Under the motto “Weaving dreams that transform lives,” the University of Cauca presented its Accountability Report for the 2024 fiscal year. The event, held on Thursday, May 22, 2025, in the Francisco José de Caldas Auditorium, gathered a full audience along with many people connected via the live broadcast. The session featured presentations from the Senior Management team, led by Rector Deibar René Hurtado Herrera. With outstanding attendance, the institution not only fulfilled current legal requirements but also reaffirmed its commitment to transparency in managing public resources.

With the conviction that each member of the university community is a key piece in the puzzle that allows the institution to achieve the goals outlined in its Institutional Development Plan “For a University of Excellence and Solidarity,” and to face the daily challenges that arise, the Public Accountability Hearing for the 2024 term took place on Thursday, May 22, 2025. The event brought together the university community and the general public in a participatory dialogue about institutional management. It began with the screening of moving audiovisual materials that added warmth and closeness to the session. Additionally, as a distinctive feature, it included compelling digital graphic documentation as a tool to summarize the event. Thus, Rector Deibar René Hurtado Herrera, along with his team of vice-rectors, presented a summary of the work carried out during 2024, placing special emphasis on the main achievements.

During his speech, Rector Deibar René Hurtado Herrera highlighted, among other points, the significant progress made in the execution of the institution’s roadmap — the Institutional Development Plan — and emphasized one of the most important milestones: “We achieved an 88.3% execution of our Development Plan, four points above our projected goal, which shows that the University has been very efficient in its implementation. That’s why, under the Bicentennial Axis, we believed it was fundamental from the start of our administration to strengthen the present, because only by strengthening the present are we able to face the challenges of the future. In that sense, the most important achievement of 2024 was the approval of Law 2351, which allowed us to increase the revenue from the University Stamp Tax by three hundred billion pesos.”

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The result of this experience has been so positive that Professor Cortés and his students have planned two additional field visits. One of them will be to the Smurfit Kappa plant in Yumbo, Valle del Cauca, to observe the full process of transforming the wood extracted from Cajibío. The second visit will return to the Cauca municipality to witness the planting process of the company’s managed forests and to conduct surveys aimed at assessing how cohesive the social organizations are in terms of defending the territory and implementing activities — joint projects that are essential to achieving sustainability in the region.

“The importance of carrying out these activities with these pedagogical models lies in the fact that students — our future professionals — begin to connect with the actors, the context, the landscape, and the socio-economic and ecological problems that affect the department of Cauca. This way, once they graduate, they can support us through their professional practice to help achieve a higher level of development in these municipalities,” emphasized Professor Raúl.

These kinds of initiatives will always be a source of great joy and pride for our regional house of knowledge and thought, as they clearly reflect the pedagogical vocation of our teaching staff, their willingness to foster dialogue between academia and local populations, and their commitment to building appropriate progress for the regions. We look forward to continuing to share updates on these actions, which undoubtedly strengthen our presence in the territory.

Written by: Center for Communication Management