University’s Vice President of Outreach and Engagement highlights the presence of our institution in the media and in public opinion

  • After two years of work of the Vice Presidency of Outreach and Engagement, Sergio González, the Vice President, informed about the achievements made by this unit in organizing activities and guidelines to connect our University and the community. On this occasion, he highlighted the positioning of the University and its academics in the media and the institution’s hallmark and imprint, among other aspects. He valued the cultural contribution made by the artistic groups and the radio station.

 


On October 23rd, 2012, the Vice Presidency of Outreach and Engagement of Universidad de Santiago (ViMe, in Spanish) started operating. Recently, the Vice President Sergio González informed about the achievements made by this unit during these two years of work, before an audience that included administrative staff and academics and professionals in charge of outreach activities in faculties, departments and schools of the university.

Based on the Self-Evaluation Report submitted by the University in the context of the Accreditation Process 2014 and the Output Report delivered by the external peer reviewers, Vice President González referred to the strengths and weaknesses identified in this area.

“The most important contribution of the ViMe in these two years is the establishment of an outreach policy that unites the activities that the University used to arrange in an unstated and disjointed manner, in an ongoing and active process with impact on the academic units and outside the university,” he said.

Among the strong points, Sergio González mentioned the creation of this structure that organizes, coordinates and integrates the efforts made by different academic units to build links with the community; the high number of activities held in this area- which is considered in the accreditation processes- with more than four hundred activities each semester; the organiztion of events to gather academic units and members of the community together; the efforts made to improve alumni tracking schemes; the diverse traditional cultural activities, like concerts given by artistic groups; the radio station, the University Press and the Planetarium.

He also referred to the potential strengthening of the institutional image in the public eye, which directly relates to another strong point: the growing presence of the University in the media. Both factors have been part of a systematic work led by the Department of Communications at tracking the “Universidad de Santiago” hallmark. In addition, the positioning of our academics’ names and work has been consolidated, what has allowed audiences to recognize not only the generation of good practices that have led to public policies like the Grade Ranking, the PACE Program and the advocacy for public education headed by President Zolezzi, but also to see that these initiatives have had a successful growth and impact,” the Vice President said.

He highlighted the leading role played by President Zolezzi with regards to strengthening and positioning Universidad de Santiago in the media. In the 5,800 mentions that the institution registers every year, President Zolezzi is the one who attracts more attention.

“Today, one of the assets we have is the impact of the institutional imprint beyond the hallmark and the external positioning, which reflects the important and effective work done by the Department of Communications, at covering all the activities of our University,” Sergio González said.

Gabriela Martínez, Director of the Department of Communications, said that the successful results shown by this area “are the consequence of more than four years of systematic work done by a team committed to strengthening a communications policy according to what is stated in the Institutional Strategic Plan 2011-2015. Therefore, we faced the recent accreditation process with a series of indicators that support the line of work that we established; even more, we included the Media Perception Index (IPM, in Spanish) as an institutional indicator.”

Strengthening some areas

Vice President González said that the weaknesses identified by the accreditation process were already stated by the University; therefore, they were considered in the 2015-2017 improvement plan.

One of these improvements seeks to promote a “bi-directionality” culture so that connection with society is understood in a context of actions and feedback.

With regards to enhancing the practice of keeping records of the activities, a new data management system is being implemented. In relation to systematizing effective links, agreements and protocols will be formalized.

During the meeting, the Vice President also referred to the guidelines for the new consolidation stage of the Vice Presidency of Outreach and Engagement, which will strengthen the coordination with the different academic units, the culture of connection with society, the alumni fidelity program, and the internationalization of the institution.

“We will work together with the academic units and our functional units to strengthen this area. But we will also make the most of the huge opportunity that the Institutional Strategic Plan gives us, as it will allow us to reach a better common understanding and agreement about what we determine for our joint work,” he concluded.

Translated by Marcela Contreras