In August, the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities celebrates its 72nd anniversary. The date invites us to look back on our journey but, above all, to reflect on the role of an institution created in 1954 in a country very different from what it was then.
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Today, the CRUCH brings together 30 universities that are different from each other, receiving more than half of Chile’s undergraduate university students. Present from Arica to Punta Arenas, they represent different experiences, territorial realities, and ways of understanding university work. Throughout its history, the Council has been able to transform this diversity into a strength, making it possible for different perspectives to converge in proposals that transcend the institutions.
This quality takes on special value in the face of the challenges Chile will have to face in the coming decades. Artificial intelligence and the acceleration of knowledge are changing the ways of teaching, learning, and researching; demographic changes pose new questions for higher education, and the evolution of the world of work demands reviewing how we train new generations. To respond to this scenario, we will need to move towards more flexible educational pathways, strengthen teacher training and research, and have financing and regulatory conditions that allow projecting the contribution of universities in the long term.
It will also be necessary to preserve what no technological innovation makes dispensable: critical thinking, ethical judgment, academic freedom, dialogue, and commitment to the common good. Universities must not only respond to the changes of their time, but they are also called to understand them, question them, and guide their effects on society.
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In this context, the CRUCH has a responsibility that projects from its own history: to put the knowledge and experience of its universities at the service of the design and development of public policies. This means providing evidence, dialoguing with key actors, presenting positions, and contributing to the search for shared solutions to challenges that no institution can address alone.
But the Council’s contribution goes beyond that, and perhaps therein lies the deepest meaning of these 72 years: having built a space where diverse institutions can meet, deliberate, and reach agreements around the country’s challenges. The coming years will require us to look forward to continue contributing, from that collective experience, to the decisions Chile will have to make.