The Regional Assembly – Mexico of the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE) was held on March 15, 2016 at Universidad de Guadalajara (UdeG). Dr. David Julien, Executive Director of IOHE was present at the meeting in which important agreements at the regional and international levels were signed.
The President of the host institution and IOHE Regional President, M.A. Tonatiuh Bravo Padilla, welcomed the presence of Dr. Julien, while he received the representatives of the participating institutions.
“We are honored by the presence of Dr. Julien, as well as representatives of this organization, which has 37 years of experience promoting cooperation and development between institutions of higher education in the Americas,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Julien made reference to the relevance of the Regional Vice-Presidency whose membership consists of 55 universities and 4 associations with an active role in the development of the activities offered by the organization.
This year, IOHE concluded the implementation of its Strategic Guidelines 2011-2016, in the context of numerous successes in its implementation, in this context, the organization is building the pathway to consolidate and innovate itself in this second decade of the 21st century.
Consequently, the Board of Directors Meeting to be held on April 22nd in Victoria, Canada, will begin the process for delineating the future of IOHE, through the definition of the Strategic Guidelines 2017-2022 in which the entire membership will be consulted.
On the other hand, the meeting served as a framework for signing the General Agreement on Academic Cooperation between IOHE, the Regional Observatory on Internationalization and Networking in Tertiary Education in Latin America (OBIRET), the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) and the Universidad de Guadalajara.
“OBIRET has identified some axes for its work plan and others already started, for example, the first survey is being done on subjects related to the internationalization in higher education institutions,” said Dr. Julien.
In the framework of this visit, the Executive Director of IOHE handed International Accreditations to 10 Law Programs offered at different campuses of Universidad de Guadalajara as this institution already has 80% of its programs accredited at the national level. “It is an unprecedented effort in the Latin American in which an university possesses an international assessment and certification of 34 programs,” acknowledged Dr. Julien.