Social Projection The University, in fulfillment of its mission, continuously evaluates the necessities of the context through its different academic units of investigation and extension. The results obtained from these evaluations have lead to the consolidation of lines of investigation, qualification programs and investigation and consultancy projects. Each one of our Academic Divisions, Centers and Institutes develops projects of high social impact, oriented to contribute to the solution of the most relevant problems of our society.
Projects of High Social Impact
The Humanities and Social Sciences Division, through the Human Development Study Center, has identified the attention needs of children in preschool years which lead to the programming of integral attention for children in preschool age.
During the last 5 years, the Engineering Division has developed innovative and technological development projects with companies of the region, through which these companies have managed to improve their productive processes and the competitiveness of their products.
The Institute of Hydraulic and Environmental Studies, Ideha, has studied for more than 15 years the behavior of the Magdalena River and has proposed and developed Engineering solutions that have contributed to the improvement of the navigation channel. The university has also been conducting the Scientific Operation of the Hydraulic Research laboratory of Las Flores.
Since 1995, in the health area we have been evaluating and taking care of the needs of the inhabitants of several municipalities of the Atlantic Department, and of districts located in the South West of Barranquilla, through the Project UNI, financed by the Kellogg's Foundation. Since 3 years ago, the Hospital Universidad del Norte has also participated giving high quality medical services to these same populations.
The Institute of Higher Studies in Education in association with the investigation group of Clinical Psychology have developed the Psycho-affective Development Program for children of preschool age, PISOTON. This had been sponsored by the Presidency of the Republic in 2001. Nowadays it is sponsored by the Andrés Bello agreement.
The Administrative Sciences Division at the regional level created the ExpoSMB Program with support from Proexport and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. They support around 200 SMB's in their processeses of improvement in administrative management in order to fortify management capacity and quality of products and formulate the design of its exporting plans.
The social impact obtained through these programs and projects has been recognized at the national and international level by institutions of diverse order, which have invited the institution to share the developed projects, the used methodologies and the results with the academic community and the society in general.
High Social Impact Institutional Programs
Catedra Europa: its primary goal is the promotion of European culture in all its aspects, offering academic and cultural activities.
Canada in Uninorte: Sponsored by the Canadian Embassy in Colombia to narrow academic relations between Canada and Uninorte.
Fullbright Lecture: Sponsorship obythe Fullbright Commission intends to promote academic and cultural interchanges between the United States and Colombia.
Institutes and Units of Specialized Services
LANGUAGES INSTITUTE
The Languages Institute counts on an ample supply of second language education programs and develops investigations on techniques for the teaching of second languages. The Languages Institute has also worked in association with professors of the University of West Indies from the Barbados and Trinidad offices, in the elaboration of a series of academic texts for the teaching of Spanish as a second language. The Institute has also elaborated programs for professional development with the University of South Florida and Georgia Institute of Technology for on-line learning courses.
Likewise, new cooperation agreements have been made with Universidad de la Frontera (Chile), Donau-Universität Krems (Austria), Universität Flensburg (Germany), Tenessee Valley Authority (USA) and Universidad Regiomontana (Mexico). Among the short term plans, the university would like to increase the relations with European and Canadian universities, to promote the activities of virtual education with the University of the South Florida and to work new in cooperation possibilities with institutions throughout the world.
HOSPITAL UNIVERSIDAD DEL NORTE
To fulfill its service and social projection principles, Universidad el Norte undertook the Hospital Project, through the Medical Center of the North Foundation, FCMN.
The Hospital Universidad del Norte was created with the future vision as a Health Services Institution (IPS), and thanks to its welfare educational nature, it combines the social commitment of offering health attendance to families and the community, simultaneously as it supports an important processes of academic formation for the University. Located between the municipality of Barranquilla and the municipality of Soledad, the Hospital serves a wide area of families in need of affordable health services.
The Hospital offers prevention of diseases and familiar medicine, external advisory services in an ample variety of clinical specialties, neurophysiologic support services and diagnosis, hospitalization services, maternity, pediatric and orthodontics, general surgery and surgical specialties, intensive and intermediate newborn and adult care services, and a pharmacy.
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICUM PROGRAMS
At the moment all academic programs have incorporated professional practice experiences offering the student an opportunity for hands-on reality to contrast with classroom theory. Meanwhile the companies and contracting institutions receive people with a strong educational background and the capacity to contribute to the development of different activities within the organization.
Each academic division works together with the corporations and business to identify the needs of the company in order to provide a valuable opportunity for the students' formation and provide solutions for their institution. This has allowed the university to be more coherent between the direction of the professional practices and the necessities of the external sector.
EXTENSION AND SOCIAL PROJECTION MANAGEMENT
The University has defined processes and mechanisms for the improvement of extension and social projections. By doing so, we have defined polities oriented to the definition and framed the execution of these activities. We have constituted logistic and administrative support units for the design, execution and evaluation of these activities. These support centers come from areas such as the Consultancy Center, the Cultural Center Cayena, the Center of Continuous Education and the Investigations and Projects Direction.
In 2002, the Extension Direction was created. This unit depends on the presidency of the University and oversees the centers previously mentioned, with the purpose of articulating and consolidating the work to directly impact our society: social government, sectors, companies, etc. The University has defined extension policies, which are displayed in an action framework. The Consultancy Center has also been accredited by ICONTEC under norm ISO 9000 and each of the projects developed in this area must fulfill the quality norms established.
Each program and project undertaken must have a quality and relevancy evaluation on behalf of the beneficiary, which serves as feedback for the persons involved in its design and execution. The interaction of the institution with the external sector has enriched the academic and investigative task of teachers and administrative civil employees; it has contributed to the formulation of case studies and has enriched the development of lectures and investigation university-wide.
