32 Chilean Educators Visit Villanova
Dan Tantino ’02

After Chile deposed its dictator, Augusto Pinochet, in 1990 it spent the rest of the decade playing catch-up to more advanced nations in several areas including its colleges and universities. Recently, Chile has moved beyond the formative stage and now, this up‑and‑coming nation wants to gauge how effective its higher education has become in its brief democratic history and to initiate data‑driven improvements.

Chile turned to Dr. Michael Middaugh for help. A highly regarded expert, and former president of the 4,500 member Association for Institutional Research, Middaugh is the University of Delaware's assistant vice president of Institutional Research and Planning. Middaugh began on site work in Chile several months ago, and soon felt it important that the Chile educators visit model universities in the United States to get a first hand look at how they do planning and evaluation.

As Middaugh designed the group's benchmarking trip, he realized that it would be very important for the visitors to experience a faith-based institution. He recounts: "The choice was easy. I immediately contacted Villanova. It is a premier Catholic university with an extremely well respected institutional research department."

On Sept. 12, Villanova opened its doors to 32 Chileans from the Ministry of Education and professors/administrators from several colleges and universities. Coordinated at this end by Dr. John Kelley, Villanova's executive director of Planning, Training and Institutional Research, the event was an academic and social convergence between two different cultures. The guests heard first­hand from the heads of Villanova offices of Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, Financial Affairs, Budget and Auxiliary Services as well as several of our planning and institutional research staff. In addition, the guests toured the campus guided by two Spanish speaking Villanova students and lunched in a student dining room with members of the Villanova Student Hispanic Society.

Beyond the sharing of information and experience, beyond simultaneous translators using wireless headsets, beyond speakers and power points, there were group photos, conversations, laughs and fellowship. Kelley hopes that the success of this visit will spawn further relationships between Chile and Villanova, such as visiting students, exchange programs, electronic information sharing and other collaborative functions.

One of the Chilean professors, Maria Rosa Jelcic, expressed her excitement over the visit, "The experience is important for us because we can follow Villanova's examples and try to adapt them to our universities. I've learned so many things pertinent to my particular area at my school. Also, I'm thrilled over the warm welcome and the time and effort that Villanovans gave for our sake. "