Education | 27 August, 2009 [ 08:59 ]First Woman Vice-Chancellor in La Católica
LivinginPeru.com
Katrina Heimark
Pepi Patrón, alumna and professor of General Studies at the Peruvian university “Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Perú,” is the first woman to be named to the post of Vice-Chancellor of the university. Patrón has decided to promote areas of research, innovation and technology with her new post.
She wants to make sure the interdisciplinary research also has a place within the university, as, according to
PuntoEdu, (the newspaper of the PUCP), she believes that “there are problems, like poverty or climate change, that are multidimensional, and as such, need to be examined in various ways.” Her hope is to institutionalize research and to promote it on every level within the university. She states that “a university is an institution that looks at the world. We want to have a university that allows us to align with the Peruvian state, businesses and regional governments in order to better serve the country.” Her goal is to show that the things that occur within a university truly do have an impact on the rest of the country.
As a change to the “very masculine” image of the authority of La Católica, she claims to “never have felt gender discrimination in La Católica;” however, she does admit that there are distinct issues, such as the lack of women’s bathrooms, that have arisen due to her presence in the administration’s offices.
She doesn’t deny, however, that there is gender discrimination in Peru. She cites the fact that not one regional government has a female president, that the Congresswomen are mostly there because of quotas, and that there is a lack of women’s opinions within politics. But she cites advancements for women, especially in the 20th century, as having paved the way for her new position.
tags :
Peru, Lima, La Catolica, PUCP, vice-chancellor
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