On Wednesday, March 6, 2024, during a regular session of the University of Cauca’s Board of Trustees, our highest governing body in full, the opening of the Nursing Program at the North Campus located in the municipality of Santander de Quilichao was approved.

The Alma Mater of Cauca, in line with its commitment to increasing access to higher education for more young people, especially in areas most affected by armed conflict, and in response to requests from those who expressed a desire to study and become professionals in the field of nursing, began efforts to make a dream come true: to offer this program at our North Campus. Today, that effort bore fruit, as reflected in the approval of this important project by the Board of Trustees, whose members met on Wednesday at Unicauca's facilities in Santander de Quilichao.

“It is a great joy and a pleasure to announce that the Nursing Program for the North Campus, located in Santander de Quilichao, has been approved. We presented it to the Board of Trustees and received a very positive reception because it is a strong commitment to the regionalization of our beloved University. I believe it is a commitment from the university leadership and the current administration to start having a greater impact in our region, and we are achieving this through the opening of the Nursing Program. We are working at full speed to launch it in the second semester of 2024,” stated Adriana Castro Mañunga, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences. She also added that the unique feature of this program at the North Campus will be its intercultural approach: “We will focus on intercultural childbirth care and midwifery in general, as it is a strength that the context will allow us to develop more effectively with an important primary health care approach.”

Thus, it is important to consider the subsequent steps following this good news. After the approval of the new program by the Board of Trustees, the next step will be to complete the application process for the corresponding Qualified Registration with the Ministry of National Education, with a clear goal as noted by Dean Castro Mañunga. It is expected that by the second semester of this year, young people from the north of our department will be able to realize their dream of starting to study Nursing at the University of Cauca. In this regard, Dr. Alexander Buendía, Director of the Center for Quality Management and Institutional Accreditation, mentioned that “indeed, we hope to offer this program for the second semester of 2024 once we obtain the qualified registration from the Ministry; a process we are 100% dependent on this office, but we are confident it will happen.”

These efforts, driven with great commitment by the current administration, stem from the ongoing Institutional Development Plan; a plan that has as its third strategic axis working ‘For a university that is supportive and committed to its environment’. Making it possible for young people to access the Nursing Program in a strategically located area, close to their homes, reflects the commitment to the residents of our department and the relevance of university action, by not overlooking the realities of a territory as diverse and challenging as Cauca.

Finally, from this University, which is #HeritageForAll, we invite all those interested in studying Nursing to stay tuned for updates on this great announcement that we will provide later.

At Unicauca, through higher education, we transform the lives of young people, their families, and the communities they live in because this is a powerful tool for laying the foundation for a better, fairer, and more equitable future.

We continue to advance with commitment towards the bicentennial!