With contributions from public and private institutions, more than a thousand units will be manufactured. The first models are already in use in hospitals in the region.

Responding to their motivation to make human and technological capacities available to the regional community, a group of academicsmic@sy officials of The University of La Serena organized the C19-ULS-3D+ initiative this week, activating a solidarity chain that will allow the manufacturing of face shields for health personnel in the Coquimbo Region in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The idea was born during teleworking and initially summoned a dozen academicsmic@sy ULS officials associated with the faculties of Sciences and Engineering, and is part of an alliance with other national universities to form a solidarity network that supports the fight against the pandemic.

Face shields are additional protections to the traditional mask that allow the entire face of health personnel to be covered, helping to prevent contagion. The model to be produced was selected from several open code options, considering the speed of production, the materials needed and the usefulness for health personnel.

“As this is an emergency, reducing manufacturing times allows us to generate more shields. In addition, it is key that the product is useful for health professionals. Considering all these factors, modifications have been made until reaching a definitive model that is quick to obtain and does not present condensation,” explains Raquel Salinas, administrator of the Technology Center of the ULS Faculty of Engineering.

The developed model is manufactured in 3D printers, using 1,75 mm PLA filament, 300 micron transparent mica and elastic, with times ranging between 1 and 2 hours maximum production per unit, depending on the printer model.

Today there are 14 3D printers that the University authorized to move to the homes of the members of this project to start production. In addition, 4 of them had a 3D printer in their residences and they also made them available to this initiative.

“It has been a collaborative and highly rewarding teleworking. It motivates us to contribute with what we know and have as academics and as an institution, helping to care for the most exposed health professionals who need so much today to have more materials to care for people's lives," says Rodrigo Olivares, Director of the Construction Engineering School.

First deliveries

Parallel to the production, another ULS team works on the management of contributions, contacting institutions and people who want and can buy supplies (filaments, micas and elastic) for this purpose. Until today, the C19-ULS-3D+ initiative has requests for more than 3 face shields, with contributions of supplies, both from hospitals in the region and from the Regional Corporation for Productive Development.

“We call on companies and unions in the Coquimbo Region, and also natural persons who can contribute supplies. As a University we can receive this contribution in materials and transform it into face shields for medical teams. Those who want to contribute to this initiative can contact us by email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or WhatsApp +56 9 62470324 ”, indicates César Espíndola, an academic from the Department of Industrial Engineering.

We have a new channel to coordinate your contributions in supplies: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / +56 994350491.

The Director of the ULS Department of Psychology, an expert in Organizational Psychology and president of the Chilean Society of Work and Organizational Psychology addresses the teleworking scenario that many Chileans are facing due to the COVID-19 quarantine.

They always anticipated that the era of teleworking would arrive. And so it was, it arrived, as a consequence of a pandemic that had not been seen for 100 years. COVID-19 took remote work by the hand, and today is how thousands of Chileans, from their homes, have had to face new challenges connected to the online network.

For Dr. Campos, everything that workers face in this new scenario should be connected to what is called "psychological well-being in the workplace, which aims to keep us focused, with spaces of autonomy to face our duties, but also building contexts that allow us to execute our functions with a certain degree of control to achieve the goals that commit us. And there it is the challenge of teleworking, combining the work world with the personal world in the same space.”

To achieve this, you need “We must relate to others positively, and there are our family and our networks and work teams, with which we must maintain communication and constructive ties in unison.”

It is very important, according to the psychologist and president of the Chilean Society of Work and Organizational Psychology, to keep in mind that “One of the things that is most in crisis, apart from social isolation, is the pressure we are carrying and the stress that undergoing this change of work context and the need to learn many new ways of communicating are causing us. If we manage to interact socially from the remote possibilities we have, we will be able to feel less alone. That is where the importance of social well-being comes.”

Add that “Social well-being has to do with how we feel with those others with whom we work, how we feel in the concept of the collective, of the social system to which we belong at work, and many times this social system is highly positive and nutritious, becoming a social womb that encourages us, but there are other times that this system is complex, generating stress, anguish, anxiety. To achieve social well-being, it must be built from interaction, and on that level, since today we are in that physical distance and in the need to do teleworking, we will measure how that womb was built... if that womb has been effective, we must maintain it, and if it has not been effective, there are new formulas to build it, build a virtualized womb from the different tools we have, and be able to feel like we belong to a group, even when each person is in a different space, which will help us feeling emotionally stable and with the confidence to tell the colleague “help me, listen to me, teach me, guide me. That is what we must not lose.”

The professional is emphatic in saying that “Until the last minute of our lives we have the opportunity to learn, so it is never too late to enter new scenarios. It is essential to have the desire and rely on those who can help us in this process, our own families, children, young people, who are digital natives, are the ones who can also help us in this process. It all depends on the emotional disposition that people have. Today, openness to learning is essential, as is the willingness to positively solve problems.”

Social psychological well-being

“Today, our psychosocial well-being feels violated to a certain extent by the risk situation we face, both due to the pandemic and the associated risks of losing job and economic stability. “COVID puts us in a scenario of uncertainty”, maintains the ULS academic.

It is in this scenario where Dr. Campos highlights that there is a greater risk of crisis in the stability of our mental health. “For this reason, it is important that organizations provide training in technologies that promote communication, strengthen virtual teamwork and provide emotional support to those who face extreme situations,” recommends.

Finally, the professional advises “Take care of ourselves and take care of ourselves, build positive links with others in new ways, and face this contingency in the best way and with networks and technologies. Video calls, photos, chats, WhatsApp, also help us feel emotional support in these moments of crisis.”

Written by Patricia Castro, DirCom

 

 

 

 

The PACE team is inserted once again into the Enrollment Process to receive students who enter through this route.

The Accompaniment and Access to Higher Education Program (PACE) of the Ministry of Education, implemented by the University of La Serena since 2015, for the fourth consecutive year received students who entered via quota, PSU or special admission to higher education , belonging to the Program, enrolling a total of 137 students (PACE Quota 55, PSU PACE 81 and Special Entry PACE 1).

In order to know and guide new students entering higher education from the first moment, the PACE program team deployed all its professionals for this new admission and enrollment process of the House of Higher Studies, of the 137 students, the program accompanied 70 students in person and 67 online.

In this regard, the Executive Director of the APRENDE and PACE ULS Program, Viviana Romero, expressed “This Enrollment process has been different from previous years, because we had several date changes in the processes, however, I highlight that our University anticipated it by properly planning the 2020 process, through the work of the Admission and Enrollment Department, in conjunction with the Information and Computing Center, managing to effectively enable the enrollment procedure, both online and in person, added to the collaborative work of the various units that participate in this ”.

The PACE Program of the University of La Serena accompanies around 1700 3rd and 4th year students, who upon completing and passing the program can apply for a place in higher education, as long as they are in the top 15%. of your school's grade ranking.

In this sense, the Coordinator of the Secondary Education Preparation area of ​​PACE (PEM), Jovanna González, pointed out that: “The importance of the enrollment process is that it constitutes the closure of the entire journey that begins in secondary education, during which vocational exploration actions are developed, visits to the university, workshops, conversations with students, reinforcement of transversal skills, among other actions are carried out.

On the other hand, the Coordinator of the Higher Education Accompaniment (AES) component of the PACE Program, Claudia Toledo, explained what the complementary Route that the program implemented in this 2020 Enrollment process consisted of. “The first point was the PACE Stand, in which we received the students with their families, providing relevant information about who is part of the team, material about the accompaniment that the program has and how to request it, the second point is the characterization interview, in which the PACE team obtains specific information on new students, vital for the academic and psychoeducational support processes; and, finally, the signing of a letter of commitment, in which the new students accept the accompaniment of the program, together with the signing of a letter of consent for image use and the taking of a photograph for internal use."

Student experience

The greatest difficulty in the 2020 Registration process was the uncertainty caused by the country's situation, which is why orientation was the fundamental pillar of the program.

In this context, Alexis Jofré, a student enrolled in the Mechanical Civil Engineering program, expressed his gratitude to the program professionals: “I want to thank the PACE program team for all the help and guidance they gave me throughout the entire process, since I was very clear about all the steps I had to follow to enroll.”

While Paulina Álvarez, a student enrolled in Mechanical Engineering, stated: “The help they gave me was great, they clarified my doubts and helped me complete my registration process with a lot of patience and dedication.”

Finally, Fresia Araya, mother of a student who entered Pedagogy in Differential Education, thanked all the work that PACE gave to her daughter: “The support that the PACE team gave us was excellent, I did not expect so much dedication from the team, I am truly leaving happy, with my daughter already enrolled and with the film much clearer, ready to begin her first year at university.”

Written by Daniel Aguayo, APRENDE Programs - PACE ULS

The Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), before the presentation of the Chamber of Deputies, on March 27, 2020, of the “Bill that suspends the collection of fees and other pecuniary obligations in Higher Education Institutions” , in the context of the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus or COVID-19, considers that said parliamentary motion, beyond its purposes, can seriously harm universities, their communities and their responsibility to sustain the continuity of higher education throughout the country.

It should be emphasized that since the date on which the Ministry of Health decreed a health alert for the entire national territory, universities have adopted measures aimed at controlling the spread and protecting the health of the population. This interrupted the enrollment process and for various institutions produced a significant loss of students. In any case, the CRUCH universities, from Arica to Magallanes, have made all their resources available to the national emergency, through their laboratories, research centers, experts, professionals from the different areas of health, thus demonstrating their commitment and collaboration with the health authority.

In response to these facts, the Council of Rectors has agreed to make public the following considerations regarding said parliamentary motion:

1. Aware of the contingency that economically affects Chile, the universities themselves have promoted a series of measures with the purpose of making compliance with financial commitments more flexible, granting additional facilities to those that we regularly grant to our students and their respective families, according to the needs and conditions that we have always recognized. Likewise, all institutions are attending to and seeking answers to the connectivity needs of those students who lack such means.

2. At this time it is essential to maintain the training processes and the scientific and social contributions that universities make to the country. However, in these circumstances, these tasks imply taking on new challenges that demand human and material resources that we must face with budget resources not foreseen for 2020.  

3. If universities experience declines in their already adjusted income, this will affect not only the fulfillment of their functions, but also the entire university community in the country, which will inevitably have relevant impacts on the sustainability of our institutions. This negative impact would be especially serious and insurmountable in those that play a significant social role in the different regions of the country.

4. Supporting the training of our students and the remuneration of all academics and civil servants has costs that are financed by fees, so it is inappropriate to settle through a law of general application the suspension of the same, preventing the institutions themselves from addressing specific situations of the students, without also considering the diversity of financial and academic conditions in which the institutions carry out their functions throughout the country.

5. The undelegable contribution of universities in this crisis is to provide continuity to the functions of the educational system. In this sense, we can assure that each of our study houses is currently implementing all the actions within its reach to advance via remote work and virtual classes. This requires taking care of standards of quality and equity in access and learning results for all of our students.

6. Universities must take care of the intellectual, scientific and artistic-cultural capital of the country and this certainly implies sobriety in expression and realism to weigh the diverse needs of the higher education system. A motion like the one proposed in the bill does not offer an alternative that truly addresses the common good, nor the complexity of the variables and emergencies present.

Finally, we want to be very explicit, our will will be, of course on the basis of dialogue, to welcome and ensure that no student or their families are excluded or have to add greater costs to their education in these conditions that are so adverse for everyone, and that We will not stop providing the facilities that each institution, according to its capabilities, can provide.

Source: CRUCH

Dear First Year Students of the courses of the four Faculties of the University of La Serena: Faculty of Sciences, Faculty of Social, Business and Legal Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Engineering:

First of all, receive a cordial greeting in this time of crisis due to the Coronavirus pandemic in humanity, which has led to institutions having to learn and do things in new ways; different from the traditional ones. This motivates us to act jointly and in solidarity as a university community, of which today you are also a part.

Your university life begins and the two coming weeks will be transcendental for each of you, since from the day Monday, March 30 and until Thursday, April 09, the Institutional Diagnostic Process will be carried out, as an activity that will allow us to support them in their professional training and it will be necessary that in order to know their entry behaviors, which we believe are fundamental, they must submit specific evaluations, which given the contingency, on this occasion they must do it remotely through the Computer Platform of the University of La Serena PHOENIX.

For the above reasons and with the objective of generate conditions of good access and facilities for adequate surrender, the process has been scheduled by faculty, according to the following:

Monday March 30: Induction video tutorial for test taking

Testing:

Tuesday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 1il: Faculty of Business and Legal Social Sciences:

Audit

Right

Commercial engineering

Engineering in business administration

Pedagogy in History and Geography

Journalism

Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3: Faculty of Sciences

Nursing

Agronomic Engineering

Computer Engineering

Kinesiology

Bachelor of Astronomy

Degree in Physics

Bachelor of Mathematics

Dentistry

Pedagogy in Biology and Cs. Natural

Pedagogy in Mathematics and Computing

Pedagogy in Mathematics and Physics

Pedagogy in Chemistry and Sciences. Natural

Chemistry

Monday, April 06 and Tuesday, April 07: Faculty of Humanities:

Integrated

Bachelor's degree in Music

Pedagogy in Basic General Education

Pedagogy in Spanish and Philosophy

Pedagogy in Differential Education

Pedagogy in Music Education

Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education

Pedagogy in English

Psychology

English to Spanish translation

Wednesday, April 08 and Thursday, April 09: Faculty of Engineering:

Architecture

Construction Engineering

Civil Engineering

Industrial Civil Engineering

Mechanical Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering of Mines

Environmental Civil Engineering

Mining Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Food Engineering

It is important to note that in case of doubts you may have regarding remote work with diagnostic evaluations, the University has provided the following contact email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We once again extend a cordial welcome to our University of La Serena in this Inductive stage awaiting the Beginning of the Academic Year itself, which will begin on May 4, 2020. It is worth remembering that after the Diagnostic Tests have been submitted, you will participate of the Leveling Process, of which they will be informed through their emails and their respective School Directors.

Hoping that you can continue applying all self-care measures for the benefit of your personal and family health, cordially:

Teaching Directorate

Academic Vice-Chancellorship

University of La Serena