UNITED STATES STANDARDS VALIDATE THE EDUCATIONAL QUALITY AND ECONOMIC STRENGTH OF THE INTER AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO
THE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION HAS BEEN A PILLAR IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARIBBEAN COUNTRY
Founded in 1912, the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico (UIPR), a non-profit higher education institution, is solidly positioned, with an extensive distance education program, academically validated by important agencies including the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, and with financial strength highly rated by the accrediting house Standard and Poor's.
The UIPR has nine campuses and two professional schools, Law and Optometry, located around Puerto Rico. In addition, it has study centers in Panama and Florida. This educational institution integrates a wide academic offer with programs ranging from technical certificates to doctorates. The Inter-American University offers in-person and distance programs in both Spanish and English. To learn about the centenary educational institution, we spoke with its president, Manuel J. Fernós, who has served in this position for 22 consecutive years, becoming the person who has led the university for the longest time.
TELL US MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. WHAT ARE THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES THAT YOU HAVE HAD IN RECENT YEARS?
The university was founded by a Texas minister, and it was originally called the Polytechnic Institute; then in the 1950s, it changed its name to Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, honoring its name because we are a bridge between the two great cultures of the Americas.
The Inter-American University of Puerto Rico is a private institution. For over 100 years it has been dedicated to preparing students in all branches of humanistic, social and scientific endeavors and has served as a cultural bridge between North America and Latin America.
Currently, the system is made up of nine campuses around Puerto Rico, in addition to having the only bilingual School of Optometry in the Caribbean. We also obtain very good results in the bar exam for the Law School students.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced most of the higher education institutions in the hemisphere to offer education only in a virtual format for the new academic cycle and, although private universities in Puerto Rico are somewhat familiar with online courses, not all of their academic programs were adequately adapted to this virtual teaching method.
Without being aware of it, we began preparing for this pandemic a long time ago. Since I first joined the university and throughout my presidency, I realized the importance of using technology in the teaching-learning process. I was able to see the importance of the Internet and since then, we have taken upon the task of training the faculty and staff and developing plans that emphasize the use of technology in the classroom, as well as online teaching. Through the last few years, we have been the leaders in online education.
Other institutions may have up to 10 online programs approved by the Puerto Rico Board of Education; Inter-American has 70. Among these, there are associate, bachelor's, master's degrees, and even doctorates. So when the pandemic hit, there was already a culture of online teaching, albeit asynchronous. Before the pandemic, half of the students took at least one course in this modality.
Asynchronous means that it is not real-time. When the pandemic hit and the quarantine was decreed for a week, we closed for two weeks, to train the faculty to use the Blackboard platform. More than 250 in-person programs were adapted into live virtual classrooms. It was very interesting to see our achievements when it came to student retention. From March 2020 to the present day, it improved by 2% compared to previous years. We did not lose students due to the pandemic because we were able to teach the classes with mastery of this new technology. After all, many of the teachers were very well trained. This has been a success and we are preparing for the post-pandemic era. Through surveys and institutional research, we observed that more than half of the students, 56%, expressed high satisfaction with the virtual classrooms and live teaching. What I see is that once the pandemic is over, countless of them will be finding advantages in virtual classes, because they can learn from home, or if it is difficult for them to get to the University, therefore there will be a combination of both modalities. The teacher will be in the classroom, but now each of them is a virtual room with a computer, camera, microphone, and electronic board, so that they can be in the classroom with a certain number of face-to-face students and others can take the live, distance course. The teacher will be watching everyone through the screen.
For the next semester, we plan to return to the classroom, but it will not be overnight because we are going to require everyone to be vaccinated, and if not, the option that remains is to take the class remotely. There will be hybrid courses: simultaneously in-person and distance learning. This is here to stay. The academic offering of graduate studies includes more than 100 academic programs, which include master's degrees and more than 20 different doctorates classified in the disciplines of Education, Business and Management Development, Psychology, Theological Studies and History.
We must explain that we are a private non-profit university. The financial crisis in Puerto Rico has not affected the university too much, even though it is immersed in its economy.
The economic crisis on the Island has caused us to seek further US collaboration, since it has led to a reduction of students seeking university studies in Puerto Rico. From having 48 thousand students decades ago, today we have somewhat less, but the university has established a gradual strategy with the administrative and teaching staff, to maintain a balanced budget, which we have achieved with great success. We maintain the Standard & Poor’s A- ranking in Puerto Rico, because at Inter-American University we have managed to budget and adjust to the correct size of operations. We continue to improve the number of professional accreditations that our academic curriculum has, currently reaching 112. We strive to keep the Middle States accreditation we first received in 1944. Today we maintain academic quality with fiscal solidity, which is easy to say, but difficult to achieve.
TOPIC 2. BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE US. THE US IS A BENCHMARK IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR WORLDWIDE.
The Auxiliary Secretary of Foreign Relations of the Department of State announced an initiative to "promote an increased enrollment of international students in higher education institutions," through a contract of $ 47,500 with the Virtual Educa Puerto Rico Foundation, that seeks to promote the island as an academic destination.
HOW RELEVANT IS THE US FOR THIS UNIVERSITY? HOW OPEN ARE YOU TO OBTAIN STRATEGIC ALLIANCES WITH INSTITUTIONS IN THE US? WHAT ARE THE SHORT AND MEDIUM-TERMGOALS THAT HAVE BEEN PROPOSED TO CONTINUE POSITIONING THE UNIVERSITY IN A LEADERSHIP POSITION?
In general, most of the students are Puerto Rican except for the Metro campus, which has an English
program that currently has 500 students, out of a total of 6,000, who are not from Puerto Rico. That campus, besides the English program, has a great academic offer which attracts people from the Americas, Virgin Islands, and many from the US. I must emphasize that in our School of Optometry 90% of students are from abroad, belonging to 24 different ethnic groups; only 10% are from Puerto Rico, but this is a very particular case. We have a multi-faceted plan to increase foreign students. It is called Internationalization at home, and it is an attractive curriculum that leads our students to acquire a global viewpoint. We are currently preparing dormitories for foreign students in the Metropolitan Campus. We also have a university center in Panama, in the capital’s ‘Ciudad del Saber’ or City of Knowledge; another is being built in Orlando, Florida, and we will soon open one in Philadelphia. We are expanding and moving abroad. The other facet is internationalization through online classes, because this has brought us new students from different parts of the world. It allows us to teach classes in any of the US states. Anyone can enroll worldwide, as military personnel often do, because they are positioned on different bases throughout the world.
The University is interested in internationalization; we have many collaboration agreements with different countries, for student mobility. For example, with Poland; with the Fundación Ortega y Gasset in Toledo and the Complutense from Madrid, both from Spain; Oxford, in the United Kingdom; and Belgrano from Argentina, among others. All these institutions have student exchanges, so they can go to those universities and complement their academic training.
In addition, our recruitment team visits the Orlando and Panama educational events to attract students. They will also visit countries in Central America and the US. On the other hand, we have a recruitment office in Philadelphia, and they visit different high schools.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE MOST DIFFICULT MOMENTS, THE CHALLENGES YOU OVERCAME, THAT YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF? WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE UNIVERSITY'S MAIN CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OFTHE EDUCATIONALSECTORAND THE COUNTRYINGENERAL?
CAN YOU GIVE US OTHER KEY DATA SUCH AS THE NUMBER OF GRADUATESYOU HAVEANNUALLY,THE INCOME WITH WHICH THE UNIVERSITY CLOSED IN 2020, AND THE EXPECTATIONS FOR 2021?
WHAT ARE YOUR FINAL COMMENTS ABOUT PUERTO RICO AND ITS ENORMOUS POTENTIAL IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR, AND HOW WOULD YOU INVITE THE INFLUENTIAL READERS OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES TO VISIT THIS COUNTRY?
We are placing great emphasis on all programs dedicated to training entrepreneurs, also in health and technology. We are prioritizing entrepreneurs because we believe that Puerto Rico has the potential to emerge from this crisis, but must break with a culture of dependency. For the time being, federal funds are important to face the crisis, but great care must be taken because we should not foster a culture of dependency. That is why the Inter-American University wants to project itself as a leader, where all graduates have the knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurial attitude this country needs. We are living in a time where the elderly population is increasing and we anticipate great demand for health services for which we must prepare human resources. We must face the reality of the pandemic and reinforce everything that has to do with health: medical technology programs and nurses that are vital for our country.
Our nursing schools are so prestigious that US hospitals come here to recruit, because of the quality of our academic programs and because bilingual staff is trained and some of them are enrolled in the English nursing program.
We project the University as one that has academic and fiscal strength. History has placed in our hands
the responsibility of being agents of change, we are in need of a new type of entrepreneur graduates with strong leadership qualities.