program in Latin American Studies and attended by 1,850 people. Additionally, the program has organized international art exhibits cosponsored with the Duke University Museum. In collaboration with Carrboro's library, Sharon Mújica curated an exhibit of over fifty works by Latin American artists in 1999. She also arranged programming on Latin American issues at the library during the four months of the exhibit.

The program's calendar of events, direct mailing of flyers, newspaper articles, TV announcements and other publicity is generated in order to inform the public of all of our events.

The Outreach Director also serves as an information specialist and a referral service. Hospitals, law firms, businesses, public health officials call for advice and often request guidance in finding interpretation and translation services into Spanish, Portuguese and Amerindian languages. Through the NC Department of Commerce, the Duke-UNC program in Latin America Studies gave assistance for NC Governor Hunt's 1999 trip to Latin America and participated at UNC's Kenan Flagler Business School in the teleconference he held in Mexico. Faculty members are consultants to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and also often advise the local business community as well as the business community in various Latin American countries. Faculty members are prominent in providing information about Latin America to local as well as national and international newspapers, radio and television. During 1998-1999, 25 newspapers articles were written by consortium faculty, 114 interviews given to newspapers, TV and radio and 12 staff and faculty served as resources for local media.

A directory of faculty expertise is updated each year and is now available on line. Many faculty members are willing to serve as consultants to the North Carolina business community and to national, international newspaper, radio and television. The directory can provide you easy access to information on faculty expertise at UNC and Duke Universities.