• As in previous occasions, in this fourth version, Universidad de Santiago proposes to hold a great academic gathering to share works and foster an interdisciplinary dialogue.

The next International Congress of Science, Technologies and Cultures will be held at Universidad de Santiago between October 9th and 12th, 2015. Our University has decided to continue with this important initiative, focusing on three objectives: contributing to dialogue and exchange between different disciplines; encouraging the debate on intellectual work looking towards the future of Latin America and the world; and generating a big coordination movement involving people and institutions that produce and spread knowledge to develop intellectual productive clusters.

The congress will be held as a product of preexisting intellectual networks, with the purpose of strengthening and widening them, ensuring the projection of a civil intellectual society that shall rise as a voice in contemporary debates.

The organizing committee invites you to present symposium proposals for this important activity. The deadline for the reception of proposals is June 30, 2014, and they shall be sent to grancongreso2015@gmail.com.

For further information regarding registrations, proposals and activities, check http://www.internacionaldelconocimiento.org/documentos/2015/convocatoria-IV-congreso-ingles.pdf

• Representatives of renowned universities showed themselves very interested in establishing agreements and exchange programs in fields like nanoscience, food technology, didactics of mathematics and Latin American studies, among others.

On Monday 17th, our University was visited by representatives of thirteen renowned British universities that showed their deep interest in creating academic links and establishing mutual collaboration agreements.

Particularly, the most attractive fields for the European universities were research in mathematics or in Latin American studies, nanoscience, food technology, technology transfer and English language practice. In these areas, significant collaboration opportunities were open in the short and the medium term.

Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation of Universidad de Santiago, who also took part in the meeting with the British academics and academics from our university, said that this meeting “allows us to have great expectations with respect to potential studies conducted together with some of the most prominent universities of the United Kingdom.”

“The importance of this visit lies in the experience and international recognition of the participating institutions. Universities like Edinburgh or Sheffield are well positioned in world rankings and the work they do is in agreement with our own lines of research,” he added.

According to Vice President Bustos, the fact that our University is recognized for its research work “is one of the factors that attracted the British delegation.”

“Nowadays, our University is in the fourth place in the national rankings of research productivity, publications and awarded projects. These developments, in all areas of knowledge, must have persuaded these British institutions into coming to Universidad de Santiago and proposing academic exchange programs, collaborative works and research,” he concluded.

For her part, Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations of our University said that the British academics had “excellent” references of Universidad de Santiago “and they knew that we are a complete and complex institution that is well positioned in international rankings; therefore, their visit was not by chance: it is the result of our prestige as university.”

According to Carol Johnson, this first meeting is consistent with Universidad de Santiago’s internationalization policy that has the goal -among others- of establishing links with the best institutions in the world.

“This contact was very promising. It will open many doors to our students and academics, and also, it allows us to put in practice our ambitious internationalization policy,” she added.

At the meeting, that was held at the Rectoría building, Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation; Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations; Rafael Labarca, Dean of the Faculty of Science; Jaime Eugenín, Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Programs of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology; Francisco Castañeda, professor at the Faculty of Administration and Economics; Fernando Estenssoro, professor at IDEA; Gastón Herrera, professor at the School of Architecture and Roxana Orrego, professor at the Department of Linguistics and Literature, were present.

The authorities and academics of the following thirteen universities were present at the meeting: University of Ulster, Durham University, University of Sheffield, University of Edinburgh, University of Warwick, University of Bath, Bristol University, Middlesex University, University of Kent, Northumbria University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cranfield University and University of South Wales.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• On April 04th, quantitative genetics researchers from all over the country will meet at Universidad the Santiago. This scientific discipline could be a significant contribution towards improving species and generating new products.

Transgenic products are a controversial issue; however, little is said about techniques that would help to avoid their use, which results may have a positive impact on the different productive sectors of the country. This help is quantitative genetics, a field that gave rise to the “1st Population Genetics Conference: bridging the genotype-phenotype gap.”

This activity will be held on April 04th, when experts coming from all over the country will meet to discuss about this matter, its significance, implications and progress.

The conference was organized by Dr. Francisco Cubillos, researcher at the Applied Biotechnology and Microbiology Laboratory (Lamap, its acronym in Spanish) of the Food Science and Technology Research Center (CECTA, its acronym in Spanish) of Universidad de Santiago. According to the academic, this opportunity arises from the lack of similar activities in Chile. “Through this conference- he says- we seek to create a community that contributes to optimize the work that we are doing.”

Regarding the participants, Dr. Cubillos says “they are scientists working at the quantitative genetics field, particularly, in narrowing the gap between genotype, our differences at a genetic level, and phenotype, the traits observed in a particular population.”

With respect to the status of this line of work in the country, Dr. Cubillos thinks that it is highly developed, since studies are carried out in different areas: plants, fish, algae and yeasts.

Dr. Cubillos explains that the former is possible as quantitative genetics “is a very friendly technique to improve a species or to enhance the generation of a new product.” “What we do is to try to understand the existing genetic variation and incorporate it so as to create, for example, individuals able to resist a disease or some environmental stress factors, using only what already exists in nature,” he adds.

Regarding the expectations for the conference, the researcher says that he expects “to have debates on the issues, to foster the creation of collaboration networks and partnerships, to give support to students and to continue with this activity in the future.”

Some of the renowned researchers that will take part in the conference are Patricio Hinrichsen, from Grupo Vides Inia La Platina, Levi Mansur, from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Roberto Nespolo, from Universidad Austral, among others. Universidad de Santiago’s representatives will be Dr. Rodrigo Vidal and Dr. Renato Chávez, from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, in addition to the researchers of the yeast-research area of the University.

The conference will be held on Friday, April 04th, between 09:00 and 18:00 hr., at Sala de Conferencias A, (Conference Room A) in the Centro de Eventos Nacionales e Internacionales of the Vice presidency of Outreach and Engagement, located at Las Sophoras #175.

Registration contact e-mail: francisco.cubillos.r@usach.cl
 
Translated by Marcela Contreras

• During the 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal held in Mexico, a team of professionals from Universidad de Santiago led by Manuel Arrieta, Vice-President of Student Support Services, shared about the different support programs promoted by the University, with great interest from peer institutions of the continent.

On November 13th, 14th and 15th the 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal (III Clabes) was held in Mexico City, where Manuel Arrieta, Vice-President of Student Support Services, together with other six professionals from Universidad de Santiago presented the different initiatives developed by Universidad de Santiago in order to support and promote students’ permanence.
 
The five topics presented by our University in this international meeting called the attention of the foreign universities represented on that occasion.
 
One of the topics presented was related to the experience and positive results of the Program for Inclusive Access, Equity and Permanence (Paiep, in Spanish) of Universidad de Santiago. This presentation was given by Rafael Miranda, Coordinator of the Subprogram “Developing Your Talents” (“Desarrollando Tus Talentos”).
 
Also, Beatriz Painepán, a professional of the University’s Health Promotion Department gave the presentation “Academic Integration of Engineering First-Year Students with the support of a course on study methods.”
 
The Vice-President of Student Support Services, Manuel Arrieta, expressed his satisfaction before the University’s presentations given at the Latin-American Conference and he stressed the significant role of Universidad de Santiago in promoting students’ permanence.
 
“Our representatives had an excellent participation in the meeting and they were able to catch the interest of other institutions’ representatives,” he said.
 
“In comparison with other higher education institutions, we were able to see that our University is very well positioned regarding matters like permanence promotion. Now, the challenge that we face is to put these initiatives together under a criterion of systematic team work,” he added.
 
According to Manuel Arrieta, it is also worth to mention the fact that Universidad de Santiago is the only institution that this year, in the context of the International Conference, conducted a survey of 375 former students who dropped out their studies for different reasons, in order to find what these reasons were and create then mechanisms to prevent this situation.
 
Teaching Actions to Promote Students’ Permanence
 
Alicia Pérez, Teaching Quality and Management Coordinator of the Teaching Innovation Unit (UNIE, in Spanish), participated in the meeting in Mexico and shared her reflection “on university teachers’ practices as mechanisms to reduce students’ dropout rates.”
 
She said that her presentation caught the audience’s attention “because none of the other presentations addressed the students’ dropout from the teaching- practice point of view.”
 
Most of the speakers approached students’ drop out from the point of view of leveling or tutorial courses; however, if we consider that students’ dropout has multiple causes, we see teaching practice as one of them,” she added.
 
“If teachers are not able to deal with a varied student audience using motivating strategies to achieve a participative learning, students’ dropout will continue,” Alicia Pérez concluded.
 
Alfa-GUIA Project
 
The 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal is an international activity organized by the Alfa-GUIA (Integral University Management of Dropout) project, co-funded by the European Union, which gathers together higher education institutions from 16 countries (12 from Latin-America and 4 from Europe), among which Universidad de Talca and Universidad de Santiago are the Chilean representatives.
 
“Our University has promoted this initiative from the beginning (2011), and due to the fact that the project concludes next year and there is still much work to do, we would like to continue with it, although this time we will not be co-funded by the European Union,” Vice-President Arrieta said.
 
The 4th Conference has been scheduled for next year in Medellín, Colombia. Meanwhile, the work published on the program web page http://www.alfaguia.org will be continued.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• As in previous occasions, in this fourth version, Universidad de Santiago proposes to hold a great academic gathering to share works and foster an interdisciplinary dialogue.

The next International Congress of Science, Technologies and Cultures will be held at Universidad de Santiago between October 9th and 12th, 2015. Our University has decided to continue with this important initiative, focusing on three objectives: contributing to dialogue and exchange between different disciplines; encouraging the debate on intellectual work looking towards the future of Latin America and the world; and generating a big coordination movement involving people and institutions that produce and spread knowledge to develop intellectual productive clusters.

The congress will be held as a product of preexisting intellectual networks, with the purpose of strengthening and widening them, ensuring the projection of a civil intellectual society that shall rise as a voice in contemporary debates.

The organizing committee invites you to present symposium proposals for this important activity. The deadline for the reception of proposals is June 30, 2014, and they shall be sent to grancongreso2015@gmail.com.

For further information regarding registrations, proposals and activities, check http://www.internacionaldelconocimiento.org/documentos/2015/convocatoria-IV-congreso-ingles.pdf

• Representatives of renowned universities showed themselves very interested in establishing agreements and exchange programs in fields like nanoscience, food technology, didactics of mathematics and Latin American studies, among others.

On Monday 17th, our University was visited by representatives of thirteen renowned British universities that showed their deep interest in creating academic links and establishing mutual collaboration agreements.

Particularly, the most attractive fields for the European universities were research in mathematics or in Latin American studies, nanoscience, food technology, technology transfer and English language practice. In these areas, significant collaboration opportunities were open in the short and the medium term.

Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation of Universidad de Santiago, who also took part in the meeting with the British academics and academics from our university, said that this meeting “allows us to have great expectations with respect to potential studies conducted together with some of the most prominent universities of the United Kingdom.”

“The importance of this visit lies in the experience and international recognition of the participating institutions. Universities like Edinburgh or Sheffield are well positioned in world rankings and the work they do is in agreement with our own lines of research,” he added.

According to Vice President Bustos, the fact that our University is recognized for its research work “is one of the factors that attracted the British delegation.”

“Nowadays, our University is in the fourth place in the national rankings of research productivity, publications and awarded projects. These developments, in all areas of knowledge, must have persuaded these British institutions into coming to Universidad de Santiago and proposing academic exchange programs, collaborative works and research,” he concluded.

For her part, Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations of our University said that the British academics had “excellent” references of Universidad de Santiago “and they knew that we are a complete and complex institution that is well positioned in international rankings; therefore, their visit was not by chance: it is the result of our prestige as university.”

According to Carol Johnson, this first meeting is consistent with Universidad de Santiago’s internationalization policy that has the goal -among others- of establishing links with the best institutions in the world.

“This contact was very promising. It will open many doors to our students and academics, and also, it allows us to put in practice our ambitious internationalization policy,” she added.

At the meeting, that was held at the Rectoría building, Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation; Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations; Rafael Labarca, Dean of the Faculty of Science; Jaime Eugenín, Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Programs of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology; Francisco Castañeda, professor at the Faculty of Administration and Economics; Fernando Estenssoro, professor at IDEA; Gastón Herrera, professor at the School of Architecture and Roxana Orrego, professor at the Department of Linguistics and Literature, were present.

The authorities and academics of the following thirteen universities were present at the meeting: University of Ulster, Durham University, University of Sheffield, University of Edinburgh, University of Warwick, University of Bath, Bristol University, Middlesex University, University of Kent, Northumbria University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cranfield University and University of South Wales.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• On April 04th, quantitative genetics researchers from all over the country will meet at Universidad the Santiago. This scientific discipline could be a significant contribution towards improving species and generating new products.

Transgenic products are a controversial issue; however, little is said about techniques that would help to avoid their use, which results may have a positive impact on the different productive sectors of the country. This help is quantitative genetics, a field that gave rise to the “1st Population Genetics Conference: bridging the genotype-phenotype gap.”

This activity will be held on April 04th, when experts coming from all over the country will meet to discuss about this matter, its significance, implications and progress.

The conference was organized by Dr. Francisco Cubillos, researcher at the Applied Biotechnology and Microbiology Laboratory (Lamap, its acronym in Spanish) of the Food Science and Technology Research Center (CECTA, its acronym in Spanish) of Universidad de Santiago. According to the academic, this opportunity arises from the lack of similar activities in Chile. “Through this conference- he says- we seek to create a community that contributes to optimize the work that we are doing.”

Regarding the participants, Dr. Cubillos says “they are scientists working at the quantitative genetics field, particularly, in narrowing the gap between genotype, our differences at a genetic level, and phenotype, the traits observed in a particular population.”

With respect to the status of this line of work in the country, Dr. Cubillos thinks that it is highly developed, since studies are carried out in different areas: plants, fish, algae and yeasts.

Dr. Cubillos explains that the former is possible as quantitative genetics “is a very friendly technique to improve a species or to enhance the generation of a new product.” “What we do is to try to understand the existing genetic variation and incorporate it so as to create, for example, individuals able to resist a disease or some environmental stress factors, using only what already exists in nature,” he adds.

Regarding the expectations for the conference, the researcher says that he expects “to have debates on the issues, to foster the creation of collaboration networks and partnerships, to give support to students and to continue with this activity in the future.”

Some of the renowned researchers that will take part in the conference are Patricio Hinrichsen, from Grupo Vides Inia La Platina, Levi Mansur, from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Roberto Nespolo, from Universidad Austral, among others. Universidad de Santiago’s representatives will be Dr. Rodrigo Vidal and Dr. Renato Chávez, from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology, in addition to the researchers of the yeast-research area of the University.

The conference will be held on Friday, April 04th, between 09:00 and 18:00 hr., at Sala de Conferencias A, (Conference Room A) in the Centro de Eventos Nacionales e Internacionales of the Vice presidency of Outreach and Engagement, located at Las Sophoras #175.

Registration contact e-mail: francisco.cubillos.r@usach.cl
 
Translated by Marcela Contreras

• During the 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal held in Mexico, a team of professionals from Universidad de Santiago led by Manuel Arrieta, Vice-President of Student Support Services, shared about the different support programs promoted by the University, with great interest from peer institutions of the continent.

On November 13th, 14th and 15th the 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal (III Clabes) was held in Mexico City, where Manuel Arrieta, Vice-President of Student Support Services, together with other six professionals from Universidad de Santiago presented the different initiatives developed by Universidad de Santiago in order to support and promote students’ permanence.
 
The five topics presented by our University in this international meeting called the attention of the foreign universities represented on that occasion.
 
One of the topics presented was related to the experience and positive results of the Program for Inclusive Access, Equity and Permanence (Paiep, in Spanish) of Universidad de Santiago. This presentation was given by Rafael Miranda, Coordinator of the Subprogram “Developing Your Talents” (“Desarrollando Tus Talentos”).
 
Also, Beatriz Painepán, a professional of the University’s Health Promotion Department gave the presentation “Academic Integration of Engineering First-Year Students with the support of a course on study methods.”
 
The Vice-President of Student Support Services, Manuel Arrieta, expressed his satisfaction before the University’s presentations given at the Latin-American Conference and he stressed the significant role of Universidad de Santiago in promoting students’ permanence.
 
“Our representatives had an excellent participation in the meeting and they were able to catch the interest of other institutions’ representatives,” he said.
 
“In comparison with other higher education institutions, we were able to see that our University is very well positioned regarding matters like permanence promotion. Now, the challenge that we face is to put these initiatives together under a criterion of systematic team work,” he added.
 
According to Manuel Arrieta, it is also worth to mention the fact that Universidad de Santiago is the only institution that this year, in the context of the International Conference, conducted a survey of 375 former students who dropped out their studies for different reasons, in order to find what these reasons were and create then mechanisms to prevent this situation.
 
Teaching Actions to Promote Students’ Permanence
 
Alicia Pérez, Teaching Quality and Management Coordinator of the Teaching Innovation Unit (UNIE, in Spanish), participated in the meeting in Mexico and shared her reflection “on university teachers’ practices as mechanisms to reduce students’ dropout rates.”
 
She said that her presentation caught the audience’s attention “because none of the other presentations addressed the students’ dropout from the teaching- practice point of view.”
 
Most of the speakers approached students’ drop out from the point of view of leveling or tutorial courses; however, if we consider that students’ dropout has multiple causes, we see teaching practice as one of them,” she added.
 
“If teachers are not able to deal with a varied student audience using motivating strategies to achieve a participative learning, students’ dropout will continue,” Alicia Pérez concluded.
 
Alfa-GUIA Project
 
The 3rd Latin-American Conference on Higher Education Withdrawal is an international activity organized by the Alfa-GUIA (Integral University Management of Dropout) project, co-funded by the European Union, which gathers together higher education institutions from 16 countries (12 from Latin-America and 4 from Europe), among which Universidad de Talca and Universidad de Santiago are the Chilean representatives.
 
“Our University has promoted this initiative from the beginning (2011), and due to the fact that the project concludes next year and there is still much work to do, we would like to continue with it, although this time we will not be co-funded by the European Union,” Vice-President Arrieta said.
 
The 4th Conference has been scheduled for next year in Medellín, Colombia. Meanwhile, the work published on the program web page http://www.alfaguia.org will be continued.

Translated by Marcela Contreras

• As in previous occasions, in this fourth version, Universidad de Santiago proposes to hold a great academic gathering to share works and foster an interdisciplinary dialogue.

The next International Congress of Science, Technologies and Cultures will be held at Universidad de Santiago between October 9th and 12th, 2015. Our University has decided to continue with this important initiative, focusing on three objectives: contributing to dialogue and exchange between different disciplines; encouraging the debate on intellectual work looking towards the future of Latin America and the world; and generating a big coordination movement involving people and institutions that produce and spread knowledge to develop intellectual productive clusters.

The congress will be held as a product of preexisting intellectual networks, with the purpose of strengthening and widening them, ensuring the projection of a civil intellectual society that shall rise as a voice in contemporary debates.

The organizing committee invites you to present symposium proposals for this important activity. The deadline for the reception of proposals is June 30, 2014, and they shall be sent to grancongreso2015@gmail.com.

For further information regarding registrations, proposals and activities, check http://www.internacionaldelconocimiento.org/documentos/2015/convocatoria-IV-congreso-ingles.pdf

• Representatives of renowned universities showed themselves very interested in establishing agreements and exchange programs in fields like nanoscience, food technology, didactics of mathematics and Latin American studies, among others.

On Monday 17th, our University was visited by representatives of thirteen renowned British universities that showed their deep interest in creating academic links and establishing mutual collaboration agreements.

Particularly, the most attractive fields for the European universities were research in mathematics or in Latin American studies, nanoscience, food technology, technology transfer and English language practice. In these areas, significant collaboration opportunities were open in the short and the medium term.

Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation of Universidad de Santiago, who also took part in the meeting with the British academics and academics from our university, said that this meeting “allows us to have great expectations with respect to potential studies conducted together with some of the most prominent universities of the United Kingdom.”

“The importance of this visit lies in the experience and international recognition of the participating institutions. Universities like Edinburgh or Sheffield are well positioned in world rankings and the work they do is in agreement with our own lines of research,” he added.

According to Vice President Bustos, the fact that our University is recognized for its research work “is one of the factors that attracted the British delegation.”

“Nowadays, our University is in the fourth place in the national rankings of research productivity, publications and awarded projects. These developments, in all areas of knowledge, must have persuaded these British institutions into coming to Universidad de Santiago and proposing academic exchange programs, collaborative works and research,” he concluded.

For her part, Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations of our University said that the British academics had “excellent” references of Universidad de Santiago “and they knew that we are a complete and complex institution that is well positioned in international rankings; therefore, their visit was not by chance: it is the result of our prestige as university.”

According to Carol Johnson, this first meeting is consistent with Universidad de Santiago’s internationalization policy that has the goal -among others- of establishing links with the best institutions in the world.

“This contact was very promising. It will open many doors to our students and academics, and also, it allows us to put in practice our ambitious internationalization policy,” she added.

At the meeting, that was held at the Rectoría building, Óscar Bustos, Vice President of Research, Development and Innovation; Carol Johnson, Head of the Department of International and Inter-University Relations; Rafael Labarca, Dean of the Faculty of Science; Jaime Eugenín, Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Programs of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology; Francisco Castañeda, professor at the Faculty of Administration and Economics; Fernando Estenssoro, professor at IDEA; Gastón Herrera, professor at the School of Architecture and Roxana Orrego, professor at the Department of Linguistics and Literature, were present.

The authorities and academics of the following thirteen universities were present at the meeting: University of Ulster, Durham University, University of Sheffield, University of Edinburgh, University of Warwick, University of Bath, Bristol University, Middlesex University, University of Kent, Northumbria University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cranfield University and University of South Wales.

Translated by Marcela Contreras