• The National Accreditation Commission (CNA, in Spanish), informed that Universidad de Santiago was accredited in the compulsory and optional areas, more precisely, Undergraduate Teaching, Institutional Management, Graduate Teaching, Research, and Outreach and Community Engagement, until October 1st, 2020.
• Before this positive result, the highest authority of the University, Dr. Juan Manuel Zolezzi, expressed his gratitude to the community “for the work done by everyone at the University; we expect to continue making progress in the challenges that we have set ourselves.”
• President Zolezzi highlighted that this is an important recognition for our institution, considering that the CNA has more stringent requirements after the widely known criticism that it received.

On September 24th, after 18:00 h, Paula Beale, the Executive Secretary of the National Accreditation Commission, called the University President Juan Manuel Zolezzi, who was in Temuco participating in the monthly meeting of the Cruch (the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities), to officially inform him that Universidad de Santiago de Chile was accredited by the agency for the next 6 years.

President Zolezzi said that “this is good news for the University, as it allows us to work tranquilly until 2020 and this is only due to the work done by all the community, on a responsible and sustained basis.”

He also stressed that “it is necessary to consider that 6 years ago the CNA was not the same agency in terms of strictness.”

Our University was accredited in the two compulsory areas (Undergraduate Teaching and Institutional Management) and in the three optional areas (Graduate Teaching, Research, and Outreach and Community Engagement). According to President Zolezzi, this means that “the CNA is giving us a seal of quality and guarantee that will allow our students to be sure that our University will not be in risk of losing the state funding or support."

Besides, he said that with this result, the University starts a new process aimed at strengthening all the work done in the past few years, particularly regarding the “special dedication and commitment to the most vulnerable students that make this recognition much more deserved.”

Finally, President Juan Manuel Zolezzi, in a conversation with Radio Universidad de Santiago, made public his special gratitude to “all the community for the work done; for what we have done together for the University; we expect to continue making progress in the challenges that we have set ourselves.”

With this result, Universidad de Santiago becomes the first University in the country to be certified until 2020 and one of the 10 institutions to be accredited in all areas.

Translated by Marcela Contreras