Gentlemen members of our General Assembly, Board of Regents and Academic Council, collegiate instances of the highest management of our university, whom I greet in the persons of Dr. Jose Joaquín Puello, one of our founders, and the engineer Franco Gómez Ramírez, graduate and president of our Board of Regents.

Ministers, Ambassadors and representatives of international organizations.
Representatives of sister institutions of higher education.
Dear business executives and civil society organizations that accompany us.
Colleagues from the INTEC institutional community, teachers and collaborators all.
Members of the media.
Very especially, dear Outstanding Graduates whom we recognize today, in the company of their relatives and associates.
Girlfriends and friends all.

I will start my words with a biblical tone, with Matthew 7: 16-21, where we read:

You will know them by their fruits. Do you pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Similarly, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.

This passage is perfect for an activity like the one that summons us and rejoices us tonight. Because a university is measured not so much by its inputs or its current assets, as by its results, and among its main results are, in the first place, its graduates.

By recognizing its outstanding graduates, INTEC practices what to honor, honor and renew their energies and satisfaction by being reflected in the trajectory and achievements of those who joined our university as young people full of illusions and today are fruitful citizens and professionals in achievements.

Tonight we recognize graduates 4 of our 5 Academic Areas, Engineering, Health Sciences, Social and Humanities and Economics and Business. With the vigor that our area of ​​Basic and Environmental Sciences has taken, with its degrees in Mathematics concentration in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, in Biotechnology, in Data Science and, with orientation to secondary education, in Mathematics, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry, as well as its postgraduate programs, among which I highlight the doctorates in Energy Management, in Mathematics and in Environmental Sciences, I have no doubt that in the near future we will have Outstanding Graduates from these programs. Here I cannot stop commenting on the unusual, at least in higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean, of a private university displaying a strong presence in the field of basic sciences; In our region, these strengths in the area of ​​basic and environmental sciences are generally assumed by public and state universities, not only because of their strategic relevance, but also because of the considerable investments they require in laboratories, equipment and projects. , in addition to academic talent. This sustained commitment of INTEC to host, cultivate and sustain a significant academic area of ​​basic and environmental sciences demonstrates with facts the firm commitment of our university with the scientific and technological development of our society.  

We honor 2 ladies and 5 gentlemen, which continues the advancement of the latest recognitions of Outstanding Graduates in terms of female participation, especially if we compare it with the first editions of this award. Here we can predict, supported by the evidence of the current composition of our enrollment, of our cohorts of graduates and particularly of those who do it with academic honors, that very soon we will see even better balanced the participation of women alongside men among our Outstanding Graduates. .

Among our winners are 3 who represent the vibrant Dominican “diaspora”, which demonstrates the level of professional competitiveness of our graduates, of international scope, although it also makes us think about the need to insist on the developments of different orders that we make it possible to productively retain many of our best talents.

And as a final note, but very important, today we celebrate the successes of graduates throughout our international history since 1980, with graduates from that year and from 1985, 1986, 1996, 2000, 2002 and 2006. This last data allows me highlight the continuity of the commitment to the formation of academic excellence of socially committed citizens and competent as professionals throughout INTEC's long history. We did it before yesterday, yesterday, and we continue to do so today, as we will continue to do tomorrow. Keeping the centennial difference of age and historical reputation, we can be inspired and borrow the phrase that receives the traveler who visits the University of Salamanca: “As we said yesterday, as we will say tomorrow".

And with all this I want to warn, as I said in our sixty-third graduation held last Saturday, that we are in the immediate prelude to the celebration, already next year, of the first fiftieth anniversary of INTEC, which is another sign of resilience for a university without a political or factual power behind, non-profit and due only to the best interests of our society, or, better, non-state public, for its commitment to generate high quality, relevance and pertinence public goods. Always doing a lot with the not abundant resources at its disposal, reaching, as it has reached, 50 years of existence is an act of such significance as to be considered heroic. On the occasion of this milestone, we hope that each of our more than 35 thousand graduates, including you, dear Outstanding Graduates 2021, reaffirm their ties with their Alma Mater, make them perennial, and participate with enthusiasm and pride in the entire commemorative program of our first 50 years. 

And here, now, I want to highlight, on the one hand, that public nature of INTEC, a generator of public goods and with no other owner than society itself, through a Board of Regents that, like the main executive authorities, must be renewed with periods similar to pregnancy, only that instead of months, it is in this case 9 years, beyond which no one can become entrenched in the main bodies and instances of power and administration of this public service institution that is INTEC. But, in addition, on the other hand, that unique institutional design of INTEC, the fruit of the enlightened thinking of our founders, entrusts its graduates with a distinguished and leading role in the government of INTEC on behalf of society. And this is so because our highest management body, the Board of Regents, made up of 15 members including the Rector, must be made up of a majority of graduates, as established in Article 19 of our General Statutes.

Based on the aforementioned, allow me to request and, perhaps, even claim, from this podium and with this opportunity, the continuation of the moral and material support that INTEC has obtained from society, political society, and civil society, including entrepreneurship. But, above all, a fervent appeal to all our graduates, to renew their international commitment not only with the commemoration of this first fiftieth anniversary, but, very especially, with their future 50 years.

In the proximity of its first fiftieth anniversary, after having completed the delicate task of selecting only 7 out of dozens of successful postulated graduates, INTEC's heart beats faster and stronger and its chest brimming with healthy pride expands. Both those finally recognized, as well as the set of nominees in this 2021 edition of the Outstanding Graduate Award are a source of a reaffirmation of our commitment to academic excellence, the comprehensive training of socially responsible and professionally competent citizens, and with all the contributions to our reach, from this academic platform, for the social transformation and sustainable development of our country.

Allow me then to conclude, in the context of INTEC's essential mission, which was created to contribute to the social transformation of the country, the continuous promotion of the quality of life of its inhabitants and the preservation of its moral and material heritage for bequeath it improved to the generations to come, through higher education, the development of culture, research and scientific and technological dissemination, let me then finish by borrowing the expression of the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children"

Julio Sánchez Maríñez, Ph.D.
Rector
November 29th 2021