For 41 years the University of Applied and Environmental Sciences UDCA has been committed to environmental conservation and sustainable human development in the country. Since its inception, it has always been aware that caring for the planet is something that belongs to all of us and that education plays a fundamental role in generating quality of life in communities and their ecosystems.
Although it was born as a University Corporation of Agricultural Sciences, with emphasis on Agricultural Sciences and with academic programs related to the area of knowledge, such as Veterinary Medicine, Agronomic Engineering and Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics, over time, and since it was recognized as a university ( 2004), began to universalize its academic offering to other areas of knowledge, to the point of creating to the point of diversifying the areas of knowledge with the faculties of Health Sciences, Sciences, Environmental Sciences and Administrative and Accounting Sciences.
The environmental focus that the University has had allowed us over time “to realize the importance of making the transition towards sustainability. We have been a university committed to the environment since its foundation, and now we are generating the transformation of our educational model for the training of students from a sustainability perspective. We asked ourselves, what should we do so that our graduates are truly committed to sustainability? Regardless of the area of knowledge where they are trained,” explained Henny Margoth Santiago Villa, Sustainability Coordinator of the UDCA. Therefore, The University has aligned the university strategy with Sustainability to identify and contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and to articulate its missionary functions, where training from being, knowing and doinggenerates students to become agents of change who have the knowledge, means and commitment to generate actions that transform the country and the world.
The UDCA’s commitment is ambitious: “to train professionals who not only have an environmental commitment, but who go further, who understand the importance of contributing to the construction of sustainable societies, because the situation we currently experience warrants it. Until recently it was thought that the environmental issue was the responsibility of environmental sciences, but today young people are seeing that we are facing a planetary crisis that implies the responsibility of everyone, where it is essential to generate concrete actions that ensure the sustainability of life,” he assured.
Therefore, Today the university has different academic programs that address environmental commitment from its area of knowledge. In programs such as Chemistry, extension projects are being generated that strengthen sustainable practices in students from healthy lifestyles, organic crops to ancestral knowledge, all focused on respect for nature and other forms of life. In the Nursing program, we work with a focus on the Objectives of Good Living to provide health care with quality and excellence; In the Agronomic Engineering program the commitment is to sustainable agricultural production and in Administrative and Accounting Sciences they have been working on the formation of sustainable companies that provide a better quality of life to the country, to mention a few cases. “The important thing on this path and what makes us happy is to see that students from all academic programs are very committed to this transformation, as well as teachers. The climate events we are experiencing, such as hurricanes and extreme droughts, affect us all. This makes people change their thinking and generate a different awareness regarding their responsibility as an individual with the planet and those around them,” Santiago highlighted.
In fact, for several years University professors have received training on environmental issues and are now doing so on sustainability issues. On the other hand, the university has been leading environmental networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, currently has the Technical Secretariat in the Colombian Network of Environmental Training and the coordination of an Observatory of sustainability in Higher Education for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Study at van der Hammen
The environment has also played a fundamental role in the environmental strengthening of the University and this is shown by the institution’s board of directors. “We are privileged. We are part of the Thomas van der Hammen northern productive forest reserve. Our academic programs offer students tools to generate changes in thinking towards sustainable environments. Likewise, institutional policies focus on sustainability such as, for example, the zero smoke policy, take your well and the reuse of water, among others. We are working to consolidate our campus as a Living Classroom and we are close to inaugurating our environmental memory trail, which shows the biodiversity of the campus in terms of fauna and vegetation. Likewise, we are transforming the infrastructure to have a greater commitment to sustainability. The campus has served for many schools in the sector to carry out pedagogical and environmental activities because it is an area that allows us to be in relationship with nature.”
The fruits of this commitment can already be seen in the recognition that the UDCA has as one of the most solid universities in environmental issues. In addition, today it has a significant number of graduates leading environmental processes in municipalities, governorates and mayors’ offices, in public and private institutions in the country.
Environmental articulation extends to private and public entities such as the Jaime Duque park where several projects focused on environmental and cultural sustainability have been developed. Other important projects have been Rural Women and Most Innovative Cundinamarcawhere the coordination with the government of Cundinamarca has allowed it to establish itself as an innovative university based on sustainability.
In summary, Santiago assured, the objective is “to provide society with professionals with a solid comprehensive training, academic excellence and who have the seal of sustainability. There will always be many things to improve, but we are on the right track. Because in the face of the crisis and in the world we live in, educating for sustainability is a priority and urgent thing.”
