The LXXXII Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Organization of Higher Education (IOHE) took place October 21, 2019, in Bogota, Colombia thanks to the collaboration of the exiting Colombian Regional Vice President, Dr. Germán Anzola, Rector of the University of Applied and Environmental Sciences (U.D.C.A).
Additionally, on October 22 the XXXIX General Assembly of IOHE members also met in the city of Bogota. Due to the recent protests and demonstrations transpiring in Chile, to which the IOHE aligns itself in solidarity with, the organization’s President, Oscar Garrido, Rector of the University of los Lagos, had to, unfortunately, cancel his trip to Colombia. Therefore, the assembly was presided over by the recently elected Vice President of the IOHE and Regional Vice President of Mexico, Dra. Sara Ladrón de Guevara, Rectora of the University Veracruzana.
During this meeting, the positions of the following regional Vice-Presidencies were ratified: Central America, Dr. Eduardo Flores, Rector of the University of Panam; Colombia, Dra. Maritza Rondón, Rectora of the Cooperative University of Colombia; Southern Cone, Dra. María Delfina Veiravé, Rectora of the University of the Northeast of Buenos Aires; México, Dra. Sara Ladrón de Guevara, Rectora of the University Veracruzana and the renewal of a second mandate of the Vice Presidency of the Andean Countries for Dr. Mauro Toscanini, Rector of the Catholic University of Santiago of Guayaquil.
Likewise, also renewed for a second mandate were President Oscar Garrido, the Executive Secretary-General, Dr. David Julien and Treasurer, Guy Lefebvre, Vice-Chancellor of International Affairs and of the Francophonie of the University of Montreal. In this regard, the Secretary-General noted, “It is a great honor for me to have received the member’s vote of confidence to continue for a second mandate. The entire Secretariat team is behind all the positive results that we have presented this past year and we are very motivated going into 2020.”
On another hand, the Secretary-General presented the following year’s Plan of Activities for 2020, with a focus on the IOHE’s 40th anniversary. The Plan includes a series of academic activities and a celebration that will take place throughout the next year and will culminate with a weeklong celebration in the month of October in Mexico, where the next General Assembly of IOHE members will take place.
The General Assembly also included the presentation of the Gilles Boulet and EMULIES awards. The Gilles Boulet award is an annual recognition that has been given since 1999 to professionals that stand out for their work in the promotion of contemporary university management, aimed at rewarding the best professional work or intervention project carried out within the framework of the IGLU course. This year, the honor was awarded to Dra. María Verónica Peña Seminario from the Catholic University of Santiago of Guayaquil.
The EMULIES award aims to recognize the work and contributions in the field of gender equity in leadership in the fields of teaching, research, and management in higher education. This year, the honor was awarded to Dra. Pepi Patrón of the Pontificia Catholic University of Peru.
The full and complete report of the President and Executive Secretary-General of the IOHE that were presented at the General Assembly can be found here.
Finally, we would like to inform you that the Seventh Edition of the Conference of the Americas on International Education, which took place October 23rd through October 25th, had 950 participants from 36 countries from the American continent and delegation from other countries, such as China, Germany, Hungary, New Zealand, amongst many others. This great mobility of representatives of higher education from the Americas at CAIE allowed for not only debate and reflection on this edition’s theme, “Hubs of Knowledge and Innovation: synergies for development”, but also for the creation of networks between continental educational institutions and the rest of the world.
