Agreements in the spirit of MEDIT

On November 11, the Extraordinary Academic Council continued at the Zipaquirá extension, meeting in person and broadcasting via Facebook. The meeting addressed the curricular redefinition of the Music program. Faculty and professors from the program participated in an open dialogue that lasted 12 consecutive hours.

Rector Adriano Muñoz Barrera, as president of the Academic Council, began the meeting by expressing a clear intention to dialogue and build with all the participants present and those connected, who are part of the Music program.

For their part, the students expressed their disagreement with the redefinition due to issues such as: the reduction of semesters, which would go from 10 to 9, the reduction of credits, and the fact that they had not been involved in this process.

Several teachers joined the student petition because, according to them, there was no general consensus. “In this process, different points of disagreement can be observed, since the teachers, who at the time endorsed the reinterpretation, raised several concerns about it,” mentioned Mateo Sepúlveda, a music program teacher.

After several interventions by students and teachers, who argued their requests regarding the process of redefinition, the Academic Vice-Rector, Víctor Hugo Londoño, explained what was happening and how it had been carried out.

“This was an exercise that has had many debates and was not done overnight, where there is a discussion of the topic, clearly not everyone could agree at the time, but decisions are made by majority in a curriculum committee that endorsed the proposal,” explained Dr. Londoño.

The vice-rector also confirmed that the 65%, one of the 30 existing Music programs in the country, has nine semesters, a point addressed in the new curriculum redesign. “For four years, discussions have been ongoing with all members of the committee, with broad participation, which endorsed the proposal despite some differences that arose. It is important to note that this redesign is an essential component of the Music program's self-evaluation process,” he stated.

In this way, and in the midst of this important dialogue with the educational community, the student delegates, who had been on strike for more than a week, teachers and the Academic Council managed to reach an agreement.

These were the points agreed upon:

First: an improvement plan will be submitted by the program's self-evaluation team and curriculum committee on November 29, and then taken to the Academic Council session on December 6.

Second: as part of the Curriculum Redesign, the number of semesters in the academic program and its number of credits will be taken into consideration.

Third: the academic calendar will be extended after the cessation of activities, in order to recover the lost class days, so the classes for this program will go until next December 2nd.

It should be noted that the students appreciated the clarification made by the Academic Council regarding the resources allocated to students and faculty, which do not correspond to the university as such, but to the National Government.

Finally, the purpose of the dialogue was made clear: it was educational and constructive. At no point would anyone be labeled or singled out for the protest. “Here we build, all within the framework of an educational and constructive dialogue, in the spirit of MEDIT,” concluded Rector Adriano Muñoz Barrera.

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