Dr. Miguel Jose Escala Figueredo
Awarded 2011 LACCEI Academic Merit Medal on Thursday August 4, 2011
LACCEI has awarded the Medal of Merit Scholar LACCEI 2011 to Dr. Miguel Jose Escala Figueredo for his leadership in improving teaching technology in the Caribbean in his role as Rector of the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo, INTEC and for his leadership in establishing the accreditation system GCREAS.
Dr. Miguel J. Escala, is Rector of the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo, INTEC in Dominican Republic since August 2005. He graduated in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo in 1974, joining later the faculty of this prestigious institution. He graduated from the first graduate program in Psychology offered in the Dominican Republic obtaining his graduate degree in Educational Psychology from INTEC in 1980. Later, he received his Master and Doctorate in Education at Penn State University, majoring in university management. In 2006, he received one of 20 awards given by Penn State to outstanding graduates.
As Rector, he accepted that INTEC was the project executing agency to develop an accreditation system of engineering for the Gran Caribbean with funds from the Inter-American Development Bank and he gave his full support to this initiative. The project is known by its acronym in English, GCREAS. He was a member of the Driving Committee Project and is the Treasurer of the Agency already incorporated. During his tenure as Rector of INTEC, he has established agreements with Penn State University, the Polytechnic University of Valencia, and the University of Miami among others for the development of articulated programs in engineering and has encouraged the participation of INTEC in several networks linked to engineering education. He promoted a meeting with the support of IESALC of technological universities in Latin America and the Caribbean, which resulted in a network which he chaired for three years. He promoted exchanges between technological universities the Gran Caribbean.
As Rector of INTEC, he has driven the Science-Engineering-Math Project (CIM) that it takes place in a pilot public school with 140boys and girls in 5th and 6th grade. The project, inspired by theColumbia Secondary School, a magnet school in Manhattan, seeks to improve the quality of education with an emphasis on scientific and technological aspects that serve to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers.
His working life has elapsed between the Basic and Secondary Education, the University, work Management, and Human Resource Management. He worked 14 years in the Dominican College de la Salle. He joined INTEC in 1982 as coordinator of the graduate program of School Supervision, and later he bacame Dean of Special Programs from where he designed the strategy for providing services to productive sectors. Between 1990 and 1995 he worked at the APEC Foundation for Credit Education as coordinator of initiatives for the development of vocational-technical education. In this capacity he was able to develop program for senior technical in engineering in several universities as well technical education at secondary level. During his stay in that program he was responsible for developing relationships between educational institutions and the productive sectors and for which he wrote a manual with suggestions, and conducted several meetings and seminars. He participated in the design and he was professor of the first specialization offered now in the country at the graduate level in Education Administration Technical.
In 1995 he held the leadership of the Dominican Institute of Industrial Technology INDOTEC, where he organized together with the productive sectors Plan “INDOTEC toward 2005”, formed the Advisory Committee of the institution, encouraged the launch of Integral Technical Assistance Program(Prati), obtained PNUD funding for a program to assist small and medium industry, and coordinated efforts to jointly launch technology programs at the graduate level.
For three years, he was Director of Human Resources Department Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, an institution in which deployed a management system by competence. He has been a consultant in Dominican Republic other countries on issues of Education and Human Resources Development. Between 2001 and 2005 he was member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Higher Education for Latin America and the Caribbean, IESALC-UNESCO. Two books stand out among its publications: Building Agents for the Development and Supervising Schools for the Development, the latter winner of theNational Curriculum award in 1997.
He is the founding chairman of the Scientific, Technological and Innovation Pole of the Northwest of Santo Domingo, an organization that brings together 17 institutions linked to research and technological innovation. He was Vice President for the Caribbean of the Organization of American University and Vice President of the Dominican Association of University Rectors. He is married since 1973 with Pilar Blanco and has three daughters and six grandchildren.
