Mexico
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
Mexico
Mexico
Mexico
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM; Spanish: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), also known as the Technological Institute of Monterrey (Spanish: Tecnológico de Monterrey), is a private research university based in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. It has expanded to include 35 campuses across 25 cities in the country and 22 liaison offices in 15 other countries.
The university was founded in 1943 by Eugenio Garza Sada, who was educated at MIT in the United States. Eugenio Garza Sada was an industrialist and philanthropist from Monterrey.
ITESM was the first university outside the U.S. to establish an internet connection in the Western Hemisphere, linking the University of Texas at San Antonio directly.
The institute was founded on September 6, 1943, by a group of local businessmen led by Eugenio Garza Sada, a moneyed heir of a brewing conglomerate who was interested in creating an institution that could provide highly skilled personnel — both university graduates and technicians— to the booming Monterrey corporations of the 1940s. The group was structured into a non-profit organization called Enseñanza e Investigación Superior A.C. (EISAC) and recruited several academicians led by León Ávalos y Vez, an MIT alumnus and then director-general of the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute, who designed its first academic programs and served as its first director-general.
In its early years the Institute operated at Abasolo 858 Oriente in a large, two-story house located a block and a half away from Zaragoza Square, behind the city's Metropolitan Cathedral. As these facilities soon proved to be insufficient, it started renting out adjacent buildings and by 1945 it became apparent that a university campus was necessary. For that reason, a master plan was commissioned to Enrique de la Mora and on February 3, 1947, what would later be known as its Monterrey Campus was inaugurated by Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés.
Because the operations of the local companies were highly reliant on U.S. markets, investments, and technology; internationalization became one of its earliest priorities. In 1950 it became the first foreign university in history to be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), one of the six regional accreditation agencies recognized by the United States Department of Education. Its foreign accreditation would end up being a decisive influence in its development, as it was forced to submit itself to external evaluation earlier than most Mexican universities (1967) and unlocked additional sources of revenue, such as tuition funds from foreign students interested in taking summer courses in Mexico for full-academic credit.
Its growth outside the city of Monterrey began in the late-1960s, when both its rector and head of academics lobbied for expansion. A first attempt, funded a few years earlier by several businessmen from Mexicali, Baja California, was staffed and organized by the Institute but faced opposition from the Board of Trustees once the federal government refused any additional subsidy and members of the Board cast doubt on its ability to get funds as an out-of-state university. At the end the project was renamed Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior (CETYS) and grew into a fully independent institution.
There are thirty-one campuses of the Institute distributed in twenty-five Mexican cities. Each campus is relatively independent but shares a national academic curriculum (see Academics). The flagship campus is located in Monterrey, where the national, system-wide rectorate is located. Most of them deliver both high school and undergraduate education, some offer postgraduate programs and only eight (Cumbres, Eugenio Garza Sada, Eugenio Garza Lagüera, Santa Catarina, Metepec, Santa Anita, Esmeralda and Valle Alto) deliver high school courses exclusively. Nevertheless, curricular and extension courses and seminars are usually available at most facilities.
Former campuses include Celaya (Prepa Tec, closed in 2020), Veracruz (closed in 2021), Guaymas (transferred to TecMilenio University in the early 2000s) and Mazatlán (transferred to TecMilenio University in 2009).
North: Monterrey, PrepaTec Cumbres, PrepaTec Eugenio Garza Lagüera, PrepaTec Eugenio Garza Sada, Prepa Tec Santa Catarina, PrepaTec Valle Alto, Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Laguna, Saltillo, Tampico and Zacatecas.
Centro: Mexico City, Santa Fe, State of Mexico, PrepaTec Esmeralda, Toluca
South: Chiapas, Cuernavaca, Hidalgo, PrepaTec Metepec, Puebla
West: Colima, Guadalajara, Irapuato, León, Morelia, PrepaTec Navojoa, Northern Sonora, Obregón, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, PrepaTec Santa Anita and Sinaloa.
As of June 2019, campuses were divided into the following Mexican regions:
In addition to the campuses, the Institute manages:
The Ignacio A. Santos Medical School, the Hospital San José and the Zambrano-Hellion Medical Center.
Eight international sites in Argentina (Buenos Aires), Colombia (Bogotá, Medellín), Ecuador (Guayaquil and Quito), Panama (Panama City), Peru (Lima) and the United States (Miami) offering extension courses, research and international consulting.
Fifteen liaison offices in charge of forging international partnerships and negotiating professional internships and academic exchanges with local universities, companies and civil institutions. Current liaison offices are located in Belgium (Brussels), Canada (Montreal and Vancouver), China (Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai), France (Nice and Paris), Italy (Florence, Macerata and Verona), Switzerland (Fribourg), Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) and the United States (Boston, Dallas and Washington, D.C.)
All campuses are sponsored by non-profit organizations composed primarily of local businesspeople. The Monterrey Campus is sponsored by Enseñanza e Investigación Superior, A.C. (EISAC), which co-sponsored the system as a whole until a newly built organization, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, A.C. (ITESM AC) overtook those responsibilities. Such organizations (effectively serving as boards of trustees) are responsible for electing the rectors or directors of a particular campus. Since February 2012, the president of ITESMAC is José Antonio Fernández, a class of 1976 alumnus and current chairman and CEO of FEMSA. Former presidents include the founder, Eugenio Garza Sada (1943–73) and his son, Eugenio Garza Lagüera (1973–97), and Lorenzo Zambrano (1997–2012), a class of 1966 alumnus and until his passing.
Former heads of the Institute include:
León Ávalos y Vez (1943–1947) first director-general.
Roberto Guajardo Suárez (1947–1951) second director-general.
Víctor Bravo Ahuja (1951–1958) third director-general, and from April 11, 1955, first rector.
Fernando García Roel (1959–1984) second rector.
Rafael Rangel Sostmann (1985–2011) third rector.
Salvador Alva (2011–2019) fourth rector and Executive President.
Since 2020, The Tecnológico de Monterrey Rector and Executive President is David Garza Salazar.
Following the historical trend of Mexico's largest universities, the Institute sponsors several high schools which are united under the name "HighPoint International School". This high schools share one or more national curricula: bicultural, multicultural and/or International Baccalaureate, which is administered from Geneva, Switzerland. The bicultural focuses on better understanding of the English language, the multicultural program requires studying a third language and to have an exchange program abroad. Finally, the IB is an academically challenging program where students can obtain the IB Diploma when they graduate. Additionally, students can receive college credits both at the TEC and universities abroad. Multicultural students are able to take IB courses if they wish with the focus on obtaining IB Subject Certificates. As of December 2017, over 26,000 students in several campuses were registered as high school students within the system.
Academically, the university is organized into several departments and divisions —as opposed to the traditional faculty school scheme used by most Mexican public universities— and it was the first Mexican university in history to divide the academic year in semesters. Current academic calendar for both high school and undergraduate students is composed of two semesters running from August to December and from January to May (each lasting 16 weeks) and an optional summer session from June to July, where at most two courses can be taken in an intensive basis.
As of 2010, the institute offers 57 undergraduate degrees, of which 37 are taught in English and are generally awarded after nine semesters of study (except for Medicine and Architecture); 33 master's degrees, generally lasting three to five semesters (and can also be structured in three-months terms), and 11 doctorate degrees varying in length according to their academic field.
Since 1969 the Institute requires every college applicant to achieve a minimum pass mark at an academic aptitude test which is 900 out of 1600. (Prueba de Aptitud Académica, PAA) delivered by The College Board, a not-for-profit examination board in the United States. However, each campus is free to request additional requirements; such as a grade average of 80 or 90 in high school (on a 100-point scale) for those willing to transfer or apply to the Monterrey Campus. As for the graduate schools, the requirements may vary according to the discipline, such as a grade average of 80/100 and 550-points in both the GMAT and the TOEFL for some programs at its Graduate Business School (EGADE).
Studies at the institute are officially accredited by the Secretariat of Public Education of Mexico (Secretaría de Educación Pública, SEP) and by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) of the United States. In November 2008, its graduate business school (EGADE) became one of the 34 business schools in the world to hold simultaneous accreditation of its programs by the AACSB of the United States, the Association of MBAs of the United Kingdom and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) while the Institute became the first Latin American university in history to receive full-accreditation on some of its engineering programs by ABET (as opposed to the traditional substantially-equivalent designation given to most schools outside the United States).
The quality of its programs is also audited by the Institute of Food Technologists, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and by the national accrediting councils of Mexico, such as the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (Consejo para la Acreditación de la Educación Superior, COPAES) and the Inter-Institutional Committees for Higher Education Evaluation (Comités Interinstitucionales de Evaluación de la Educación Superior, CIEES).
The Ignacio A. Santos School of Medicine (Escuela de Medicina Ignacio A. Santos, aka: EMIS) is the medical school division of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM). Established in 1978 in Monterrey, Mexico.
The School of Medicine was founded to satisfy the country's need for high quality medical training and innovation in biomedical research. Currently, there are approximately 500 students enrolled in the M.D. program and about 105 postgraduate students. Aside from the medical doctor program, the School of Medicine also offers a joint M.D.-Ph.D. program with Houston Methodist Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas A&M Health Science Center, and other Bachelors in Biosciences, Nutrition Sciences and Biomedical Engineering. The graduate medical education department offers several medical residency and fellowship programs. The general director of the TecSalud organization is Guillermo Torre M.D. PhD, a cardiologist who trained under Michael E. DeBakey MD at Baylor College of Medicine.
Although some of the founding members of its faculty were prominent researchers (first rector León Ávalos y Vez had formed a National Commission on Science and served as director-general of the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute) formal research activities at the institute did not start until 1951, when its Institute of Industrial Research was founded in close collaboration with the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio, Texas —one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States.
Notwithstanding some reputable achievements, throughout most of the 20th century its research activities —normally financed independently or under private sponsorship— were rather scarce in comparison to public universities such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico or the National Polytechnic Institute, whose budgets make up to 30% of the federal spending in higher education and, as such, are heavily financed by the government through the federal budget.
Despite its inherent difficulties to secure research funds in a developing country where private sponsorship barely accounts for 1.1% of the national spending on science, a new institutional mission in 2005 made social and scientific research in Mexico's strategic areas one of its top priorities for the next decade. As a result, new corporate endowments and funds were committed, new research programs were created (including the first research program financed by Google in Latin America) and important labs and infrastructure have been built, such as the US$ 43 million Femsa Biotechnology Center, the Water Center for Latin America and the Caribbean (financed by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Femsa Foundation), the Motorola Research and Development Center on Home & Networks Mobility, its MXN $24 million Center for Advanced Design at the Guadalajara Campus and, in association with the Mainz Institute of Microtechnology of Germany (IMM), the first center of chemical micro process engineering in Latin America.
Additionally, the Institute developed a researcher-friendly patent scheme that aims to attract talented researchers and reduce the national brain drain. The scheme, in which the researcher may receive up to 30% of the patent licensing income, works in combination with its internal MXN$ 100,000 Rómulo Garza Prize and its national MXN$ 200,000 Luis Elizondo Prize and has allowed it to become the leading patent applicant among Mexican universities since 2006.
Student life, traditions and activities vary among campuses. Generally speaking, student involvement is encouraged by the local campus through an office of student affairs and the Department of Leadership and Student Formation (LiFE), which supervises most of the student groups, sports teams, regional associations and its student federation (FETEC).
The Institute goes to great lengths to provide scholarships to those in need, awarding partial financial assistance to 49% of its student population. However, with tuition fees exceeding MXN $200,000 per academic year (among the highest in Latin America according to Forbes magazine) most of its student community comes from upper and upper-middle class and the overall atmosphere is arguably politically and socially conservative. For example, opposite-sex visits are forbidden in dormitories unless it is in common areas and some high school staff in the Mexico City Campus has publicly admonished students for questioning conservative politicians during school visits (although no disciplinary action was ever taken).
Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Улс: Mexico