Abstract:

The Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM) is a private educational institution with more than 40 years of experience in higher education, located in San Pedro Garza García, N.L., Mexico, which has strengthen development in the northeastern region of the country through its educational activities and investigations. UDEM has 4 high school programs, 35 undergraduate programs, 15 graduate programs, 27 postgraduate medical programs, and more than 250 continuing education programs. It´s population is of 12,000 students and 900 Faculty members in the different areas of UDEM. UDEM´s mission is to “Integrally shape the student, by means of a personalized educational model in an intercultural environment of academic excellence, so that the student can develop plentiful in all the different aspects of his or her life, and finds transcendence in the service of others; likewise, contribute to the development of knowledge and the construction of a sustainable society.” One of the strategies of UDEM´s vision contemplates Academic Leadership, which, among various projects, considers the enhancement of the Faculty´s academic quality, which through the years has improved the academic degrees and the internalization of its professors. Because of this, the Project “Strengthening of Faculty UDEM into 2015” was formed with the objective of reinforcing the processes of Faculty Attraction and Development, by assuring that our Faculty proceeds from the most prestigious institutions in the world, having postgraduate degrees in UDEM´s strategic areas of knowledge, dominating competencies in investigation and consulting, providing UDEM a wide net of high level academic relationships. The course of action that gives way to this Project with a collaboration between Human Resources and the Academia are: 1. Redesigning of the Faculty´s regulations that incorporates a new Faculty classification system that privileges the functions of investigation and development, 2. Assuring the incorporation of new professors from the most prestigious institutions in the world, strengthening UDEM´s presence in international scientific forums. 3. Guaranteeing the progress of the Program for Development of Prospective and Current Professors, by means of supporting their completion of postgraduate studies in the most prestigious universities in the world (according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the World University Rankings, published by Times Higher Education), with a strong emphasis on UDEM´s and Mexico´s strategic areas. UDEM has completed favorably this objective, both in time and budget. The success factors for the achievement of this goal are: having a financial fund for the processes of attractions and development of prospective and current professors, a Faculty classification system and organizational structure that guarantees academic productivity, making use of existing scholarships, so our prospective and current Faculty can further develop, inviting the participation of Faculty Directors in Higher Education to these practices, and the generation of development projects for UDEM´s leadership roles: Directors and candidates to key positions.