Arriving on the faculty at the University of Puget Sound in the 1980s with a dissertation on Southern European politics, Don Share realized that no courses were being taught on Latin America. With the support of his department he offered the first such courses and from 1984 he set up for students in his fall semester class the opportunity to travel to Central America in January. Phil Phibbs was at first worried about the courses and about events on campus dealing with the civil wars in Central America, afraid that both courses and events would become politicized.

The first three trips went to Nicaragua; later trips went to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. Other Puget Sound faculty joined in. For years, the University refused to give administrative support or any subsidy for the trips, insisting that any program for student travel be financially self-sustaining. A number of good students couldn't afford to go, and Don paid his own expenses as well as handled all logistics. Eventually, given the stress and expense, he canceled the trips in the late 1990s.

John Lear joined the department in the 1990s to teach Latin American courses and later, with Don, established the Latin American Studies program. Both professors were on the 1996 trip to Mexico for which the group managed to get credentials to attend the Peace Conference set up in negotiations between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government, the conference at which Subcommandante Marcos made his appearance.

In this year of Don's retirement, the Latin American Studies program is flourishing. The curriculum built from Don and John's courses now offers, after the introductory course, a selection of emphases and courses given by a number of participating faculty with expertise in Latin American Art, Film, Business, Sociology, and Biology. The program also brings an impressive group of speakers to campus. A number of students have taken advantage of the Semester Abroad program in Oaxaca which the University sponsors with Pacific Lutheran University; several Puget Sound faculty have served as directors of that program. With the support of the current administration, the January trip is being reinstated and subsidized, now offering students the chance to go to Cuba.