An Expanded Campus Council was held at the Bicentennial Campus of the UIS Socorro Headquarters, a space for dialogue and collective construction that brought together administrators, advisors, teachers, and members of the university community to reflect on the role of the university in the region.
The event was attended by Professor Gonzalo Alberto Patiño Benavidez, director of the Institute for Regional Outreach and Distance Education (IPRED), and engineer Julio Alfonso Martínez Molina, coordinator of the campus, who highlighted the importance of opening these spaces for meeting to “recognize the progress made and define new paths of work that strengthen the university’s presence in the province.”
The conference revolves around the theme “Configuring territorial agendas with a differential approach: dialogue of knowledge (First phase),” an effort to bring together voices, experiences, and perspectives that strengthen the UIS’s commitment to the development of the province and the construction of more inclusive and sustainable territories. Internationalization, tourism, and technology were also part of the agenda as strategic axes for projecting the region into the future.
During his speech, the director of IPRED highlighted that these types of spaces allow for first-hand knowledge of the work being done at the headquarters in the capital of Comunera, such as the diploma projects with SUREST and the European Union, academic initiatives, and impactful proposals that are developed together with students and communities.
The director explained that these dynamics are in line with the rectorial management plan of Hernán Porras Díaz, who is also a professor, which proposes the so-called Territorial Agendas, conceived as scenarios for outreach and dialogue with the community: “We are promoting work that involves the campuses and includes meetings with different social actors to define how to deploy these dialogues and what content should be prioritized,” he said.
Patiño Benavidez also highlighted the value of internationalization as a two-way process, in which the UIS not only receives knowledge from other cultures, but also contributes from its ecosystems, local knowledge, and cultural wealth. In this regard, he highlighted the participation of American professors in the conference, who shared experiences on sustainable agricultural production models.
“I leave with a pleasant feeling of seeing how interaction with other countries allows us to think of ourselves as part of a global society, which not only receives knowledge but also contributes from the local level. More and more citizens around the world recognize the value of our mission pillars and integrate them into their own lives,” said the director of IPRED.
