After completing the participatory process, the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Environment changes its name.

After a deep reflection on the work of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) and a participatory work process with all faculty members, teachers and students, the university administration approved the renewal of the name to Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Environment. With this new name, the faculty seeks to better represent and promote the current training, research and outreach activities within the university community.

The renewal process began in 2020, when the students of the faculty’s Student Center presented a petition to update the name to one that represents the expanded diversity of the fields and topics they are developing, while also taking into account the challenges of the future.

With the aim of evaluating the pertinence of the petition and preparing an appropriate proposal, the Faculty Council decided to create a commission, which consisted of the dean, Dr. Adison Altamirano; the representatives of the academic departments, Dr. Juan Carlos García, Dr. Ramón Rebolledo and Dr. Ricardo González; the representative of the administrative staff, Sergio Sáez; and Roberto Brito, a student of the program in Engineering in Natural Resources.

“We are very pleased with this important change. The renewal is a milestone and the result of a participatory work with our entire community. Over the years, our faculty made a lot of progress in the fields of research, undergraduate and graduate studies, and ventured into new topics and fields of knowledge,” commented Dr. Adison Altamirano. According to him, the new name truly represents the work of the faculty, including the new emerging fields and the progress and growth they already achieved and will achieve in the future.

PARTICIPATORY WORK AND AGREEMENT

The committee agreed that the new name should represent all dimensions that the faculty addresses in undergraduate and graduate education, research and outreach.

The analysis of the petition showed an important development and expansion regarding the fields of work related to the environment, ecology, production compatibility and the preservation of natural resources.

“This change is important because the faculty significantly evolved. The new name describes our experiences and a lot of what we are doing. We can identify with it and I think that it properly represents us,” said Fresia Cantero, the staff representative of the Faculty Council.

The director of Outreach and Community Engagement of the faculty, Claudia Bassaber, is also pleased with the new name, since she finds it more comprehensive. “It will allow us to strengthen the position and projection of the faculty, favor the interaction and cooperation, lead to greater opportunities for the development of joint activities in the agricultural, environmental and biotechnological fields, and contribute to the sustainable development of the region and the country,” she explained.

Roberto Brito, the representative of the faculty’s Student Center, who actively participated in the commission, highlighted the result of the proposal and the fact that the students were the ones who proposed the change of name. “Although it was a long process with several stages, it was well received and drew the attention to the innovative and pertinent nature of the request. Another fact that is worth mentioning is the participatory process, which considered the opinion and vote of everybody of the faculty,” he pointed out.

Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Mexico and Uruguay are the destinations chosen by the students of UFRO for their stays, research activities and internships. These opportunities are a reflection of indicators of institutional growth and strength, as well as of international cooperation.

The long-awaited moment of departure has finally come for the undergraduate students of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) who are going to spend a semester abroad thanks to different financing options and opportunities offered by the agreements of UFRO with other universities all over the world. Therefore, the university organized a farewell ceremony for the 39 students, with the authorities and teams of the Vice-rectorate for Undergraduate Affairs and the International Affairs Office, which is part of the Vice-rectorate for Academic Affairs.

“We would like to congratulate all of you, because we know that this experience requires a lot of effort and perseverance and that it will definitely teach you a lot. As a university, we are always working on new scholarships and opportunities in order to offer this possibility to even more students in the future,” said the Vice-rector Dr. Renato Hunter in his speech for the students.

UFRO AMBASSADORS

This semester, UFRO has a large group of outgoing students who will spend a semester at universities in North America, Europe, Latin America, as well as at other universities in Chile. It is worth mentioning that apart from external scholarships, UFRO also offers a large number of financing options for all student mobility types.

“The large number of outgoing students in this second semester of 2022 makes us very proud. It is the result of an important institutional effort, not only because of the increase in financial resources, but also because of the increase in agreements that allow the students to participate in mobility programs of even more universities and in more fields of studies,” said Dr. Lorena Vieli, the director of UFROs International Affairs Office.

“There is no doubt that each student who makes use of our mobility opportunities needs to be prepared and our International Student Mobility Office is always willing to help them with that, to make the process successful. We also hope that even more of our undergraduate students get motivated and make use of these opportunities in the future,” explained Antonia Espinoza, the head of the International Student Mobility Office.

FROM THE SOUTH OF CHILE INTO THE WORLD

A group of five students of the fields of engineering, sciences and administration, and of the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Humanities will go to universities in Mexico and Spain, as well as to the University of Regina and the Lakehead University in Canada, with Santander Scholarships.

In addition to this group, two students of the Faculty of Law and Business will spend a semester at the German university Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) and two students of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences will spend a semester at the Belgian university KU Leuven, thanks to the fruitful agreements with both universities.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Four students of the Faculty of Medicine will spend a semester for their studies and internships in Spain, Mexico and Uruguay, thanks to the UFRO Sin Fronteras (‘UFRO without borders’) scholarship. This scholarship also allows 15 other students to spend a semester at universities in Germany and Austria.

In addition, the Student Mobility Scholarship program offered 11 open spots for educational establishments in Canada, France and Spain. Students of the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Humanities, the Faculty of Law and Business, and the Faculty of Engineering and Science filled these spots. Apart from that, several students made use of the mobility options for national universities, some of them self-financed.

THE STUDENTS

	María Jesús Manosalba, Industrial Civil Engineering with specialization in Mechanics Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain “I will be able to join the Technical University thanks to a Santander scholarship. The process was quite competitive, but it was a good experience. I always participated in innovation programs and projects of the university and what I have learned was very helpful – for example in the Leading Women Program ‘STEM-UFRO’ of my faculty. Now I hope to be able to take some electives and subjects that match my field of studies.”
	Katherine Oñate, Obstetrics & Childcare University of the Republic, Uruguay   “UFRO has an agreement with this university and I am the first student of my study program that will participate in this internship program in Montevideo. I had this idea for a long time and last semester, I started to search scholarships. I will learn a lot about maternity there, since Uruguay has a low mortality rate at birth and lots of healthcare regulations for the benefit and safety of the patients.”
	Catalina Hidalgo, Journalism Lakehead University, Canada “I am highly motivated because of the experience I am going to gain by living abroad, besides of the improvement of my professional skills and my personal growth. I want to achieve the goals that I have set for myself many years ago. Therefore, I am going to take subjects in the fields of culture, journalistic writing and editing, and independent media development. I also started to take online courses at a university in New Zealand on global competencies, and I constantly search for new opportunities.”
	Eduardo Salas, Agronomy KU Leuven, Belgium “I am going to participate in a research program and I will take some subjects of the eights semester. As the study of agronomy strongly depends on the demographic and geological environment, it will be different from here. Therefore, I chose subjects that are compatible with my studies here and included subjects such as anthropology and sociology, dairy technology and fruit growing, among others.”

Shinji Kaneko, the Executive Vice President for Global Initiatives of Hiroshima University pointed out that Universidad de La Frontera is the first partner from Chile that joins their international network.

The Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) achieved a new international success by signing a Cooperation Agreement with Hiroshima University (HU), which is one of the most important universities in Japan.

With regard to this partnership, Shinji Kaneko, the Executive Vice President for Global Initiatives of Hiroshima University, explained: “We hope that this partnership will contribute to a good communication and understanding between Chile and Japan, and UFRO and HU. At the same time, we want to increase our presence in South America, where a significant future development is expected, as well as to promote the excellence in research, internationalization and the reputation of both universities.”

According to Dr. Lorena Vieli, the director of the International Affairs Office of UFRO, “although our countries have very different cultures, we have several challenges in common in the fields of professional training and scientific research. This agreement is a formalization of the already existing cooperation between both universities at the research level and will allow us to include other fields, too.”

PARTNERSHIP

The purpose of the recently signed agreement is to establish a cooperation in the fields of teaching, research, knowledge and culture dissemination, and to promote the academic and research exchange through projects of mutual interest. In particular, it will allow the exchange of researchers and teachers and joint research activities, as well as the participation in seminaries and academic meetings.

ACTIVE PARTNER

Hiroshima University was founded in 1949, in the first city in the world that was hit by an atomic bomb. Its mission is to contribute to the well-being of humanity, through the development of a democratic and peaceful society, based on the search for peace, the creation of new knowledge, the training of holistic human beings, the collaboration with the local, regional and international community, and continuous development.

In this context, the Japanese university seeks an active collaboration with UFRO through this agreement that includes, among others, specific matters, advice regarding the development of academic projects, special programs, and innovation and knowledge transfer.

BACKGROUNDS

The relation between establishments in Chile and Japan started more than a decade ago, through the active cooperation between Dr. Milko Jorquera and Dr. Fumito Maruyama, who are both graduates of Osaka University. They initiated a science project between Chile and Japan in 2017, about monitoring and understanding the dynamics of harmful algal blooms, a common phenomenon at the Chilean coastline that affects the public health and aquaculture production.

The Universidad de La Frontera participates as leading institution in a project that seeks to characterize the biological interactions that cause red tides, by studying its holobiome (holo = whole, biome = ecosystem). This is how Dr. Milko Jorquera, an academic of the Department of Chemical Sciences and Natural Resources at UFRO, who works together with the academics Dr. Fumito Maruyama and Dr. So Fujiyoshi, who both work at Hiroshima University (HU), describes it. The important partnership still exists, not only based on scientific collaboration, but also based on the support and coordination of graduate student exchange between UFRO and HU.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

“The signing of this agreement allows us to formalize the partnership between both universities, and to keep expanding our cooperation networks to countries and continents that we do not have such an active cooperation with, yet. That helps us to be a university that is connected with the global challenges and that gives its community the possibility to life an enriching and unique international experience,” added María Paz Collío, who is in charge of international agreements and projects at UFRO.

Carolina Muñoz Higuera, a student of the civil engineering program at Universidad de La Frontera, spent three weeks at the Center for Ecohydraulics Research (CER) of the University of Idaho in the USA.

“An internship abroad is an important opportunity to boost your professional career. Not only because of the new knowledge you acquire in the field you work in, but also because of the personal development that comes with it. It allows you to enhance your language skills, to get to know a new culture, to get more self-confidence and to learn how to interact in an unknown environment.” – These are the words that Carolina Muñoz Higuera of the civil engineering program of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) used to describe the importance of an internship abroad.

With these benefits in mind, the student, who is currently working on her thesis, did not hesitate to accept the invitation of her teacher Dr. Ángel Monsalve Sepúlveda, for an internship at the Center for Ecohydraulics Research (CER) of the University of Idaho in the USA.

According to Carolina, who carried out her internship in May and June of this year, “Dr. Ángel Monsalve is currently working as a teacher at the research center, so his invitation was a great opportunity for my professional career and my personal development”.

“We conducted experiments in an artificial channel that simulates a mountain river, with the objective of analyzing the sediment entrainment rate under different flow conditions. The activities included the initial conditions, such as sediment granulometry and the formation of the characteristic topography of the riverbed, as well as the execution of the experimental model and data collection,” the future civil engineer specified.

She also explained that she will analyze the obtained results for the report of her degree project ‘Characteristics of the flow properties under incipient transport conditions in a mountain river’. At the same time, the work at the laboratory will contribute to the study ‘Collaborative Research: The role of streambed morphological changes induced by macro-roughness elements on hyporheic nitrous oxide generation’, carried out by Dr. Monsalve, William Reeder and Danielle Tonina, with the aim of studying the influence of the topography of a river on its greenhouse gas emissions.

Back at the Universidad de La Frontera, Carolina keeps working on her degree project in order to graduate and become a civil engineer. “I enrolled in the civil engineering program because of my interest in mathematics, but as time went by, I realized how versatile this profession is,” she concluded.

Written by: Daphne Bormann Parada
Faculty of Engineering and Science, UFRO
Translated by: UFRO Communications Office