Arequipa celebrates the 17th anniversary of the UCSP
Arequipa, 07/17/2014, (Sodalit News – Peru). St. Paul’s Catholic University (Universidad Católica San Pablo – UCSP) brought to completion the anniversary of its foundation with a festive celebration. The occasion saw the presence of different authorities and members of the academic community, and that of Mons. Javier del Rio Alba, the Archbishop of Arequipa.
It was 17 years ago that St. Paul´s Catholic University first opened its doors to provide an integral option of higher education to students where a high level of technical specialization was combined with a humanist formation in ethics and values. Throughout this time, the UCSP has completed this mission, uniting faith and reason and strengthening its identity as a catholic university. “They have been 17 years of great joy and preoccupation, 17 years that have made us mature in order to turn back towards the society and strengthen our commitment with the country through the formation of leaders that help to achieve a better society,” indicated Dr. Germán Chávez Contreras, rector of the UCSP.
Industrial Engineering, Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology, Education, Accounting, Business Administration, Law and Civil Engineering (a degree whose program began this year) are the nine degrees which the University is now able to offer. To date, there are about seven thousand student and 500 teachers, 1560 ex-students and 1342 total students graduated.
Dr. Germán Chávez, noted the completion of different projects such as the finishing of the university dining hall, the expanding of the library that includes spaces for investigators, and at the same time announced the construction of the lab-center which will house all of the current labs that University has. Likewise, he underscored the formation of research groups and of research professors concordant with international standards who are developing important projects based on competitive funds. This has allowed the UCSP to fortify this institutional pillar of research and thus supply a better academic formation and an improved imprint in the society.
The UCSP has won a good number of research projects within and without Peru in relation to different fields of knowledge such as renewable energies, environment, applied computation and visual graphics, robotics, telecommunications, psychology, education, natural law, international law, modern administration, International Norms of Financial Information, among others; by this means the UCSP has subscribed to 22 inter-institutional agreements and has been the host of events with international invitations. In July, together with the Organization of American States (OEA – Organización de Estados Americanos) it will bring about the Assembly Model of the OEA for university students, which will unite some 350 students from different countries.
The rector was emphatic that the role of universities, particularly Catholic ones, is to be social point of reference capable of confronting the grave social problems and lack of integrity that manifests itself in the country through the lack of institutionality, through insecurity and corruption.
Finally the rector thanked the students and parents for the trust placed in the University in choosing it as the place for their professional formation and he also gave thanks to the professors because without them there would be no “academic community” and he exhorted them to be models within and without the classroom. His thanksgiving was also extended to the rest of the academic community and institutions that have supported the UCSP throughout the years.
This festive ceremony for the 17th anniversary of the UCSP also included the presence of Mons. Javier del Rio Alba, archbishop of Arequipa, who in his speech thanked God for the work that He is bringing about within the University which is in turn reflected into Arequipa and the society. In the same sense, Mons. Del Rio asked the members of the university community to support the Church in its evangelization and to confront the “culture of death” through the formation of integral young people capable of conducting their lives and that of society in the search of the common good.
St. Paul´s University is part of the sodalit educational proposal that finds itself celebrating 16 years since its foundation in the city of Arequipa. In recent years – and thanks to international exchange programs – the university has been consolidating a formative model which unites academic rigor and demand with professional formation and an accented human formation.