CETYS in Baja California seeks to boost border ‘mega region’ through education

CETYS University, as the only Mexican university accredited by California’s WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), means to make an impact, says President Fernando León García.

So no one at the Baja California institution is resting on their laurels.

“Accreditation is not something that you achieve and then forget about,” León García said. “It is something that you achieve and then have to continue to work on. It’s not about achieving a certain level and staying at that level. It’s continuously improving. Our commitment is to continue to be linked to, accredited by and improve the status that we have with WSCUC.”

CETYS hosted a recent town hall at UC San Diego Park & Market in the East Village, pitching its vision as a strategic partner for “the growth of the Cali-Baja mega-region” to academics, business leaders, philanthropists from both sides of the border and local government officials.

The university, with over 43,000 graduates and an employability rate exceeding 90%, has a role in San Diego and beyond, with campuses in Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali. More than 1000 of those graduates live and work in the region and throughout Southern California. 

“It is no longer the case that we can offer a university degree without some level of exposure to the binational — in particular in this region — but also a global perspective,” León García said. “A university education needs to have embedded into it these perspectives … universities coming together enriches and provides synergies that otherwise (students) would not be exposed to.” He calls that experience “value added” to their degrees.

CETYS – which stands for Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior, or the Center for Technical and Higher Education – has forged partnerships with campuses in the region, to deliver joint degrees. They include UC San Diego, San Diego State, University of San Diego and Southwestern College. CETYS also offers student and faculty exchanges and workforce development initiatives on both sides of the border.

One notable out-of-state partnership includes the City University of Seattle, where students can earn their undergraduate degree at CETYS and City University of Seattle simultaneously.

Students take hybrid courses and participate in study trips to the U.S. or Europe while obtaining two degrees.

“Most of them (students) have had two-country experience, U.S. in Seattle and then Baja California,” Dr. León García said. “But then a reasonable number of those (had a) three-country experience, where they were in Europe as well. They were in Prague, receiving a European experience and thereby … enhancing their capacity to understand multiple cultures and settings and (be) able to work effectively and efficiently with multinational corporations.”

Suzanne Walsh, president of City University of Seattle, has worked with the Gates Foundation and the Global Learning Council, and was the 19th president of Bennett College, a historically Black college for women. She wants to advance the binational education program with CETYS.

“These are two universities that complement each other and that together, I think, are really thinking about the future in big, powerful, meaningful, globally connected or ‘glocally’ connected ways,” Walsh said.

“Glocal” or “glocally” is a term León García and Walsh use to describe local and global benefits. Both of them want to build on their industry partnerships.

“We help to support our students to think beyond one idea, beyond one cultural context,” she said, mentioning high-profile companies such as Microsoft and Amazon for which the students will be “all the stronger” as candidates once they enter the workforce.

León García hope to expand the boundaries of CETYS collaborations, while also increasing Baja California’s reach.

“We are very appreciative of the openness and trust that they have had in Southern California, as well as in Baja California, to serve this constituency, ” León García said. “We hope that by virtue of the Cali-Baja initiatives, we can definitely enrich our contribution as well as position the region and enrich the region in its uniqueness and standing worldwide.”