The third general assembly of the Regional Conference of Rectors of Latin American Universities of the AUF (CRULA) was held as a virtual seminar from 28 to 30 April 2021 at the Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia). This was an opportunity for the University of Guyana, through its participation, to renew its commitment to this South American university network of the French-speaking world in order to be consistent with its macro-regional environment.
The 3 morning meetings focused on the following themes:
- Academic mobility experiences
- Management and governance of universities in relation to containment, face-to-face and distance activity at different levels of university institutions.
- Action by universities to coordinate public health and support hospitals.
- Sustainability of university enrolments, student drop-outs and the quality of higher education: what are the impacts one year into the crisis?
- Agence universitaire de la Francophonie dans les Amériques and collaborative networks in the Americas
These workshops enabled the 52 participants to take stock of the many management issues facing universities one year before the start of the pandemic. The debates, rich in ideas and exchanges of expertise, revealed both local particularities and major continental trends.
All the presentations are available on the channelYouTube of CRULA. Presentations are given in the language of the participants (French, Spanish, Portuguese).
At the end of the meeting, the Rectors elected the President of CRULA and appointed the Executive Committee. Edgar Varela Barrios, Rector of the Universidad del Valle (Colombia), was elected President by a large majority, and will be supported by Denise Pires de Carvalho, Rector of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Didier BEREAU, Vice-President for International Relations at the Université de Guyane, who will act as Vice-President and Executive Secretary of the Bureau respectively.
As a reminder, the AUF currently has 80 Latin American universities from 12 countries in its Americas network (https://www.auf.org/ameriques/membres/) .
The Bureau des Amériques, to which the UG belongs, has been based in Montreal since 1987. Its mission is to encourage and promote the development of French-speaking university education and research. It also builds and consolidates institutional partnerships that make higher education a lever for international development.
