“Like loving a beautiful woman, we will forge here on this earth among wheat, science and art La Frontera your University”. So begins our University’s anthem, and in the essence of its words is the spirit that gave it life in 1981, the same spirit which in 40 years has encouraged it to grow, cultivating knowledge, leadership, entrepreneurship anda forward-looking vision.

Located in the heart of the Region of the Araucanía, the Universidad de La Frontera was born and grows through the effort and commitment of its community.Its story began in 1981 when a Government decree merged the regional campuses of the Santiago universities, forming the derived regional universities.

On March 10 of that year, after merging the Temuco campuses of the University of Chile and the State Technical University, the Universidad de La Frontera was born as an autonomous institution, with the mission of contributing to the development of its surroundings and to Chile by generating and disseminating knowledge, educating professionals and postgraduates, fostering the arts and culture, maintaining its commitment to quality and innovation by respecting people, nature and cultural diversity, and building a more just and democratic society.

The UFRO is the heir to a rich academic tradition of universities that left a strong legacy, large campuses and an academic faculty who began to become familiar, on the one hand, with research and, on the other, with professional training.At that time, their managers had to adjust to new structures like the creation of Faculties and to design at least one traditional program in each, to generate the internal entities, statutes, authorities, staff, as well as manage the economic resources.

The University has had four Rectors; the first was Colonel Juan BarrientosVidaurre (1981-1985), a designated authority, whose mission was to promote the Institution.IvánDobudUrqueta (1985-1987) followed him, and he was also designated. Dr. Heinrich von Baer von Lochow (1987-2002) was designated and then elected three times. In 2002, professor Sergio Bravo Escobar (2002-2018) was elected by his peers in 2002 and was re-elected three times. In 2018, Dr. Eduardo Hebel Weiss was elected and has been leading the University since then.

CONSOLIDATION

In its first year as an autonomous institution, the UFRO had 4,773 students and 20 programs in four Faculties.Thirty-five years later there are more than 8,000 students, six Faculties, 45 undergraduate programs and more than 70 graduate programs (doctorates, master’s degrees and specialties), making it a leader in the academic offerings in the Region of the Araucanía.

Recognized as a dynamic institution open to the changes in the national and international context, the Universidad de La Frontera has confidently assumed the new education paradigms, innovating its curricula for top-quality professional training, strengthening scientific research and graduate studies, increasing and diversifying its academic activities, generating art and culture, firmly progressing in institutional management and reaching out to engage with the community to form networks that contribute to the country’s development.

Among the University’s varied and significant achievements, the first institutional accreditation in the areas of Teaching, Research and Management in 2005 stands out (the UFRO was the first university to be accredited in the Araucanía), in addition to the processes of self-evaluation and accreditation of undergraduate and graduate programs.

Its continuous commitment to quality and the challenge of providing a public guarantee of its processes led the University in 2008 (and until 2013) to become the first derived state university in the south of Chile to be accredited by the National Accreditation Commission (CNA) in all areas: Teaching Leading to a Qualified Degree, Graduate Teaching, Research, Institutional Management and Outreach and Community Engagement. This recognition was granted again in 2013 for five years and in 2018 for six years in all areas, until 2024. 

Objective productivity and quality indicators determine the excellence of an institution of higher learning in Chile, a scenario in which the Universidad de La Frontera has distinguished itself in its 41 years as a public, state institution of higher learning, where the growth of the University has been built on quality and excellence, hallmarks that have been key in its tradition and in the prestige that it currently enjoys.

The Universidad de La Frontera fulfilled its challenge of providing a public guarantee for its quality assurance processes, consolidating its position as a comprehensive University, when it secured its fourth accreditation by the National Accreditation Commission (CNA) in the five strategic areas for six years (2018-2024).

This condition clearly sets the UFRO apart from other universities both regionally and nationally, because it indicates the degree of complexity that this University has acquired and places it among the top 10 in Chile.

Committed to the permanent search for quality, innovation and development, in 2018, the UFRO underwent the accreditation process in 5 areas, which are part of its Strategic Development Plan and were all approved by theCNA, again.

Dr. Eduardo Hebel Weiss was born on November 9, 1954 in Chile and went to the German School (“Colegio Alemán”) in Valdivia.

He was admitted to the Universidad Austral de Chile where he graduated in medicine and came to the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad de La Frontera in 1982. Later, he specialized in Pediatric Gastroenterology at University of Giessen and Frankfurt in Germany, where he also finished his PhD studies, and went on with his advanced training in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Chicago, University of London, King´s College Hospital and the University of Alabama, and his advanced training in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto in Canada.

He has been working at the Universidad de La Frontera as the Director of the Department of Pediatrics, parallel to being the head of the Pediatrics Service at the Regional Hospital in Temuco. After that, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 2005, until 2014, when he started to work as the Vice-rector for Research and Graduate Studies. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the university and on August 13, 2018, he assumed his new office as the Rector of the Universidad de La Frontera for a period of four years.

Academically, he is an Associate Professor. He started to participate in congresses in Latin-America, the USA, Canada and Europe in the 1980´s and since 1982, he has been actively participating as a speaker and lecturer in a large number of congresses, courses and workshops in Latin-America and Spain, and has taught in several events in Chile and El Salvador. His fields of research are Pediatric Gastroenterology and Functional Abdominal Pain, Carnitine Deficiency, Chronic Diarrhea and Parasites, Clinical Epidemiology and Research Designs. He has been working on different research projects and has a large list of publications. In 2010, he also worked as a project evaluator for FONDECYT Research Initiation Projects.

He received several awards as an acknowledgement for his excellent work, starting with the first one in December 1983, when he was awarded by the Universidad de La Frontera for the best research work presented by a physician on a scholarship at the V. Medical Seminar in Cautín, Chile. After that, in August of 2003, he received an acknowledgement Certificate for his participation and contribution in scientific activities at the branch office Biobío of the Chilean Pediatric Society, and in February 2011 he was acknowledged with the IOCIM 2011 “Global Award for Excellence in Health Education” by the International Organization for Training and Medical Research. His latest recognition was a SpecialtyCertificate by the Chilean Autonomous Corporation for Certification of Medical Specialties (CONACEM) in 2012.

He is also a member of different scientific associations, such as the Chilean, the German, the Colombian and the Latin-American Pediatric Societies. Since 1992, he organized and coordinated different scientific events in Chile, and in 1999-2000 he was appointed by ASOFAMECH to be part of the Elaborating Committee and the Executive Committee for the Medical Licensing Examination in Chile.

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