Apply to the Yucatec Maya Program
Program Information /
How to Apply /
Fees & Funding /
Students' Experiences
Program Information
Enrollment is limited to 20 students, 10 in each level. Students are encouraged to apply early. This is a rigorous course held in an intense climate (averaging around 100°F a day). Students should be flexible and be able to cope with heat.
Level I
June 2 - July 12, 2008
Level I begins with two and a half weeks of intensive classroom instruction, six hours each day, on the UNC - Chapel Hill campus. that students will learn basic Mayan grammar and usage before traveling to Yucatán for the remainder of the course. Dr. David Mora-Marin, Professor of Linguistics at UNC-CH teach Level I at UNC. After the two and a half weeks, Level I students will travel to the colonial city of Mérida, the Puuc region, and then to the historic city of Valladolid and the nearby village of Xocen, where they will attend classes and spend time experiencing village life. During the course, Mayan scholars and anthropologists will lead trips to archaeological and colonial sites. This counts as 6 credit hours and 160 contact hours.
Level II
June 2 - July 12, 2008
Level II begins with an intensive six hours a day of classroom instruction. Teaching will focus on further developing conversational skills and grammar. Recording and playback facilities will be used as well as laboratory instruction in Mérida. Linguist Ismael May May and Dr. John Tuxill will teach the course. While in Mérida, Level II students will live with Mexican host families. There will be time to explore many facets of Meridian life. During the third week of the program, students in Level II in Mérida will have the advantage of being part of a series of afternoon workshops, given by some of the field's top scholars. Level II students will spend the remaining three weeks living in the villages of Santa Elena in the Puuc region, Valladolid, and in Xocen. This counts as 6 credit hours and 140 contact hours.
Level III
Students in the third level of the Yucatec Maya summer intensive course will be taught by Mayan native speaker and linguist, Fidencio Briseño Chel. Fidencio Briseño Chel is an expert in many indigenous languages spoken in Mexico and Guatemala and is presently working in the Office of Investigations of the National Institute of Indigenous Languages and at INAH in Mérida (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia. For the past three years he has taught Level II of the UNC-CH and Duke Yucatec Maya language program. Students will live in and use as their home base the ecological reserve and archaeological site of Kaxil Kiuic located in the Bolonchen District of the Puuc Region of Yucatan. ( Website: kiuic. org/English_f/index.htm.) There they will attend formal classes four hours daily as well as work with native speakers on site. Maria Luisa Gongora, a native speaker and a cultural arts community specialist at the “Unidad Regional de Culturas Populares” as well as Felicio Sanchez, a Mayan dramatist will travel to Kiuic to give two workshops to the students during the first two weeks. During those first two weeks, in consultation with Fidencio, Maria Luisa and Feliciano, the student will choose a topic to research in the Mayan villages near Kiuic where they will live during weeks, three, four and five. It will be the students’ responsibility to come back to Kiwic the final week of the program with their research topic completed. It will then be discussed and evaluated in Maya by their peers, their professor and Ismael May May, the professor of the second level course. Both Fidencio Breseño Chel and Maria Luisa Gongora will oversee the students’ work and progress in the villages. Most of the final week will be spent in formal language review and working together to analyze the projects. Students will be evaluated on their projects as well as their Yucatec Maya writing, reading and comprehension skills. Click here to download the program brochurefor level III.
How to Apply
Applications are invited from anyone who wishes to study Yucatec Maya. Click here to download the program brochure and here for the online application form on the Study Abroad website. A non-refundable application fee of $50 must be paid to the UNC Study Abroad Office. Deadline: March 15, 2008.If you have further questions about the application, please contact the Study Abroad Office, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB 3130, FedEx Global Education Center, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3130. Telephone: (919) 962-7002. Fax: (919) 962-2262.
Fees & Funding
The program fee for either Level I or Level II is approximately US $3200.00. Costs are based on estimates and are subject to change. Housing at UNC-CH, airfare, some meals and incidentals are not included in program fee. Students will need to consider additional expenses (snacks, laundry, taxi/bus fare, souvenirs, etc.) and plan accordingly.Please note that if you are applying for FLAS funding, you will need to fill out a separate funding application. Graduate students at UNC, Duke and other graduate schools in the United States may be eligible to apply for FLAS funding for the Yucatec Maya Program. For more information on FLAS guidelines and application, please visit our graduate funding page. If FLAS is available at your university, please contact your FLAS administrator to see if you are eligible for funding before applying to Duke or UNC-CH. It is possible to apply to more than one school for FLAS funding.
We encourage advanced undergraduates from all universities to apply to the program. Student loans are available for this summer program, so please contact your school for information on funding.
Students' Experiences
This program is open for all students whether from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke or any other institution.Please click here to read about the experience of one of the students of the program.
