Abstract
The Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios UNIMINUTO has determined a series of objectives as levers for growth and development, which have prepared it to face great changes. In this sense, UNIMINUTO Bogotá - Presential Academic Programs Campus designed the Strategic Plan 20-25 “Bogotá and UNIMINUTO, a learning community,” with which it marked its evolutionary path for the next few years. Within this planning and management framework, and based on the attention of the effects caused by COVID-19, this campus made adjustments to its processes and plans, with a series of effects that determined new learning in relation to accessibility and use of technologies in the teaching-learning process; redefinition of the mechanism for the appropriation and awareness of the strategic plan; development of activities requiring attendance, ensuring compliance with all biosafety measures; safe return of students through an alternation model and mechanisms to provide financial support to students and families to guarantee the continuity of the operation and institutional sustainability.
TopIntroduction And Preliminaries
The Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios – UNIMINUTO, was founded by Father Rafael García Herreros in 1992 within the so-called “Obra Minuto de Dios – OMD”, which designs and implements initiatives and actions that promote sustainable integral development for people, communities and territories, and integrates 8 institutions of the social sector that, from different perspectives and capacities, establish services in various areas linked to the needs and expectations of human beings and communities (Arias, 2007, págs. 18-19), as Figure 1 shows:
Figure 1. Source: UNIMINUTO - Chairmanship OMD Since planning is a process in which various actions are established that have future consequences, which cannot exist if it is not based on one or more objectives (Aceves, 2004, p. 4), UNIMINUTO has determined a series of planned objectives. and adjusted over time, as growth and development levers: i) Access and coverage, ii) Financial benefits for students, iii) Comprehensive quality, iv) Relationships and alliances, and v) Effective management.
These elements develop and evolve, according to Richardson B. and Richardson R., as generic development strategies, based on being designed, implemented and evaluated to accompany different stages of the evolution of an organization (1996, pp. 74-75). In this sense, for UNIMINUTO, being able to diversify its offer, having the possibility of bringing higher education to more Colombians in different parts of the country and strengthening its academic and management model has had, over time, a lever through the processes of planning and evaluation deployed in a conscious way and within the framework of a vision of the future that has implicit, an action to anticipate the changes that can occur in economic, political, social terms, among others; that guides decision-making for the medium and long term with greater certainty (1996, p. 53).
With these references, UNIMINUTO Bogotá - Presential Academic Programs Campus, has routed its future through a series of strategic plans that have marked its development path. In this sense, the 2013-2019 plan raised, as one of its strategic challenges, the consolidation of an “Innovative Ecosystem and Social Entrepreneur” that generated, for the institution, two large management units: the Social Innovation Science Park created as a meeting space that promotes the relationship between actors to analyze social problems and co-create effective solutions to them (Arias, 2016, p. 265) and the Progresa Center as a unit for the management of professional internship, first job, entrepreneurship and employability ; integrating these two centers as a support network characterized by the flow of action and knowledge (Arias & Chaparro, 2018, p. 20).
TopThe Strategic Plan Of Uniminuto Bogotá - Presential Academic Programs Campus
For the period 2020-2025, UNIMINUTO as National University System, is designed as a general framework Development Plan “Learning for transformation” and aims, through its component lines, establish mechanisms for UNIMINUTO to get ready to face big changes. In the words of the General Rector Father Harold Castilla Devoz “because the future has already arrived, and we hardly realize the challenges that this avalanche of changes supposes and will suppose for humanity; in particular, for higher education”. Later, he points out that it becomes a framework for action and a reference for the plans in each campus and are challenges that need to be faced holistically by UNIMINUTO in the framework of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and later, by the COVID-19 pandemic, (UNIMINUTO, 2020, p. 11). These strategic lines are evidenced in the Figure 2:
Figure 2. UNIMINUTO University System Development Plan Lines
Key Terms in this Chapter
UNIMINUTO Council of Founders: The University highest level council integrated by a tripartite of institutions that originally participated in the University foundation. The members are: The Minuto de Dios Corporation, The Community of Eudist Fathers and the Charismatic Center Minuto de Dios.
Service-Orientated Culture: A set of shared values and principles that guide workers and organizational units to the customer satisfaction, even those areas that are not related to them.
Reactivation: It is understood as the stages of return and recovery of social and economic activities after the recession generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of responsible behavior by the society and established health security conditions by regulatory entities.
Planning Gap: In terms of strategic Planning can be defined as the mismatch between the planned goals and the effectively attained objectives.
Gradual, Progressive, and Safe Return: Phased return to the classroom presence, prior design, planning and implementation of biosafety protocols and the adaptation of the facilities to meet the most allowed capacity.
National University System, UNIMINUTO: This is the national system implemented for run the diversity of campuses settled around the Colombian geography. After the initial inception in the capital city Bogotá, the UNIMINUTO started the regional expansion towards other Colombian departments. Nowadays, UNIMUTO provides presential and virtual university education in the following Colombian spots: Bogotá Campus, Regional Center in Girardot (Cundinamarca), Campus Bello (Antioquia), CERES Chinchiná (Caldas), Regional Center Pereira (Risaralda), Regional Vice rector Llanos, Regional Center Bucaramanga (Santander), Regional Center Soacha (Cundinamarca), Regional Center Cúcuta (Northern Santander), Regional Center Barranquilla (Atlántico), Regional Center Ibagué (Tolima), Regional Center Neiva (Huila), Regional Center Zipaquirá (Cundinamarca), Regional Center Pasto (Nariño) and Regional Center Madrid (Cundinamarca).
UNIMINUTO: The Minuto de Dios University in Bogotá Colombia, started its inception in 1992. Operates as a private University but basically has a social-promotion and community purpose.
Virtual Mediation: Incorporation of information and communication technologies into the teaching-learning processes through their articulation of the curricular structures, and that goes with didactic innovations and changes in the ways of interacting of the actors involved in the educational process.
Teaching-Learning Process: Form of relationship between the actors of an educational community through which knowledge is shared, students are motivated, and curiosity aroused. It is a process that contributes to the development of new skills, where information is assimilated, and knowledge is applied correctly, according to the intentionality, models, and training methodologies.
Social Innovation Science Park: It is the UNIMINUTO’s scientific park intended to generate specific knowledge for the promotion of the communities and the most vulnerable population. This scientific park operates as a research center and was built mainly with international cooperation resources.
Capital District (Bogotá): The territorial jurisdiction of Bogotá as the national capital of Colombia. It has a planning and budgetary meaning.
Alternation Model: Hybrid approach that combines physical help and technological mediation in the development of classes and that is part of the strategy of progressive and safe return.
Contingency Actions: Steps and measures generated as part of a plan or method to minimize the impact of eventualities generated by a series of variables, exogenous or endogenous, and to guarantee continuity in service delivery.
Stake Out: Institutional effort that is developed as part of a medium or long-term plan, and that is approached through a strategic vision and action.
Biosafety Protocol: A set of standards, procedures and measures that allow to mitigate the spread and treat risk factors to prevent harmful effects, which in this case, can generate the COVID-19 pandemic in people.