Universidad Veracruzana: Meet the Rector

Located in Naucalpan de Juárez, Mexico, the Universi Universidad Veracruzana is ranked in QS Latin American University Rankings 2020 and is one of the top 20 universities in Mexico.

To learn more about Universidad Veracruzana and what it offers international students, we spoke to its rector, Dra. Sara Ladrón de Guevara.

Can you tell us about your background and how you became the rector of the university?

I was an archaeologist originally. I did my degree at the Universidad Veracruzana because we have a fantastic anthropology museum here in Xalapa. Afterward,s I went to Paris and did my master’s at Sorbonne before returning to Mexico and completing my PhD at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

In 1991, I started working at Universidad Veracruzana as a researcher, and then became the director of the Museum of Anthropology. The university was founded in 1944, but became autonomous in 1996, when I was invited by the rector to be provost, from 1997 to 2001 – the first woman to hold this position at the university.

Following that I went back to my work as a researcher and became director of the Museum of Anthropology again for 10 years. Then in 2013, I applied to become the rector and was chosen by the board, becoming the first woman to hold this position. This is my second term and it will end in 2021. Ever since I was provost, I wanted the university’s program to make it more important, visible, international and intercultural.

Tell us a little bit about your institution’s mission. What are the pillars of the university?

The Universidad Veracruzana is a very traditional and well-known university in Mexico, especially in the humanities and art, and that's our strength and what attracts people from many countries. Our medical school has a very strong reputation, as well as other courses like biological science. We have five campuses within the state of Veracruz, with some courses explicitly offered in some campuses, but other courses offered at all campuses.

How important are international students to the university? What can they bring to the institution?

We have a very long tradition of internationalization. We started a school for foreign students more than 60 years ago and we’ve always been conscious about the need to attract students from abroad. We've always had a lot of students from the US, but we have recently started receiving people from all around the world. I would say that universities collaborate a lot internationally, sometimes even more than the diplomatic work done by governments.

Our university also believes that internationalization must compliment interculturality. It's not just about learning a different language, but also understanding the diversity of humans, both globally and within our territory. Mexico is a very diverse country and I think the internationalization work we're doing also helps us recognize the differences and cultural richness of our own country. 

What strategy is the university planning to use or is already using in order to attract international students?

We are part of many important higher education organizations. For the past four years, I was vice president of the Unión de Universidades de América Latina y el Caribe (UDUAL) and vice president of the Organización Universitaria Interamericana (OUI). And we have also signed agreements with more than 300 different universities, which is very important as it allows us to increase student exchange.

Is part of your strategy as a university to create more programs in English?

We don’t have programs in English at the moment, but we do offer nine courses in English. And something very interesting about our university is the fact that we just started a program in Nahuatl, a pre-Hispanic language spoken in Mexico. We are offering a postgraduate degree completely taught in Nahuatl and we are the only university in all of America to have a program in a native language. Our objective is to show Mexico and the rest of the world that it is possible to produce and communicate knowledge in different languages. We do think having programs in English is important and we're working on it, but that takes time.

We also offer the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program in collaboration with US universities via video conference. The classes are held by a teacher in the US and another at our university, and students undergo tasks and projects with their classmates in English.

I think the students that have that experience have more confidence to travel to a university where they speak English. The university is very concerned about learning international languages. We used to have English as a requirement for incoming students, now we accept that they are bilingual in different languages, European or native. We recognize that our native language is as important as any European language. English opens a lot of doors in academic work and is also necessary to access the different technologies we use, so we understand that it’s must for academics to learn English and we're working on that.

What is your message to international students and academics about your mission?

I would like to share with you our motto: art, science and light. We believe that science cannot exist without the human point of view. The alignment between art and science is what gives light to humanity. This motto shows our efforts to grow knowledge, human rights and the humanistic point of view.