News
With the aim of increasing academic and teacher mobility, in addition to interaction through collaborative projects and job opportunities with the University of Illinois, authorities from the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) visited the facilities of the Chicago campus of the foreign educational institution.
The University of Illinois is ranked among the best, mainly in relation to the medical and health area, so the meeting held by the rector of the UAQ, Teresa García Gasca and Flavia Loarca Piña, Secretary of Research and Graduate Studies, seeks to establish the bases to strengthen the bonds of collaboration between both institutions.
According to García Gasca, the North American institution is made up of three campuses: Chicago, Champaign and Springfield. In Chicago, he explained, they are mainly the schools of the health area; On the other hand, in Springfield there are the social and humanities areas; while in Champaign the agricultural and nutrition areas are located; Therefore, the visit was made to the first space that is made up of 30,000 students.
The idea, he explained, is that undergraduate students can carry out summer stays, from the UAQ to the UI and vice versa; previous academic justification by both houses of study.
“We talked about the different strategies that we can carry out to encourage this collaboration of mobility, there are several interesting projects that also have to do with being able to do projects together, where each university contributes a resource,” he said.
The rector explained that the links with the University of Illinois have been in force for some time, through student and professor exchanges, thanks to the work of Elvira González de Mejía, who was a research professor at UAQ several years ago and currently works at the institution. education of that North American state. However, over time, the number of exchanges has decreased, mainly as a consequence of the decrease in the resources provided by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).
The elaboration of the proposed projects will be in charge of the Department of Cooperation and Academic Mobility, headed by Adriana Medellín Gómez. On this occasion, three schools were visited: Public Health, Pharmacy and Applied Health Sciences.
“The UIC College of Applied Health Sciences is a school where the areas of human nutrition, physiotherapy, sports sciences are located, and we also agreed to establish these collaborative links. They are interested in receiving professors who wish to do their postgraduate studies there because they have doctorates. in physiotherapy and sports science, which is very attractive to us because this area is still in the process of growth here; and also that they do their sabbaticals there, so each school has its own visions and needs. We are going to work with the links to put together the corresponding projects”.
Finally, García Gasca reported that this link has been widely used by the Faculties of Chemistry and Natural Sciences; however, the intention is to open up the possibilities for other academic units.