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University connects mind and heart

The President of the Sacred Heart University in Puerto Rico, José Jaime Rivera, visited Philadelphia to build relationships with high school students in the City of Brotherly Love and recruit graduates to continue their higher education in the “Isle of Enchantmen,” in an institution that not only aims to create leaders but agents of change.
Founded in 1880, the university is one of the oldest in the island and is located in the metropolitan area of Santurce in San Juan. 
Originally conceived as a selective institution for women, it evolved to serve a wider rang

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The President of the Sacred Heart University in Puerto Rico, José Jaime Rivera, visited Philadelphia to build relationships with high school students in the City of Brotherly Love and recruit graduates to continue their higher education in the “Isle of Enchantmen,” in an institution that not only aims to create leaders but agents of change.
Founded in 1880, the university is one of the oldest in the island and is located in the metropolitan area of Santurce in San Juan. 
Originally conceived as a selective institution for women, it evolved to serve a wider range of communities, which lead to dramatic growth and up to 20,000 students.
Nevertheless, in the late 1980s it went back to its selective roots and decreased the number of new admissions from 2,000 students per year to about 700.
“The latest transformations have revolved around how to create a different experiences focused on the students and the community,” Rivera said. 
According to him, the mission of this religious institution is not only to educate professionals but to create “leaders to transform our society.”
“As an institution we want to be agents of change and create bonds at a local and international level, and that’s why we are here,” Rivera said in an interview with AL DÍA News in Philadelphia. 
With a core curriculum based in theory and practice, technology, and bilingual and multicultural education, it strives to face not only the current needs of the society in which we live but the ones that will arise in the future. 
“In six or seven years who knows what is going to be happening in the fields we are working,” Rivera said. “Our students are going to work in multiple careers, countries, and occasionally they will be their own bosses.”
On the other hand, he added that the institution seeks to prepare its students to continue their education beyond a college degree.
“If we bring competitive students we don’t want them to get only their bachelor’s, but to set their mind on doing a master's,” Rivera said. 
That’s why every career includes a diverse set of requirements for that purpose, from research to statistics. 
Two years ago the university started a civic engagement program that offers training in dialogue, mediation and conflict resolution as part of the curriculum. 
“If we are looking for agents of change, they need to be mediators and to facilitate dialogue between opposing groups in a way that is socially acceptable and that respects diversity and different ideologies,” he said. 
This vision lead the university to obtain the only recognition an institution in the island has received from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), due to the university's focus on society, community outreach and partnerships. 
Its unique learning model requires students to participate in a community service project in order to graduate.  
For this purpose, the institution created a center that caters to community organizations with problems that represent a risk to their sustainability. 
After the university staff analyzes the problems of each organization, and identifies the disciplines that may help solve them, they are assigned to a class along with others that face similar problems. 
“The students spend the semester working with the organizations to develop a solution to problems that can be applied at the end,” Rivera said. “It’s a model that allows the students to recognize the problems of our society and to participate in a solution to those problems.”
He added that this is only one example of how the institution “connects the mind with the heart, and shows that the old saying of ‘power is knowledge’, is real.”
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