Institutional Policy

Institutional Policies of Administration

These policies of administration, based on the PLURALISM OF IDEAS and generated through DIALOGUE, engages the PARTICIPATION and RESPONSIBILITY of its members, assuming as a criteria the SEARCH OF CONSENSUS, RESPECT TOWARDS THE DESIGN, DIVERSITY and OBJECTIVITY with the objective to advance further in better positioning our institution as a true reference, emancipated and confident of the society in the province and in the region.  These principles define an INCLUSIVE model of a College that REEVALUATES THE ACADEMIC area, and its actions are based in the substance of RESPECT AND TEAM WORK.

The TEACHING and the PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE are two pillars that sustain the university operations day by day.  For this purpose is needed an organizational structure that invigorates its resources and promotes with efficiency of fulfilling its objectives.  In this framework it is proposed a PLAN OF ADMINISTRATION, based in STRATEGIC Actions, drafted with the participation and commitment of the college community. 

The Strategic Plan of the College will permit to tackle the challenges of the university education at this time: the source of funding, equality of accessibility conditions to study at a university level and ensure the continuation of study, a better training for teaching staff, training based on competencies, improvement and preservation of quality teaching, investigation and services, pertinence of the study plans, possibility of employment for graduates, establishment of efficient agreements of cooperation and equality of accessing the benefits addressed by the international cooperation (WCHE, 1998), while facilitating the execution of actions at a short, medium and long term, for which it should secure the support and commitment of various university policies articulated in a way that are sustainable over time, therefore these plans could exceed the four years of any administration.

Through these tools we can take institutional decisions that are deprived from the inefficiency of improvisation and personalization.     

Clear policies and transparent actions in the use and management of finances and of the public goods and properties are the principles that guide our actions.  It is considered that the exercise of power should be accomplished with responsibility, talent, moderation, justice, among other characteristics.  The administration is at the service of the common good, assuming the principle that the highest authority provides the largest framework of services.  

A few central ideas stand out:

University Senate:

  • Draft the regulations of the Faculty career promotion which defines the rights and obligations and establishes the requirements and demands of being admitted in new responsibilities.  This action is complemented with policies of growth in human resources for which there are generated strategies of obtaining positions through national programs.
  • Support the Faculty to attend scientific and cultural events at the provincial, national and international level which expand the information towards their academic activities.
  • Promote the intra-institutional communication through meetings of the Faculty Senate in order to inform about the trends of administration and address all the requirements of the Senate. 
  • Promote the best conditions in the fields of hygiene and labor security (elimination of architectural obstacles, setting the pedestrians, the functioning of restrooms and other facilities that make possible the inhabitance and healthiness of the work places).
  • Supply the most updated equipment as well as the indispensable expenses for the well functioning of all Faculties.

Senate of students:

The students constitute the reason why the university exists this is why all strategies are directed towards improving the quality of teaching.

  • Stimulate their participation in the university life, in the scientific and faculty activities, while encouraging the pre-professional training through competitions of students, assistantship of research and tutoring in groups.
  • In the framework of recognizing the legal right of establishing an association of students, promote actions coordinated and oriented towards the student welfare.
  • Improve the conditions of infrastructure, equipment, real estate of the libraries in colleges, center of documentation of the industrial park and libraries of departments.

  • Improve the functioning conditions of the industrial park headquarters in respect to the physical spaces for students, bar service, phone and internet services.

  • Coordinate distinct systems of scholarships in order to impact the largest number of students.

Senate of Alumni:

  • Foster the sense of ownership through ample and varied offers of readjustment and improvement (presence on campus, semi-presence and distance education).
  • Sustain an active participation of the Colleges with the institutions of education in defense of the competencies accomplished by our alumni.
  • Facilitate the creation of alumni groups, that are specialized in the transference and in the formation of entrepreneurship incubators – consulting (a program that has as its objective to facilitate the emerging of entrepreneurship or business based in tradition and / or technology while offering assistance so that new companies could survive and grow during their stage of taking off, in which they are much more vulnerable).
  • Support the active participation in projects of productive development (industrial park), where there is applied the knowledge acquired by our researchers and it involves our alumni.
  • Articulate actions with professional associations or entities, public organizations, companies or NGO’s in order to utilize the infrastructure resources that can be shared on projects of great importance between professors and graduates in the subject.

The category of non-professors:

  • Encourage the update and / or design of knowledge tools and competencies facilitating the continuation of post graduate studies, university studies and the tertiary level which is a non-university degree and participation in local, provincial and national level events, related specifically to their daily activities.
  • Redefine the forms of interaction between the distinct areas of each College, implement a rapid and an efficient mechanism with interventions that are strictly needed.

  • An adequate re-structuring of the work spaces in order to favor the development of activities.

  • Optimize the circuit of internal communication in the university, coordinating and administering the production and circulation of information.

 

STRATEGIC PLANNING

The conduct of university education requires the spread of complex abilities and strategies in order to accomplish the development of objectives and policies; this is why, the focus of planning and strategic management happens to be a suitable tool in order to improve the institutional practices of the administration and university governance.

Planning is an orientation of the organization in order to address feasible requirements of scenarios that are supposed to emerge, the ones that are thought of during the present reality.  This is why strategic planning requires as an expense the diagnostic evaluation of the organization, or it could be, the state of present day situation from which is predicted the future.  This evaluation has been accomplished by UNSE in general and the College of Sciences and Technologies in particular; therefore we could have advancements in an organization project.

All policies and all institutional evaluation methodology only cover the full meaning under the widest framework of a policy and methodology of Strategic Planning.  This is about inseparable processes, even though in a determined moment may dominate temporarily one of them, in terms of work periods or phases in a permanent and open continuation.

As much as planning as well as evaluation are instruments to improve the academic quality and the university administration.  In the same vein, in Guidelines for Institutional Evaluation, a text elaborated by CONEAU, in Buenos Aires, November 1997, page 13, is underlined “institutional evaluation…should serve to interpret, change, improve and not to normalize, prescribe and even less to be a punitive activity”.  Through this, they should be generated in the same base where is produced, transmitted, applied and knowledge is distributed socially, taking advantage of the effective participation of university actors, with their reasoning and their common and peculiar experiences.

The planning and evaluation can be appropriate instruments to balance and combine the handling of common problems of an institution with essential sensibility and manage the existing legitimate specificities in the distinct areas of action and organizational units of the University.

The Planning is not considered today a technical task, but a discipline of management policy properly stated, that is a responsibility of the university governing bodies, and of those who exercise the academic leadership; different from the traditional planning, being in the hands of technicians, strategic planning of today is led by those who manage an institution. As a result, planning means undertaking a process of change, sequencing strategically, in order to take forward integrated actions at the personal and at the organizational level. 

In all planning process, the central core is to install the need of change within the context of all involved actors, through an action of leadership.

This is why, execution of planning and Strategic Administration implies:

  1. Perceive the needs.
  2. Identify objectives that contemplate the satisfaction of these needs.
  3. Define strategies-paths-to reach the objectives.
  4. Develop a plan in order to have effective strategies.
  5. Define goals or moments in order to process the objectives gradually.
  6. Arrange the grade of participation by the actors, considering their relations, positions and alignments. 
  7. Convert imminent participation in a commitment to execute the actions.
  8. Balance the particular visions of players within a global vision.

This means, that planning generates conditions that facilitate, anticipate and guide the decision making and this way, planning process becomes affected according to the state of decisions taken.

Participation is a condition of a possibility to take decisions, but it does not substitute the obligation of leaders to decide and take action.

Planning deals with perpetual decisions as well as deal with medium and long run decisions; it affects the substantive of the institution, implicates all its functions and transcends the mere will power of their executive course of action.  This is why it is essential to analyze and define with the highest accuracy – and the largest consensus possible-, the mission of the institution, so starting from there and based on the resources and expectations, design the Vision; this is an ideal College model, but feasible to accomplish, which is aimed at in a not so distant time frame.

Planning is an intellectual operation which takes place ahead of activities or actions; it implies the far sightedness of scenarios and conditions that wait to happen in the future, upon which can be established the objectives, goals and paths for their accomplishment.  Strategic Management is the decision making process concerning a possible path, rationally decided by reason of far sightedness carried out and the established objectives.

For all this, planning as an integral process, implies:

  1. Consider the interaction of the institution with its context.
  2. Design and propose proactive and preventive actions.
  3. Decide, about the foundation of true information, but always incomplete or not true. 
  4. Decide in a flexible fashion, in the function of hypothesis of awaiting and feasible scenarios.  
  5. Nourish permanently the process of understanding that is generated from the proper experience.

This is why it is indicated that Planning implicates a function of development of a certain organizational “intelligence”, oriented towards the improvement of institutional capacities, in order to address all suitable objectives.

 

A GLOBAL VISION OF PLANNING PROCESS

A group of four questions allows us to shape a global vision of the Strategic Planning Process.

Around these four questions will be articulated all the process.

a) Where are we?: Is dealing with how to develop the diagnostic evaluation not only within the institution but also in the external context.

b) Where do we want to be?: In the first place it is needed to have a clear concept of the University Mission, in general, and of the College in particular; starting from here, it is possible to design the vision, which means, a project in the college at a medium term, in which the principal difficulties that worry and come closer to a real idealism are overcome. Starting with these facts and about the base of diagnostic, will be elaborated the whole Strategic Objectives that will allow to reach this vision.

c) How to get there?: Every change generates problems and uncertainties, even when accomplishments are for the good of the institution and obviously for its actors. This is why it is important to keep in mind all the internal and external factors, which intervene in a process of transformation, not only to produce but also to avoid.  By means of designing the strategic scenarios, it will be possible to visualize the best way to advance, by developing preferential actions. This will be expressed in a Strategic Plan, designed with the highest possible consensus among all the university conditions and the external sectors which have to deal with the College.

d) How do we know that we have reached our objectives?: From Planning there is a need to go into actions; and to proceed the analysis of how these are being executed, starting with a group of indicators of advancement, it will be needed to monitor what is being accomplished; this will allow to verify the accomplishment of the estimated goals, therefore to update the preferential actions and even the Objectives, according to what is needed.  

 

PHASES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

I. Diagnostic Evaluation of the Institution.
II. Mission, Vision, Institutional Values.
III. Definition of Strategic Objectives.
IV. Determination of Improvement Plans.