If today we are what we are, it is because yesterday we were what we were.

Our present has been forged in 40 years of history, in which the effort of a group of people motivated by the ideal of learning, teaching, discovering, contributing and growing is condensed. Personally, I value as a great honor and a pleasant privilege this unique opportunity to shake the hand of many to whom this institution owes so much and of whose efforts and efforts we are all humble heirs.

This event is not a social event aimed at appearing in the newspapers, but a simple and warm space for the fraternal encounter of different generations of intecianos and friends of INTEC, who throughout these decades have contributed to the construction of what today we are. The activity has been conceived as an instrument for the reaffirmation of our identity, recognizing that any desirable future has to be realized from our traditions. In this sense, I want to dedicate my brief words to a remembrance of the way INTEC has been seen by some of its main architects over time.

Our first Rector, Ramon Flores, described the emergence of this institution with clairvoyant words that still resonate in the heart of the community: “INTEC arises - Flores tells us - as an act of rebellion against a university structure that is carried out every day more rigid and inoperative, and against a society whose progress is every day worse distributed and emptier ”. And he continued saying that INTEC was: “A hope of creative work, a product of government, sometimes reckless, of imagination, where new ideas cannot always be realized, but are discussed with an open mind, (and) where the innovation is the rule of the game and the possibilities of improvement are not closed by small interests ”.

A few years later, in 1977, Rector Eduardo Latorre described INTEC's transition to a new stage of its development, as follows: “Today INTEC is like a young adolescent; neither is he a boy, nor is he a man. Its main features are already defined, but not finished. The whole life is ahead, but for it to make sense, you have to live it making yourself useful to serve others. INTEC will know how to fulfill this task. He has already shown proof of that and that is his main objective ”.

The social commitment highlighted by Latorre is also reflected in the wise words of Rector Rafael Marion-Landais, who at the end of our first decade refers to INTEC in the following terms: “The institute can feel satisfied with the achievements achieved when starting its work. Expanding them and correcting the limitations is the task of the years to come. INTEC is due to society. For her he is willing to be generous and industrious until it is a society adorned with its best garments ”.

Confidence in herself and in her possibilities is also a permanent trait. This confidence allowed our Rector Rafael Toribio to affirm that INTEC “has a clear conception of what it is as an institution of higher education, what its objectives are and what are the means and ways of obtaining them. And having a clear conception of what it is, what it should do and how it should do it, it has to ensure that its principles and values ​​are present in each and every one of the activities it carries out ”.

This brief exaltation of the spirit of INTEC would not be complete without also recalling the words of Rector Rafael Corominas, who once emphasized that the future of INTEC was a variable controlled by the Intecianos themselves, the words of Rector Altagracia López, who in her speech of Juramentation highlighted the way in which INTEC's philosophy and mystique had transformed their lifestyle, and the words of the Rector Miguel Escala, who points out that “INTEC has shown that dreams can be built and make the unprecedented viable in contrast to traditional thinkers pessimists, who prefer to accept weaknesses as endemic and incurable components of our culture ”.

In all these visionary voices, the features that have defined, define and should continue to define this university are clearly envisioned: commitment to society, the appreciation of innovation and the ability to rethink oneself in the face of changing realities. It is those attributes that, together, make us what we are and make us an organization not only desirable, but rather indispensable for this society.

For this reason, I aspire that the celebration of this act be, not despite its simplicity but precisely thanks to it, a source of inspiration to continue an unfinished task: to turn INTEC into a model university, nationally and internationally, as way to contribute to improve the living conditions of the Dominican men and women. Forty years of history allow us to confidently affirm that this educational community, of which each of you is a part in some way, has intellectual and moral capacities that are difficult to find and that, despite our imperfections and thanks to our countless virtues, we are an example of excellence for Dominican education.