Month: February 2019

Los Lagos University Center participates in Profic (Professional development in intercultural competence in higher education institutions), a project financed by the Erasmus + program, whose objective is to promote intercultural competences through professional development and pedagogical tests in Educational Institutions. Superior in Latin America, which will improve the quality of education in diverse cultural environments. To learn about the guidelines with which this program will operate, as well as to present the intercultural actions that are carried out in our center, doctor Rebeca García Corzo, Academic Secretary, and teacher Alma Rangel García, coordinator of Internationalization, attended the first work meeting, which took place on February 1 and 2 at the University of Deusto, in Bilbao, Spain.

In the recognition dynamic, each participating university announced the initiatives with which they promote competitions of this nature among their community. CULagos proudly stood out by representing the UdeG, since we carry out activities aimed at students, teachers and administrative staff. Our authorities shared, among the internationalization functions that we carry out: the Internationalization Seminar, the International Summer University, the mobility forums for students and professors, the talks with incoming mobility students, to name a few. This was recognized, both for the variety of activities and for the breadth of the public to which they are directed.

The next phase of this project will consist of conducting interviews and applying studies by European universities to find out the specific needs of Latin American higher education institutions, which will make it possible to find out how they perceive themselves and take into account which are the specific needs of each institution. Representatives of the Universita degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi will attend the Centro Universitario de los Lagos between the end of May and the beginning of June. Among the proposals to be implemented have been the teaching of workshops and the creation of platforms to carry out diplomas and courses aimed at all university students, these tools will be designed mainly for online work.

This project is coordinated by Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland) and the following institutions participate as partners: University of Deusto (Spain); Universita degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi (Italy); Technological University of Salvador, University of Don Bosco (El Salvador); National University of Córdoba, National University of Lanús, National University of La Plata (Argentina); Veracruzana University, Union of Latin American and Caribbean Universities UDUAL and University of Guadalajara, through CULagos (Mexico). The Profic will be developed over the next three years, and will mean a great opportunity to consolidate ourselves as a center that trains citizens prepared for understanding and effective interaction with people from different cultures.

This is the Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions (PROFIC) project in conjunction with 7 other European and Latin American Universities. The launch activity was held in Bilbao (Spain) on February 1 and 2. Members of the Pro-Secretariat for International Relations, which will be the executing unit of the Project at the UNC, were present at the meeting.

The Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions (PROFIC) is a project funded by Erasmus+ that aims to promote the professional development of administrative and academic staff of Latin American higher education institutions. In this way, it seeks to facilitate work and collaboration in various cultural fields and with people who come from different contexts. This is the second initiative of the Erasmus+ program to develop intercultural skills and its immediate predecessor is the Erasmus Mundus Intercultural Competence (EMIC).

The launch meeting organized in the city of Bilbao was attended by the Glasgow Caledonian University-GCU (United Kingdom), who is also the coordinator of the project, the University of Deusto-UD (Spain), host of the meeting, the Guglielmo Marconi University (Italy) , the Don Bosco and Technological Universities of El Salvador, the Mexican Veracruzana and Guadalajara and the National Universities of Lanús and Córdoba (Argentina). The National University of La Plata is also part of the project consortium.

Dane Lukic (GCU) and Maria Yaroch (UD), authors of the project comment “cultural diversity, if not addressed correctly, can generate communication problems, conflicts, exclusion, delays and low quality results; but if managed well, an interculturally diverse environment can provide better and innovative results”.

The project reflects on the increase in diversity and internationalization that has occurred in the Latin American higher education system in recent decades. This has generated the need to develop professional skills in institutions and organizations that allow working in diverse fields and with people from different cultural contexts. To do this, you need a series of skills that allow you to study, live and work effectively, without cultural limitations. This set of skills is called Intercultural Competence.

The UNC will participate in the PROFIC through the design of a comprehensive study on the intercultural skills of university staff. It will then implement a series of measures to develop these capacities in various areas of our House of Higher Studies.

On February 1st 2019, Guglielmo Marconi University attended the kick-off meeting of PROFIC Project (Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions), hosted by the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain.

With the aim of strengthening the intercultural capacities of exchange students from Latin American universities and contributing to the bi-regional dialogue with the European Union, the Union of Latin American and Caribbean Universities (UDUAL), through the Erasmus+ Program, participates in the project called “Professional Development in Intercultural Competence in Higher Education Institutions (PROFIC)”.

The objective of the initiative is to trigger in mobility students their abilities to understand the societies of the destination countries. According to Dane Lukic, a researcher at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and coordinator of the study group, “these intercultural capacities arise when people learn and internalize the values, customs and accepted behavior of a society.”

Intercultural is not international

According to Lukic, intercultural competence refers to the ability to interact effectively with people from different cultures; In this sense, the development of these capacities translates into understanding, communicating and interacting effectively with people from different cultures, however, being exposed to different cultures does not automatically develop intercultural capacities.

“Intercultural competence is not only about avoiding conflicts and misunderstandings, but also about fostering cultural diversity for innovation in the workplace,” Lukic noted.

El PROFIC es la segunda iniciativa del programa Erasmus+ para desarrollar capacidades interculturales; su antecedente inmediato es el Erasmus Mundus Intercultural Competence (EMIC), que se llevó a cabo entre octubre de 2013 y septiembre de 2015.

La UDUAL participará en el PROFIC a través de la implantación de un cuestionario sobre las prácticas que actualmente aplican las universidades en sus direcciones de relaciones internacionales y movilidad académica, lo cual arrojará un diagnóstico para sustentar los objetivos del proyecto; finalmente, la red universitaria se encargará de difundir las actividades y resultados del mismo.

El consorcio está conformado, además de la GCU, por dos universidades europeas: de Deusto, España, y Guglielmo Marconi, de Italia; las nacionales de Lanús y de Córdoba, Argentina; la Universidad Don Bosco y la Tecnológica de El Salvador y de México, la universidades Veracruzana y de Guadalajara, Campus Lagos.