Boletín

Mtro. Emilio José Baños Ardavín

Rector

As a part of a transcendent event such is the 40th Anniversary (may of 2013), our university community had the opportunity to reflect on all the experiences lived since the foundation of UPAEP, and to weigh them in the present time concerning the institutional mission, aiming to develop a plan to face the challenges of the future.

We want to acknowledge and thank all the students, professors, researchers, university authorities, and other collaborators who actively participated in several forums, consultations, and research activities that contributed to the consolidation of this process. Among the most relevant achievements, stands out the Ideario, which is the compendium of our guidelines, the rethinking process of our university, the structuring of the socially-relevant academic systems, and the assessment of the 2015 Vision, and the Analysis of the Environmental Analysis.

Their contribution has been crucial in nurturing the Governing Board's discernment process, whom we thank for requesting this consultation that allowed to develop the UPAEP's new Vision of the future, consequently, creating the new Institutional development plan.

Rethinking the university leads us to the challenge of permanently innovating. Innovation is the sap that must nourish the university's substantial work in teaching, research, and extension. To stop innovating turns educational entities into sterile and stagnant structures. They are incapable of inspiring new dimensions of knowledge in the pursuit of and defense of Truth, which is the university's continuing aim. Innovation must imbibe from tradition, which we could say is like its genetic burden. We have cultivated tradition based on an identity shaped over time, with the intellectual and testimonial contribution of the university community members, from one generation to the next.

The plan to face new challenges for the future of our university brings us to mind that the tradition-innovation binomial has continued throughout the history of UPAEP. Today, from the imprint of UPAEP’s tradition as an example of social solidarity, the "Vision towards the 50th Anniversary" encourages us to be bold in innovation to respond with greater precision and relevance to the emerging needs of committed talent and relevant ideas that society demands.

Therefore, our university intends to energize its institutional mission: to create streams of thought and form leaders willing to transform society, on the quest for Truth, incorporating faith, science, and life.

In consonance with our philosophy rooted in the Christian Humanism, whose maxim lies in serving to transform, UPAEP wants to focus its work on society's service to be active promoters of the common good. In this perspective, and line with the fifth governing principle of the Vision towards the 50th Anniversary, we have translated its postulates into specific, measurable, and confirmable commitments. Hence we consider the present Institutional Development Plan as the model to ensure institutional alignment within every activity of the university community.

Therefore, let this document be a living instrument to successfully guide our contribution to the construction of this tremendous educational project.

Sincerely,

“Culture in Service of the People”

PRESENTATION

After more than 40 years of its foundation, UPAEP has consolidated an educational project that emerges as a model of authentic social solidarity. Aware of the necessity for continual innovation in the search for Truth and the accomplishment of its mission, it faces the challenges brought by the current social dynamics immersed in the "postmodernity whirlwind."

Under the circumstances mentioned above, the highest authority of UPAEP, the Governing Board, gathered the resolutions from several discussions carried out by the entire university community. As a result of the planned in the 2013-2014 Strategic Route, the assessment and closing of the 2005-2015 Institutional Development Plan. After that, an exercise of reflection and dialogue titled "Rethinking the University" was carried out, and later the XIII International Meeting of Culture Centers took place.

A diagnosis was made to focus the institutional strengths and mission's efforts, based on the needs of the environment that defined the guidelines for the development of the socially-relevant academic systems, known as SAPS, for its initials in Spanish.

Based on these inputs, the Governing Board introduced the guidelines formalized as a Lineamenta document containing the Vision, strategic axes, and governing principles that should guide and inspire UPAEP’s project for the next ten years. The document titled "Vision towards the 50th anniversary" is structured along the four strategic axes of an Institutional Development Plan: Identity, Formation, Teaching, Research, and Extension; Management and Government.

The Institutional Development Plan or “PDI” for its initials in Spanish, is a strategic work-plan designed by the President’s Office with the entire university community. It is an essential tool for decision-making based on prior analysis of the work context, leading the current actions and anticipating their consequences; all this from an approach that allows proper communication and coordination to achieve the institutional effectiveness.

At UPAEP, planning and assessment are self-regulation processes that contribute to fostering community involvement in programs, projects, and actions. Through collegiate bodies and the different departments, our community strengthen links with society, consolidate communication, coordination, and cooperation between academic and management departments, thus providing the appropriate mechanism for making efficient and rational use of the institution's resources. Therefore, UPAEP conceives a planning process defining the guidelines towards the fulfillment of its substantive functions: teaching, research, and extension.

The planning process is based on UPAEP’s General Statutes and Regulations, described in title seven, chapters 1 and 2, which provide articles on the Purpose of Planning and the Institutional Development Plan.