We share an opinion column from the Doctor of Public Health, Dr. Paola Salas Rivas, Master in Epidemiology, teacher and researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of La Serena, who provides recommendations to protect eyesight during the total solar eclipse on the 2nd next July.

The column published this Friday, May 17 in the newspaper El Día, is part of the actions promoted by the ULS to explain this important astronomical phenomenon to the national and regional community.

See the column published by newspaper El Día here

Psychologists Valentina Jiménez, Francisca Olivares, Damarys Rivas, Eric Trujillo and David Cuadra, together with Dr. Pablo Castro, carried out a study that sought to describe and interpret subjective theories of preschool educators about family discipline.

The latest issue of the magazine Psychology and Education published an article written by graduates of the Psychology program at the University of La Serena together with an academic from the Department of Psychology, about early childhood education and family discipline.

The psychologists Valentina Jiménez, Francisca Olivares, Damarys Rivas, Eric Trujillo and David Cuadra together with Dr. Pablo Castro, carried out a study with preschool educators, which has been published in volume 56 number 1 of the magazine.

The article entitled “Preschool Teachers' Subjective Theories about Family Discipline in Eight Public and Private Schools in Chile”, presents the main results of a qualitative study, which sought to describe and interpret subjective theories of preschool teachers about family discipline.

“Episodic interviews were carried out with nursery educators from four educational establishments with a low socioeconomic level and four with a high socioeconomic level, belonging to two different age groups. The data were analyzed using some grounded theory procedures. The results show the educators' subjective theories about the way parents and/or caregivers currently exercise discipline, as well as the main factors that influence it. The discussion analyzes the impact of such subjective theories as regulators of their educational practices, considering their explanatory capacity and orientation to action,” explained Dr. Pablo Castro.

This item is available here

The educational day was aimed at teachers from basic and secondary schools and kindergartens in La Serena and other communities in the region.

In seeking to contribute to the training of teachers, providing key content that allows a deep understanding of the total solar eclipse on July 2, the University of La Serena, through the Scientific Dissemination Team of the Vice-Rector's Office for Research and Postgraduate Studies, Together with the Research and Development Directorate, it held the “Educators for the Eclipse” workshop, aimed at teachers from different educational establishments of the Gabriel González Videla Municipal Corporation of La Serena and other communes in the Coquimbo Region.

There were more than 60 teachers, from different specialties, belonging to educational establishments in La Serena, Coquimbo, Vicuña and our own Institution, who participated in different talks and educational didactic activities, with which they sought to provide knowledge regarding the eclipse and astronomy, and how to transmit it to the students of their schools.

Alejandra Leyton, Coordinator of the ULS Scientific Dissemination Team, referred to the importance for the University, within its social role, of generating instances like these. “It is important to convene teachers and be able to carry out this type of training workshops, so that they can later transfer this knowledge to their students, because it is the children who are most interested in the topic of the eclipse and who should have this knowledge,” stated the professional about this activity, in which glasses were also provided to observe the eclipse.

For Cristián Salinas, professor of Mathematics and Physics at the American School of La Serena, it is important that the University organizes activities of this type, where knowledge is transmitted to the community. “I think it's great that the University of La Serena is committed to providing knowledge to the community, especially with phenomena such as the solar eclipse, which arouses a lot of interest in people and especially in children and young people, which demonstrates the commitment it has. the house of studies with the region,” he said.

The presentations and activities were led by astronomers Marcelo Jaque, Guillermo Damke and Pablo Muñoz, and the Master of Education Sciences, Sue Ugalde.

This workshop is part of the various initiatives that the University of La Serena develops jointly with the Municipality of La Serena and the Gabriel González Videla Municipal Corporation, focused on bringing knowledge about this topic to the community. 

See photo gallery

Written by Tomás Rodríguez, DirCom

The ULS program has a high connection with the environment and interest in bringing different types of knowledge to its students and the community in general. It is under this motto that the XII Interuniversity Course on Roman Law was developed.

The Law program of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the University of La Serena, held for the third consecutive year a meeting with the Schola Serviana Iuris Romani, who were in charge of carrying out the XII Interuniversity Course on Roman Law entitled “In personam agere: Litigation through personal actions and exceptions in Roman Law.

This activity allows for combining training knowledge with that necessary to acquire for professional development. Given this, the Director of the Law degree, Mg. Carlos Magna assured that “for the legal training process of our students, courses like these are irreplaceable, since they present us with an enriching dialogue between basic training subjects such as Roman Law and professional training subjects such as Civil law".

The meeting had a high participation of undergraduate students from the ULS Law program, plus the participation of students from other Law programs in the Coquimbo Region, who witnessed the master class by Dr. Cristián Aedo Barrena, from the Universidad Católica del Norte, on the “Personal Character of Roman Obligation and its Projection in Modern Law”, and Dr. Adolfo Wegmann Stockebrand, from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, who presented “Roman Law as a 'System of Actions' ': Reflections on the actio-obligatio in personam binomial.

The event allowed reflection and deepening on these important topics for the development of comprehensive professionals in the legal sciences in the hands of highly experienced people in the area.

Written by Paula Godoy, ULS journalist

The meeting took place in the city of Temuco and brought together researchers from several Chilean universities.

In order to establish collaborative work between institutions, around research into healthy aging, academics from different state universities met at the University of La Frontera to show the progress made in this area and propose strategies. to increase scientific productivity.

The University of La Serena was present at the meeting, represented by the Director of the Kinesiology program, Dr. Alfredo Gary, who, together with representatives of 16 universities from different areas of the country, made projections regarding this year's work, highlighting who already have publications in the field of aging biology.

The Research Network has 835 researchers nationwide and the Healthy Aging Roundtable tries to convert applied research into background information that contributes to decision-making at the country level, in order to improve the quality of life in old age of citizens. .

The University of La Serena has actively participated in the Researchers Network since 2017 and since that date four days of coordination and promotion have been held with researchers and coordinators from all state higher education institutions in Chile.

Written by Patricia Castro, DirCom

This year the University of La Serena hosted the outstanding Our America Meeting, which seeks to revalue education from the origins of each Latin American people.

“Emancipation, decolonization and transformation” was the slogan that promoted the 5th ENA Meeting 2019, an initiative supported in this version by the Rector's Office and which emerged in 2012 in Puerto Rico, under the spirit of rediscovering a transformative education that connects with the essence and roots of each person.

"The initiative seeks to recover the meaning of education, but in a different way, which is not about breaking with tradition, but rather giving it a new reorientation, where our education and schools begin to think more about the family, the environment , in the boy and girl, in what it means to be educated in a community and not only through content in a classroom. That is why this meeting also opens the doors to ethnicities, to sounds, to art, to expression, to emotions, to thought, and to everything that is part of the human being, but that is generally not considered in schools." , highlighted the academic of the Department. From Education, Silvia López de Maturana, who together with the Director of Teaching, Yanola González and Professor Carlos Calvo (former ULS academic), were the promoters of bringing this experience to the facilities of the University of La Serena.

The meeting involved a dedicated organization, which is why members from all over the world, including social representatives, universities, seedbeds, and groups that are fighting for ecology and humanism, participated in the intimate ENA, a space whose purpose was prepare in advance all the activities that would be carried out openly.

For the rest, the meeting considered various spaces for political, academic, social and cultural reflection, called tribes, in which the participants worked on various educational proposals around the three axes of the meeting, which were finally shared in plenary sessions. Recreational activities were also carried out, which were soaked in music and biodance.

“This initiative was very good, above all because we learned about the practices of other countries. It is important to leave traditional education and here we were able to learn several innovative experiences,” said Arthur Frias, a participant from Brazil.

In this way, it is expected to apply the proposals shared through the curriculum, so that we work on transformative, community, supportive teaching that leaves the walls of the classroom. “The idea is to build a combination between science, spirit, cognition and affection, so that the teaching we intend to give is more holistic,” emphasized Professor Silvia.

Previous meetings have already been held in Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Bolivia and Brazil, and the next one will be held in Argentina in alliance with Uruguay. 

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Written by Daniela Ledezma, UGIP