UPCOMING IMPORTANT CHALLENGES OF THE MEXICAN UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA METROPOLITANA

The public Mexican University “Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM)” [1] will face important challenges that it must overcome to assure a successful future. Among the academic challenges, we state the following: a) it has to increase the number of admitted students which has decreased 36% since 1987, despite that it has two more campuses since then, b) the number of years for students to graduate has to be reduced, c) it will have to provide to the Mexican society the professionals that it needs and will need in the future as North America advances towards automation [2] and the commercial relation with the United States of America may change dramatically, affecting some national economic areas. In scientific research, the UAM needs to produce the “know-how” and technology which can be commercialized internationally or transferred for a Mexican society improvement. This is in order to obtain financial resources which are scarce and may even become scarcer. In the governance area: a) it needs to comply with its own regulations and national laws, mainly in choosing its authorities. In the budget area: a) it has to optimize the federal budget it receives from the government, which will not substantially increase in the next few years, b) it needs to obtain more funding from the government without undermining its autonomy. In the government regulation area: a) it has to improve its transparency because, in the rhetoric, it is seen as crystal house but in reality, authorities deny important information to the community, b) it has to implement accountability mechanisms. The UAM has to demonstrate that it is improving its world ranking as well as its help to transforming a country sunk in the inequality, low salaries, corruption and impunity. In this paper we describe the challenges and we propose ideas to overcome them.
[1] Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, www.uam.mx
[2]Dominguez-Perez, D. N., Dominguez-Vergara, R.M. Dominguez-Perez, R. M. and Pantoja-Gallegos, J. L. (2014), A future of isolation: control and automation in the developing countries, ICERI 2017 Proceedings, pp 7964-7973