Penn State Hosts Colombian Congress

5-1-97
University Park, Pa. -- Penn State will host the Tenth Congress of the Colombianists Association July 30 to August 3. Gathering scholars from across the globe, the Congress invites researchers to share their findings and celebrate South American culture. Leon Lyday, Penn State department head for Spanish, Italian and Portuguese studies is current president of the Colombianists Association.

The Colombian ambassador to the United States, Juan Carlos Esguerra, will be the keynote speaker. Esguerra holds a master's degree in law from Cornell University and has been a professor of constitutional and administrative law in Colombia. Esguerra was a member of the National Assembly that enacted the 1991 Colombian constitution.

The 1997 Congress will also feature exhibits on Latin American art and pre-Colombian gold treasures at Penn State's Palmer Museum of Art. The exhibits are sponsored by the Organization of American States and the Colombian Gold Museum.

Musical productions will include the opening cantata "Santa Rosalina," by Bruce Trinkley, associate professor of music at Penn State. The cantata was inspired by a painting by the same name by Fernando Botero that is owned by the Palmer Museum.

For more information about the congress, visit the Web at http://www.cde.psu.edu/C&I/ColombianSymposium/; or contact Carmen R. Millan De Benavides at (814) 865-0035; e-mail: dbm110@psu.edu.

**kiw**