He was part of the group of scholars who founded the Latin American Studies Association in 1966 to bring together scholars from many disciplines into one organization.Howard F. Cline, "The Latin American Studies Association: A Summary Survey with Appendix," Latin American Research Review, Vol. 2. No. 1 (Autumn 1966), pp. 57-79. He served as an adviser to the Ford Foundation, which aided the formation of LASA. He subsequently became LASA's first president. According to Richard McGee Morse, who participated in LASA’s founding, “If we wanted to set proper standards for Latin American studies, if we were concerned with the mix of intellectual curiosity and moral commitment, or of sciences and humanities (indeed, Science and Humanity), the founding president had to be Kal Silvert.”Morse, “Kalman H. Silvert”, p. 506.
