26 professors from this extraordinary teaching initiative met at the Monterrey campus for the annual gathering.
Nearly 30 global leaders in various fields who are part of Tec de Monterrey’s Faculty of Excellence initiative met to share their experiences and explore relationships.
The 2024 Faculty of Excellence Summit was held on the Monterrey campus, attended by international professors who have joined the Tec in the last 2 years as part of this initiative.
“This year, we had 26 professors on campus. The aim was for them to get to know each other and to build bridges between each other, the schools, and their disciplines,” explained Daniel Mullen, head of Extraordinary Academic Talent at the Tec.
Engagement with schools and their students
Among the activities taking place during the gathering, the six national Tec schools organized workspaces for Distinguished Professors to engage with the institution’s community.
“It was about showing the Tec community of students, faculty members, and other stakeholders who these professors are, as well as the initiative and some of the issues they’re working on,” explained Daniel Mullen.
Activities included discussions with undergraduate students and workshops on subjects such as how to write scientific papers and Human Flourishing.
“The professors really appreciated being able to meet other members of the initiative, as well as those from their own school,” Mullen added.
He said that the objective of these encounters is to generate projects that can break down interdisciplinary barriers and generate impact.
“The aim was for them to get to know each other and to build bridges between each other, the schools, and their disciplines.” - Daniel Mullen
Adaptation, experiences, and challenges
During a panel moderated by Ignacio de la Vega, the Tec’s Executive Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Faculty, and Internationalization, three professors from the Faculty of Excellence initiative spoke about their experience as part of this program.
Participating in the talk were Nilima Bhat, Distinguished Professor of Gender and Conscious Leadership; Rob Roggema, Distinguished Professor of Regenerative Culture; and Marc Madou, Distinguished Professor of Nanoengineering.
Before starting the conversation, the Vice Rector invited Faculty of Excellence members to shape the Tec’s culture by making valuable contributions.
“What we’re trying to build here is a diverse, inclusive, respectful, innovative, and forward-thinking culture.”
De la Vega addressed several topics during the panel, including adapting to the Tec and its work culture, moving to live in Mexico, and of course sharing tips to contribute further and experience the Faculty of Excellence initiative in all its dimensions.
“What we’re trying to build here is a diverse, inclusive, respectful, innovative, and forward-thinking culture.” - Ignacio de la Vega
- Work culture at the Tec
Roggema said the Tec’s work culture is “extremely” positive compared to universities in Europe and Australia for example, despite its competitive Western mindset.
“You feel welcome, and you feel like you can get things done. Mexico has a win-win culture, especially at the Tec: people support you and tell you ‘Sure, let’s work together and explore this opportunity,” he said.
Conscious Leadership professor Nilima Bhat said that after having lived in Singapore, London, and Hong Kong, she views the institution’s culture as one of the easiest she has experienced.
This is because she doesn’t perceive power struggles or the political tensions she’s experienced in other organizations.
For his part, Madou also spoke about the challenges, since he said that he’s waiting to see how the Tec adapts to the situation in current Mexican society, where science and technology receive little support from the government.
- Thought Leadership Initiative
Professor Nilima Bhat highlighted the Faculty of Excellence initiative as a concept to promote thought leadership on behalf of Mexico and Tec de Monterrey, so she invited her colleagues to spread the word to other leaders around the world about this program.
“I don’t know any other institution in the world that has a concept like this. Let’s come and collaborate because although each of us on our own can’t achieve the change we really want, together we’ll achieve it,” said the academic.
Madou invited his colleagues to work hard and take on challenges, but also to take advantage of all the support they could wish for as a professor anywhere.
“We really should do something important, improve things in Mexico. May this collaboration with people from all over the world help raise not just the Tec’s profile, but the country’s,” he added.
Roggema also shared three recommendations for his Faculty of Excellence colleagues:
- Spend as much time as possible in Mexico and preferably start living here.
- Cross borders: leave your school, sector, and even your discipline, to discover new projects.
- Reach out to the global community: share the Faculty of Excellence concept with other excellent teachers around the world.
- The adventure of moving to Mexico
Bhat, a professor at the School of Business, EGADE Business School, and the School of Humanities and Education, recalled that one of her biggest barriers upon arrival at the initiative was the Spanish language.
“It’s been really difficult for me, almost like going to work in China. I’ve learned in my Spanish classes that it will apparently soon be the most spoken language in the world,” Bhat said.
Similarly, she said that despite the stereotypes about safety in the country, she feels safe living in the city of Guadalajara.
“As a woman, you’ll never be safe wherever you are in the world, so you just have to take your basic precautions,” added the teacher from India.
Roggema also addressed the issue of insecurity in Mexico and urged caution when assessing a country, since some European cities are more unsafe than several in our nation.
“There are some rankings in which my son discovered that Monterrey is the seventh safest city in Latin America. You have to be careful and keep an eye out, but it’s safer than Paris for example,” said the Dutch professor.
“It’s interesting to adapt, adjust yourself to a culture, and understand that it’s different. Although it will take you time to grasp and understand it, everything will happen very quickly if you take an interest,” he added.
About the 2024 Faculty of Excellence Summit
This was the second edition of the Faculty of Excellence Summit. Over two days, distinguished professors presented themselves and shared their experiences and stories about life before becoming part of this initiative, as well as the projects they’re currently carrying out at the Tec.
“We were able to see many ways in which they can collaborate and cross disciplinary barriers, because we realize that many of the world’s problems need interdisciplinary solutions,” said Mullen.
During the gathering, there were several opportunities for networking and casual conversation where visions were shared and ideas that came about over the course of the event were spoken about.
“Professors of eleven nationalities came here from among the Faculty of Excellence members, who have already made Mexico their home and shared how this transition has gone for them, the challenges, and their adaptation to Tec de Monterrey,” added the leader.
Similarly, they met with institution leaders such as David Garza, Rector and Executive President of the Tec; Juan Pablo Murra, Rector for Higher Education; and Guillermo Torre, Vice President of Research and Rector of TecSalud, among other executives.
“We had a workshop on Human Flourishing, informing them about the 2030 Vision, so that they understand why we have these initiatives and why we’re trying to get there,” Mullen added.
About the Faculty of Excellence initiative
In 2021, the Tec created this initiative to attract 100 of the best world-renowned leaders in various fields to contribute to strategic areas of the institution’s national schools.
The Tec’s Faculty of Excellence includes:
- School of Business and EGADE Business School
Raj Sisodia: Author, speaker, and co-founder and thought leader of the Conscious Capitalism movement.
Dhruv Grewal: Toyota Chair in Commerce and Electronic Business and Professor of Marketing at Babson College.
Howard Anderson: Founder of The Yankee Group, he has taught at Harvard, Brown, and MIT.
Martin Reimann: Neuroscience and marketing researcher, professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.
Oliver Schilke: Professor at universities in Arizona, Los Angeles, and Munich focused on organizational research.
Juan Ignacio Sánchez: An organizational psychology expert, he is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
- School of Engineering and Sciences
Marc J. Madou: An expert in nanotechnology, he has been a professor at the Center for Materials Research at Ohio State University.
Cipriano Santos: He has obtained 18 patents over his career and is an expert on logistics, technology, and mathematics.
Francisco Falcone: A telecommunications and smart city researcher, he is the Head of the Institute for Smart Cities at the Public University of Navarra.
Manish Kumar: A sustainability expert and professor at universities in India and the United States.
Frank Loge: A sustainability researcher and member of the Secure Research Commuting Environment at the University of California Davis.
Carlos Coello: An expert in multi-objective optimization algorithms, applied mathematics, and computer science at CINVESTAV-IPN.
Sigfredo Fuentes: An expert on plant physiology, environmental engineering, digital agriculture, and food sciences, he is an international coordinator for The Vineyard of the Future.
Thomas Kurfess: An expert in advanced manufacturing systems, he is Chief Manufacturing Officer at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Gabriel Luna: An expert in intelligent biomaterials, he was a senior researcher and professor at CINVESTAV, in Querétaro.
- School of Social Sciences and Government
Ernesto Stein: A professor of Public Policy, he was part of the Inter-American Development Bank in Mexico and Central America.
Anthony Silard: An expert in leadership and emotional management, he is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Leadership at Luiss Business School in Rome, Italy.
Steven Popper: A professor of Decision Sciences, he has been a senior economist at RAND Corporation and a professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
Sergio Fajardo: A mathematician, politician, and expert in public leadership and public transformation, he founded the ‘Compromiso Ciudadano’ civic movement.
- School of Architecture, Art, and Design
Stuart Candy: A futurist, artist, and educator, he strives to develop the capacity for critical, systematic, and creative foresight in students, teachers, and audiences through his Place-Based Critical Futures initiative.
Alejandro Echeverri: Director and co-founder of the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies at EAFIT University in Medellín, Colombia, he is an Urbanism consultant.
Ana Mallet: An art curator and the first Latin American woman to be part of the acquisitions committee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Rob Roggema: An expert in regenerative design, sustainable urban planning, and urban agriculture, he has been a professor at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Keio University, Japan.
Peter Jones: An expert in systemic design who has been a professor at OCAD University in Toronto and was founder of the Systemic Design Association.
Zaida Muxi: An architect and professor at the Department of Urbanism and Spatial Planning of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
- School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Luis Sobrevia: A professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, he is also Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Per-Olof Berggren: An expert in experimental endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism, he is Head of Cell Biology and Signal Transduction at the University of Miami’s Diabetes Research Institute.
Richard Willson: A researcher in the areas of molecular biology and bioseparations, he was a scientist at the University of Houston and has been an Affiliate in the Quantitative and Computational Biology Program at Baylor College of Medicine.
- School of Humanities and Education
Allan Tucker: A music producer of over 3,500 albums, he has been nominated 26 times for Grammy awards, winning on 6 occasions.
Nilima Bhat: An author and expert in the areas of leadership, gender equality, and wellbeing, she is founder of the global Shakti scholarship program for women change-makers.
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