Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
Encyclopedia
The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (in Spanish: Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, ITESM) commonly shortened as Monterrey Institute of Technology (Tecnológico de Monterrey) or Monterrey Tech (Tec de Monterrey) is one of the largest private
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...

, nonsectarian
Nonsectarian
Nonsectarian, in its most literal sense, refers to a lack of sectarianism. The term is also more narrowly used to describe secular private educational institutions or other organizations either not affiliated with or not restricted to a particular religious denomination though the organization...

 and coeducational multi-campus universities in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 with over 90,000 students at the high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels. Based in Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, the Institute has 31 campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...

es in 25 cities throughout the country and is known for becoming the first university ever connected to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 and the Spanish-speaking world,The first connection from Spain was completed in mid-1990 (see Sanz) while the Institute was connected in February 1989 (see Islas). having one of the top graduate business school
Business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. It teaches topics such as accounting, administration, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems, marketing, organizational behavior, public relations, strategy, human resource...

s in the region and being one of the leaders in patent application
Patent application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. An application consists of a description of the invention , together with official forms and correspondence relating to the application...

s among Mexican universities.

Early years

The Institute was founded on September 6, 1943 by a group of local businessmen led by Eugenio Garza Sada
Eugenio Garza Sada
Eugenio Garza Sada was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist who founded the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in 1943.-Early life:Garza Sada was born to Isaac Garza and Consuelo Sada...

, a moneyed heir of a brewing
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 conglomerate who was interested in creating an institution that could provide highly skilled personnel — both university graduates and technicians— to the booming Monterrey corporations of the 1940s. The group was structured into a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 called Enseñanza e Investigación Superior A.C. (EISAC) and recruited several academicians led by León Ávalos y Vez
León Ávalos y Vez
León Ávalos y Vez was a Mexican mechanical engineer who served as the founding director-general of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and as director-general of the National School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute .Ávalos y Vez was born in Atlixco,...

, an MIT alumnus and then director-general of the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute
National Polytechnic Institute
The National Polytechnic Institute colloquially known as the Polytechnic is one of the largest public universities in Mexico with 153.027 students at the high school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels...

, who designed its first academic programs and served as its first director-general
Director-general
The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...

.

In its early years the Institute operated at Abasolo 858 Oriente in a large, two-story house located a block and a half away from Zaragoza Square, behind the city's Metropolitan Cathedral. As these facilities soon proved to be insufficient, it started renting out adjacent buildings and by 1945 it became apparent that a university campus was necessary. For that reason, a master plan was commissioned to Enrique de la Mora
Enrique de la Mora
Enrique de la Mora y Palomar was a Mexican architect who designed prominent university buildings and Roman Catholic churches in which he experimented with hyperbolic-paraboloid roofs...

 and on 3 February 1947 what would later be known as its Monterrey Campus
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey
The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Monterrey Campus officially shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, is the flagship campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system.-Academics:As the Institute...

 was inaugurated by Mexican President
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...

 Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés served as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952.-Life:Alemán was born in Sayula in the state of Veracruz as the son of General Miguel Alemán González and Tomasa Valdés Ledezma...

.

Because the operations of the local companies were highly reliant on U.S. markets, investments, and technology; internationalization became one of its earliest priorities. In 1950 it became the first foreign university in history to be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is one of the six regional accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation...

 (SACS), one of the six regional accreditation agencies recognized by the United States Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...

. Its foreign accreditation would end up being a decisive influence in its development, as it was forced to submit itself to external evaluation earlier than most Mexican universities (1967) and unlocked additional sources of revenue, such as tuition funds from foreign students interested in taking summer courses in Mexico for full-academic credit.

Expansion

Its growth outside the city of Monterrey began in the late-1960s, when both its rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 and head of academics lobbied for expansion. A first attempt, funded a few years earlier by several businessmen from Mexicali
Mexicali
Mexicali is the capital of the State of Baja California, seat of the Municipality of Mexicali, and 2nd largest city in Baja California. The City of Mexicali has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 936,826.The city...

, Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

, was staffed and organized by the Institute but faced opposition from the Board of Trustees once the federal government refused any additional subsidy and members of the Board cast doubt on its ability to get funds as an out-of-state university. At the end the project was renamed Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior
Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior
The Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior is a Mexican private university commonly referred to as CETYS Universidad.This institution was founded on February 17, 1961 with Fernando Macías Rendón as first president in Mexicali, Baja California...

 (CETYS) and grew into a fully independent institution.

Aside from the CETYS experiment and the 150 hectares bought in 1951 for the agricultural program's experimental facilities in nearby Apodaca, Nuevo León, no other expansion outside Monterrey was attempted until 1967, when a school of maritime studies was built in the port of Guaymas
Guaymas
Guaymas is a city and municipality located in the southwest part of the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico. The city is located 117 km south of the state capital of Hermosillo, and 242 miles from the U.S. border, and is the principal port for the state. The municipality is located in the...

, Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....

. Shortly thereafter, premises were built in Obregón and courses began to be offered in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

. Those premises and the ones that followed, then called external units, were fully dependant of the Monterrey Campus until 1984, when they were restructured as semi-independent campuses and reorganized in regional rectorates (see Organization).

In 1987, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools demanded faculty members with master's degrees to lecture 100% of its undergraduate courses, the Institute invested considerably in both distance learning and computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

 technologies and training, effectively becoming, on 1 February 1989, the first university ever connected to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 in both Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 and the Spanish-speaking world. Such efforts contributed to the creation of its Virtual University a few years later and allowed it to become the first country-code top level domain
.mx
.mx is the Internet country code top-level domain for Mexico, which recently has been re-opened to new registrations by NIC México. In 2009, The .mx ccTLD will be rolled out in 3 steps:...

 registry in Mexico; first by itself from 1989 to 1995, and then as a major shareholder of NIC Mexico, the current national registry.

Campuses

There are thirty-three campuses of the Institute distributed in twenty-five Mexican cities. Each campus is relatively independent but shares a national academic curriculum (see Academics). The flagship campus is located in Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...

, where the national, system-wide rectorate is located. Most of them deliver both high school and undergraduate education, some offer postgraduate programs and only five (Cumbres, Eugenio Garza Sada, Eugenio Garza Lagüera, Santa Catarina and Valle Alto) deliver high school courses exclusively. Nevertheless, Virtual University curricular and extension courses and seminars are usually available at most facilities.

Campuses by region

, campuses were divided in the following Mexican regions:
  • Greater Monterrey: Monterrey
    Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey
    The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Monterrey Campus officially shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, is the flagship campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system.-Academics:As the Institute...

    , Cumbres, Eugenio Garza Lagüera, Eugenio Garza Sada, Santa Catarina, Valle Alto.
  • Greater Mexico City: Mexico City, State of México, Santa Fe
    Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Santa Fe
    The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Santa Fe Campus commonly shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Santa Fe, ITESM Campus Santa Fe or Tec Santa Fe, is a campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system...

    , Toluca.
  • North: Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Laguna, Saltillo, San Luis Potosí
    Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus San Luis Potosí
    The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, San Luis Potosí Campus commonly shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus San Luis Potosí or ITESM Campus San Luis Potosí, is a campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private...

    , Tampico
    Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Tampico
    The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Tampico Campus commonly shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Tampico or ITESM Campus Tampico, is a campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system in the city of Tampico,...

    , Zacatecas.
  • South: Veracruz Central, Chiapas, Cuernavaca, Hidalgo, Morelia, Puebla
    Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla
    The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Puebla Campus commonly shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla or ITESM Campus Puebla, is a campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system in Puebla,...

    .
  • West: Obregón, Colima, Guadalajara, Irapuato, León, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Northern Sonora, Querétaro.


According to CNN-Expansión
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, the Institute is planning to build a new Campus in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

Other infrastructure

In addition to the campuses, the Institute manages:
  • The Ignacio A. Santos Medical School
    Tec de Monterrey School of Medicine
    The Ignacio A. Santos School of Medicine of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education is a prestigious private medical school founded in 1978 in Monterrey, Mexico, in order to provide medical education, training and to promote reliable biomedical investigation in Mexico with the...

    , the Hospital San José and the Zambrano-Hellion Medical Center (due for completion in 2010).
  • 1430 reception sites for its Virtual University broadcasts across Latin America
    Latin America
    Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

    .
  • Eight international sites in Argentina
    Argentina
    Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

     (Buenos Aires
    Buenos Aires
    Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

    ), Colombia
    Colombia
    Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

     (Bogotá
    Bogotá
    Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

    , Medellín
    Medellín
    Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...

    ), Ecuador
    Ecuador
    Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

     (Guayaquil
    Guayaquil
    Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...

     and Quito
    Quito
    San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...

    ), Panama
    Panama
    Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

     (Panama City
    Panama City
    Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...

    ), Peru
    Peru
    Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

     (Lima
    Lima
    Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

    ) and the United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     (Miami) offering extension courses, research and international consulting.
  • Thirteen liaison offices in charge of forging international partnerships and negotiating professional internships and academic exchanges with local universities, companies and civil institutions. Current liaison offices are located in Belgium
    Belgium
    Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

     (Brussels
    Brussels
    Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

    ), Canada
    Canada
    Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

     (Montreal
    Montreal
    Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

     and Vancouver
    Vancouver
    Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

    ), China
    China
    Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

     (Beijing
    Beijing
    Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

    , Guangzhou
    Guangzhou
    Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

     and Shanghai
    Shanghai
    Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

    ), France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     (Paris
    Paris
    Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

    ), Switzerland
    Switzerland
    Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

     (Fribourg
    Fribourg
    Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland...

    ), Spain
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

     (Barcelona
    Barcelona
    Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

     and Madrid
    Madrid
    Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

    ) and the United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     (Boston
    Boston
    Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

    , Dallas and Washington, D.C.
    Washington, D.C.
    Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

    )

Organization

All campuses are sponsored by non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

s composed primarily of local businesspeople. The Monterrey Campus is sponsored by Enseñanza e Investigación Superior, A.C. (EISAC), which co-sponsored the system as a whole until a newly built organization, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, A.C. (ITESMAC) overtook those responsibilities. Such organizations (effectively serving as boards of trustees) are responsible for electing the rectors or directors of a particular campus. Since 1997, the president of ITESMAC is Lorenzo Zambrano
Lorenzo Zambrano
Lorenzo Hormisdas Zambrano Treviño is the Chairman and CEO of Cemex, one of the largest global building-materials companies in the world. CEMEX's stock is traded on the Mexican Stock Exchange and listed on the New York Stock Exchange .Zambrano was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico...

, a class of 1966 alumnus and current head of Cemex
Cemex
CEMEX is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...

, the World's third largest cement
Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

 producer. Former presidents include the founder, Eugenio Garza Sada
Eugenio Garza Sada
Eugenio Garza Sada was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist who founded the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in 1943.-Early life:Garza Sada was born to Isaac Garza and Consuelo Sada...

 (1943–73) and his son, Eugenio Garza Lagüera
Eugenio Garza Lagüera
Eugenio Garza Lagüera was a Mexican businessman and philanthropist who served as chairman of the board of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Femsa; Latin America's largest beverage corporation...

 (1973–97), who both served as chairman of the board of what would later be called FEMSA
FEMSA
FEMSA is the largest beverage company in Mexico and in Latin America and as of September 2011 also the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the world. FEMSA originated as the Cuauhtémoc Brewery in 1890, which, through debt management, was restructured as FEMSA in 1988...

, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

's largest bottling group.

Internally, a system-wide rectorate based in Monterrey oversee six regional rectorates that supervise all campuses nationwide and several vice-rectorates attending internal affairs. Since 2011, the system-wide rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 is Salvador Alva, former president of PepsiCo
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...

 Foods & Beverages Latin America. Former heads of the Institute include:
  • León Ávalos y Vez
    León Ávalos y Vez
    León Ávalos y Vez was a Mexican mechanical engineer who served as the founding director-general of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and as director-general of the National School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute .Ávalos y Vez was born in Atlixco,...

     (1943–1947) first director-general
    Director-general
    The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...

    .
  • Roberto Guajardo Suárez
    Roberto Guajardo Suárez
    Roberto Guajardo Suárez was a Mexican lawyer who served as the second director-general of the Monterrey Institute of Technology , as a founding president of Sociedad Artística Tecnológico in 1948 and as president of Coparmex, a Mexican employers' association .Guajardo Suárez was...

     (1947–1951) second director-general.
  • Víctor Bravo Ahuja
    Víctor Bravo Ahuja
    Víctor Bravo Ahuja was a Mexican politician and academician who served as Secretary of Public Education in the administration of Luis Echeverría , as Governor of Oaxaca and as Director General and then Rector of the Monterrey Institute of Technology .He was born into a family composed by...

     (1951–1958) third director-general, and from 11 April 1955, first rector.
  • Fernando García Roel
    Fernando García Roel
    Fernando García Roel was a Mexican chemical engineer. He served as the second rector of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education ....

     (1959–1984) second rector.
  • Rafael Rangel Sostmann (1985–2011) third rector.

High schools

Following the historical trend of Mexico's largest universities, the Institute sponsors several high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

s that share one or more national curricula: bilingual, bicultural, multicultural and/or International Baccalaureate, which is administered from Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. , over 23,000 students in several campuses were registered as high school students within the system.

TecMilenio University

The TecMilenio University
TecMilenio University
The Universidad TecMilenio is a private institution of higher education is part of Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education Tec Milenio University ITESM System, an educational system with national and international levels, through 40 campus and a campus in line with a unique and...

 (Universidad TecMilenio) is a private institution
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...

 of higher education sponsored by the Institute and specialized in both corporate training and short degree programs. Founded in 2002 in order to provide a cheaper alternative to the high costs involved at pursuing a degree at the Institute and, purportedly, to fend-off foreign for-profit schools that have entered the country in recent years, the university serves some 21,000 students at high school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels; frequently through online courses. , TecMilenio was training personnel of companies such as the Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

, H-E-B
H-E-B
HEB Grocery Company, LP is a privately held San Antonio, Texas-based supermarket chain with more than 315 stores throughout Texas and northern Mexico. The company also operates Central Market, an upscale organic and fine foods retailer.H-E-B ranked No...

, BBVA Bancomer and Cemex
Cemex
CEMEX is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...

.

Virtual University

The Virtual University (Universidad Virtual) delivers most of the Institute's distance education courses, conferences and seminars. It broadcasts from either Monterrey or State of Mexico campuses to some 1430 reception sites across Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 and has developed several social programs in partnership with the World Bank Institute
World Bank Institute
The World Bank Institute is the capacity development branch of the World Bank. It provides learning programs, policy advice and technical assistance to policy makers, government and non-government agencies and development practitioners of developing countries...

 and The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive....

. every postgraduate program (except for the two most recently created) are accredited as Level 1 (the highest) by the Inter-Institutional Committees for Higher Education Evaluation (see Accreditations).

Academics

Academically, the university is organized into several departments and divisions —as opposed to the traditional faculty school scheme used by most Mexican public universities— and it was the first Mexican university in history to divide the academic year in semesters (which used to run from February to June and from September to January) and to offer summer courses. Current academic calendar for both high school and undergraduate students is composed of two semesters running from August to December and from January to May (each lasting between 15 to 16 weeks) and an optional summer session from June to July, where at most two courses can be taken in an intensive basis.

, the Institute offers 57 undergraduate degrees, of which 37 are taught in English and are generally awarded after nine semesters of study (except for Medicine
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

 and Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

); 53 master's degrees, generally lasting three to five semesters (and can also be structured in three-months terms), and 10 doctorate degrees varying in length according to their academic field.

Admissions

Since 1969 the Institute requires every college applicant to achieve a minimum pass mark at an academic aptitude test (Prueba de Aptitud Académica, PAA) delivered by The College Board, a not-for-profit examination board in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. However, each campus is free to request additional requirements; such as a grade average of 80 or 90 in high school (on a 100-point scale) for those willing to transfer or apply to the Monterrey Campus. , 50% of the freshman class at the Monterrey Campus
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey
The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Monterrey Campus officially shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, is the flagship campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system.-Academics:As the Institute...

 had an average grade of 90 and 25% had an average grade of 95 out of 100 at high school level. As for the graduate schools, the requirements may vary according to the discipline, such as a grade average of 80/100 and 550-points in both the GMAT and the TOEFL
TOEFL
The Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL , evaluates the ability of an individual to use and understand English in an academic setting....

 for some programs at its Graduate Business School (EGADE).

Accreditations

Studies at the Tech are officially accredited by the Secretariat of Public Education of Mexico (Secretaría de Educación Pública, SEP) and by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is one of the six regional accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation...

 (SACS) of the United States. On November 2008, its graduate business school (EGADE
EGADE
EGADE Business School is the Graduate School of Business at ITESM , a university system with 33 campuses in 26 cities in Mexico.EGADE Business School was created more than 30 years ago in Monterrey, 180 miles south of the...

) became one of the 34 business school
Business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. It teaches topics such as accounting, administration, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems, marketing, organizational behavior, public relations, strategy, human resource...

s in the world to hold simultaneous accreditation of its programs by the AACSB of the United States, the Association of MBAs
Association of MBAs
The Association of MBAs is a London-based international organization that accredits postgraduate business programs at business schools worldwide. The Association is one of the three main global accreditation bodies in business education and styles itself "the world's impartial authority on...

 of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and the European Quality Improvement System
European Quality Improvement System
The European Quality Improvement System is a school accreditation system. It specializes in higher education institutions of management and business administration, run by the European Foundation for Management Development...

 (EQUIS) while the Institute became the first Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

n university in history to receive full-accreditation on some of its engineering programs by ABET
Abet
Abet may refer to:* Abet Guidaben , former Philippine Basketball Association basketball player* ABET, Inc., a non-profit organization that accredits higher education programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology....

 (as opposed to the traditional substantially-equivalent designation given to most schools outside the United States).

The quality of its programs is also audited by the Institute of Food Technologists
Institute of Food Technologists
The Institute of Food Technologists or IFT is an international, non-profit professional organization for the advancement of food science and technology. It is the largest of food science organizations in the world, encompassing 22,000 members worldwide as of 2006. It is referred to as "THE Society...

, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management
Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management
The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management is an American organization whose focus is improving public policy and management by fostering excellence in research, analysis, and education. APPAM founded the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management in 1981.- External links :* * * *...

 and by the national accrediting councils of Mexico, such as the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (Consejo para la Acreditación de la Educación Superior, COPAES) and the Inter-Institutional Committees for Higher Education Evaluation (Comités Interinstitucionales de Evaluación de la Educación Superior, CIEES).

, 215 undergraduate degrees (99.5%) were accredited by national accrediting councils and 41 were accredited by international accrediting agencies. As for graduate degrees, 8 were accredited by international accrediting agencies and 53 (64%) were listed in the National Census of High-Quality Postgraduate Studies (Padrón Nacional de Posgrados de Calidad, PNPC) by the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT).

Academic memberships

The Institute is the only Latin American institution at the European Consortium of Innovative Universities
European Consortium of Innovative Universities
The European Consortium of Innovative Universities was founded in 1997 by 10 European universities. The goal was to create a European network, where participating universities could exchange experience and best practice of projects within education, research and regional development. The ECIU...

 (ECIU) —an organization committed to innovations in both teaching and learning— and at Universitas 21
Universitas 21
Universitas 21 is an international network of universities, established as an "international reference point and resource for strategic thinking on issues of global significance." Together, there are 500,000 students and 40,000 academics and researchers associated with these universities, which...

; an international network of research-intensive universities established as an "international reference point and resource for strategic thinking on issues of global significance." It is also the only Mexican university, along the National Autonomous University of Mexico, to be enrolled at the Association of Pacific Rim Universities
Association of Pacific Rim Universities
The Association of Pacific Rim Universities , formed in 1997, is a consortium of leading research universities in the Pacific Rim. APRU aims to foster education, research and enterprise thereby contributing to the economic, scientific and cultural advancement in the Pacific Rim...

, an international consortium of leading research universities including Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 and Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

. The Institute was also the first private university
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...

 to become a member of the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education of Mexico
ANUIES
The National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions is a non-governmental organization which includes 152 public and private higher education institutions in Mexico...

 (ANUIES) back when it was composed entirely by public universities
Public university
A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...

 (1958) and is a full member of the Mexican Federation of Private Institutions of Higher Education (Federación de Instituciones Mexicanas Particulares de Educación Superior, FIMPES).

Faculty

The Institute has over 8,500 professors at high school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels: 32.8% full-time, 67.2% part-time, and all of them have the appropriate academic credentials to lecture at their corresponding academic level according to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is one of the six regional accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation...

. some 621 professors taught courses, worked in international projects or attended seminars or congresses at foreign universities while some 818 foreign professors read courses at the Tech. As for their academic development, its faculty training program was bestowed with the 2004 Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education by the Institute of International Education
Institute of International Education
Institute of International Education - is a non-profit organization promoting international exchange of education and training. It was established in 1919 and is based in the USA....

.

Libraries

The Institute has at least thirty-three libraries in twenty-five Mexican cities holding over 2.4 million book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s, publications, and 46 types of electronic databases with at least 51,000 specialized magazines and academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

s and over 9000 e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...

s. Its Cervantean Library, named after Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

 and located in the current rectorate, holds one of the largest collections of Don Quixote incunabula, an original edition of L'Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...

, and other bibliographical treasures while the main library of the Monterrey Campus holds the personal collections of archaeologist Ignacio Bernal
Ignacio Bernal
Ignacio Bernal was an eminent Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist.Bernal excavated much of Monte Albán, originally starting as a student of Alfonso Caso, and later led major archeological projects at Teotihuacan. In 1965 he excavated Dainzú...

.

Rankings

Overall, the Institute is the only Mexican university besides the National Autonomous University of Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...

 to be ranked at the 2010 QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....

, in which it was classified #65 worldwide at its Employer's Review, #269 in Engineering and Information Technology, #232 in Social Sciences and #387 at its overall ranking. In the 2010 International Professional Ranking of World Universities, developed by the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris
The École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris was created in 1783 by King Louis XVI in order to train intelligent directors of mines. It is one of the most prominent French engineering schoolsThe École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (also known as Mines ParisTech, École des Mines de...

, it ranked 224 out of 390 worldwide.

Among its graduate schools, EGADE
EGADE
EGADE Business School is the Graduate School of Business at ITESM , a university system with 33 campuses in 26 cities in Mexico.EGADE Business School was created more than 30 years ago in Monterrey, 180 miles south of the...

 has been ranked 7th among the best business school
Business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. It teaches topics such as accounting, administration, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems, marketing, organizational behavior, public relations, strategy, human resource...

s outside the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 according to the Wall Street Journal (2006), 4th in the world in business ethics and social-responsibility programs according to BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...

 magazine (2005), among the 100 best graduate business schools in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit
Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit is part of the Economist Group.It is a research and advisory company providing country, industry and management analysis worldwide and incorporates the former Business International Corporation, a U.S. company acquired by the parent organization in 1986...

 (2009) and its OneMBA program, delivered in partnership with four different institutions (see Joint programs and international partnerships below) was ranked 27 worldwide by the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 in its 2009 Executive Master in Business Administration rankings.

Joint programs and international partnerships

Some of its academic programs are offered as joint degrees or in partnership with foreign universities:
  • Its Master of Science in Information Technology is offered as a joint degree with Carnegie-Mellon University, which is ranked 4th for graduate studies in computer science in 2008 according to US News and World Report and 7th in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences among Shanghai Jiao Tong University
    Shanghai Jiao Tong University
    Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...

    's world's top 100 universities.


  • The OneMBA degree is offered through a partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

    , the Rotterdam School of Management
    Rotterdam School of Management
    Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University is the international business school of the Erasmus University Rotterdam located in Rotterdam, Netherlands...

     of the Netherlands
    Netherlands
    The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

    , the Chinese University of Hong Kong
    Chinese University of Hong Kong
    The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a research-led university in Hong Kong.CUHK is the only tertiary education institution in Hong Kong with Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, including Chen Ning Yang, James Mirrlees, Robert Alexander Mundell and Charles K. Kao...

     and the Getulio Vargas Foundation of Brazil
    Brazil
    Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

     and is ranked 27 worldwide among executive MBAs by the Financial Times
    Financial Times
    The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

    .

  • The Global MBA for Latin American Managers is offered in partnership with the Thunderbird School of Global Management
    Thunderbird School of Global Management
    Thunderbird School of Global Management is a private business school whose main campus is located in Glendale, Arizona. Founded in 1946 by retired U.S...

    , which has been ranked consistently by US News & World Report as the #1 school in International Management since 1995.

  • The medical degree
    Doctor of Medicine
    Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

     is offered as a dual Ph.D. program with the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences of the Texas A&M Health Science Center
    Texas A&M Health Science Center
    The Texas A&M Health Science Center, a component of the Texas A&M University System, is an assembly of colleges devoted to educating health professionals and researchers of competence and integrity...

    .

  • An International MBA program is offered as a joint degree with the University of San Diego
    University of San Diego
    The University of San Diego is a Roman Catholic university in San Diego, California. USD offers more than sixty bachelor's, master’s, and doctoral programs...

    .

  • The institute has a strategic partnership with Johns Hopkins Hospital
    Johns Hopkins Hospital
    The Johns Hopkins Hospital is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland . It was founded using money from a bequest by philanthropist Johns Hopkins...

     through Johns Hopkins Medicine International
    Johns Hopkins Medicine International
    Johns Hopkins Medicine International is a partnership program established by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to raise the standard of health care through long-term, mission-driven agreements.-Hospital Management:...

    .

  • The Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Global Business and Strategy (MBA-GBS) is a double degree MBA program jointly offered by the Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership (EGADE) at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, and the Belk College of Business (Belk College) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
    University of North Carolina at Charlotte
    The University of North Carolina at Charlotte , also known as UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte, is a public research university located in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States...

    .

  • The bachelor degrees in Chemical Engineering are offered as joint degrees with the Reutlingen University
    Reutlingen University
    Reutlingen University is a university of applied sciences in Reutlingen in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg. Enrollment stands at about 4,000 students, a quarter of whom are international and exchange students...

     of Germany
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

    .

  • Several high schools offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which is administered by the Geneva
    Geneva
    Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

    -based International Baccalaureate.

Research

Although some of the founding members of its faculty were prominent researchers (first rector León Ávalos y Vez
León Ávalos y Vez
León Ávalos y Vez was a Mexican mechanical engineer who served as the founding director-general of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and as director-general of the National School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute .Ávalos y Vez was born in Atlixco,...

 had formed a National Commission on Science and served as director-general of the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute
National Polytechnic Institute
The National Polytechnic Institute colloquially known as the Polytechnic is one of the largest public universities in Mexico with 153.027 students at the high school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels...

) formal research activities at the Tech did not start until 1951, when its Institute of Industrial Research was founded in close collaboration with the Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute , headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States...

 of San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 —one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Notwithstanding some reputable achievements, throughout most of the 20th century its research activities —normally financed independently or under private sponsorship— were rather scarce in comparison to public universities such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...

 or the National Polytechnic Institute
National Polytechnic Institute
The National Polytechnic Institute colloquially known as the Polytechnic is one of the largest public universities in Mexico with 153.027 students at the high school, undergraduate and postgraduate levels...

, whose budgets make up to 30% of the federal spending in higher education and, as such, are heavily financed by the government through the federal budget.

Despite its inherent difficulties to secure research funds in a developing country
Developing country
A developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...

 where private sponsorship barely accounts for 1.1% of the national spending on science, a new institutional mission in 2005 made social and scientific research in Mexico's strategic areas one of its top priorities for the next decade. As a result, new corporate endowments and funds were committed, new research programs were created (including the first research program financed by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

) and important labs and infrastructure have been built, such as the Femsa Biotechnology Center, the Water Center for Latin America and the Caribbean (financed by the Inter-American Development Bank
Inter-American Development Bank
The Inter-American Development Bank is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean...

 and the Femsa Foundation), the Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 Research and Development Center on Home & Networks Mobility, its Center for Advanced Design at the Guadalajara Campus and, in association with the Mainz Institute of Microtechnology of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (IMM), the first center of chemical micro process engineering
Micro process engineering
Micro process engineering is the science of conducting chemical orphysical processes inside small volumina,typically inside channels with diameters of less than 1 mm or other structures with sub-millimeter dimensions....

 in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

.

Additionally, the Institute developed a researcher-friendly patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 scheme that aims to attract talented researchers and reduce the national brain drain
Brain drain
Human capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals...

. The scheme, in which the researcher may receive up to 30% of the patent licencing income, works in combination with its internal Rómulo Garza Prize and its national Luis Elizondo Prize and has allowed it to became the leading patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 applicant among Mexican universities since 2006.

Student life

Student life, traditions and activities vary notably among campuses. Generally speaking, student involvement is encouraged by the local campus through an office of student affairs, which supervises most of the student clubs, regional associations and its student federation.

The Institute goes great lengths to provide scholarships to those in need, awarding partial financial assistance to up to 47.65% of its student population. However, with tuition fees of almost per academic year (among the highest in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 according to Forbes magazine) most of its student community comes from upper and upper-middle class and the overall atmosphere is arguably politically and socially conservative. For example, there are no official LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 student clubs or associations; no coeducational residence halls; opposite-sex visits are forbidden in dormitories; attendance is taken daily at 10:00 p.m. in women's dormitories and some high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 staff in the Mexico City Campus
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City Campus
Tecnológico de Monterrey, campus Ciudad de Mexico is located in the Tlalpan borough of Mexico City near the intersection of Periferico Sur and Calzada México-Xochimilco. It is physically small, densely-packed campus that is divided into two parts. In one are the academic and administrative...

 has publicly admonished students for questioning conservative politicians during school visits (although no disciplinary action was ever taken).

The number of international students vary notably among campuses. , some 4,516 foreign students were studying in one of its campuses while 5,746 Tech students were taking courses in a foreign university.

Athletics

The Tech has a good record in college athletics, picking up over 18% of the medals at the 2007 national collegiate competition (Universiada) and one of its campuses won every American Football Collegiate Championship in Mexico (ONEFA) from 1998 to 2008. Such accomplishments were possible through the Institute's investments in sports facilities and personnel and a well-funded and comprehensive athletic scholarships program, which attracted a significant number of promising athletes but prompted allegations of talent drain by some of its rivals. Before the 2009 season the Institute decided to part ways with the organization and create a new league; however, the league didn't materialize after other breakaway universities decided to remain in the ONEFA. The Institute asked to return to the organization, but the ONEFA Board decided that the request should be formally presented in its next ordinary meeting, after the 2009 season, which its four teams ended up playing between themselves in a Tech-only championship. For the 2010 season, the Institute decided not to participate in the ONEFA championship and, instead, asked the CONADEIP, a national athletic association of private educational institutions, to create an American football championship.

Although there are local adaptations, since 1945 the system-wide sports mascot is the ram (borrego salvaje
Borregos Salvajes
The Borregos Salvajes is the name of all the sports teams that represent the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in various sports, such as: basketball, volleyball, football and soccer for both men's and women's teams.-American football:The Tec de Monterrey teams are best known...

), traditionally embodied in a male bighorn sheep
Bighorn Sheep
The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to , while the sheep themselves weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae...

. A somewhat popular urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...

 states that the mascot was chosen by the American football team on its way to a match, after spotting a male sheep on the road. According to the official sources, however, the mascot was chosen during an official contest held by students in the mid-1940s.

Noted people

The Institute has graduated prominent and influential members in several areas, particularly among the Latin American business community. From December 2006 to January 2009 both the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the Mexican Secretary of Economy
Secretary of Economy (Mexico)
In Mexico, the Secretariat of Economy is the government department in charge of economic affairs...

 (former Kelloggs' CEO Carlos Gutiérrez
Carlos Gutierrez
Carlos Miguel Gutierrez is an American former CEO and former U.S. Cabinet Member who is currently a Vice Chairman of Citigroup's Institutional Clients Group. He has previously served as the 35th U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2005 to 2009...

 and Gerardo Ruiz Mateos
Gerardo Ruiz Mateos
Gerardo Ruiz Mateos . Mexican engineer and politician. Former Secretary of Economy in Mexico.Holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and Systems at the ITESM and has a specialty in Economics and Finance...

) were Tech alumni. Other businesspeople include Cemex
Cemex
CEMEX is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...

' CEO Lorenzo Zambrano
Lorenzo Zambrano
Lorenzo Hormisdas Zambrano Treviño is the Chairman and CEO of Cemex, one of the largest global building-materials companies in the world. CEMEX's stock is traded on the Mexican Stock Exchange and listed on the New York Stock Exchange .Zambrano was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico...

, FEMSA
FEMSA
FEMSA is the largest beverage company in Mexico and in Latin America and as of September 2011 also the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the world. FEMSA originated as the Cuauhtémoc Brewery in 1890, which, through debt management, was restructured as FEMSA in 1988...

's CEO José Antonio Fernández Carbajal
José Antonio Fernández
José Antonio Fernández Carbajal is a Mexican businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of FEMSA, the largest beverage company in Latin America...

, Grupo Salinas
Grupo Salinas
Grupo Salinas is a Group formed by several companies focused on many different sectors. Grupo Salinas started as a retail store, but since Ricardo Salinas Pliego, its current President took over the company, Grupo Salinas began to diversify....

' CEO Ricardo Salinas Pliego
Ricardo Salinas Pliego
Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego is a Mexican businessman and one of Forbes World's Richest People since 2000. He serves as President and CEO of Grupo Salinas and Grupo Elektra, two holdings with interests vested in telecommunications, media and retail stores, among those TV Azteca, Elektra,...

 and Casa Cuervo's CEO Juan Beckman.

In science and technology, Alexander Balankin
Alexander Balankin
Alexander Balankin is a Mexican scientist of Russian origin whose work in the field of and its engineering applications won him the UNESCO Science Prize in 2005....

, former lecturer at the Mexico City Campus
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City Campus
Tecnológico de Monterrey, campus Ciudad de Mexico is located in the Tlalpan borough of Mexico City near the intersection of Periferico Sur and Calzada México-Xochimilco. It is physically small, densely-packed campus that is divided into two parts. In one are the academic and administrative...

, has received the 2005 UNESCO Science Prize
UNESCO Science Prize
The UNESCO Science Prize is a biennial scientific prize awarded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to "a person or group of persons for an outstanding contribution they have made to the technological development of a developing member state or region through...

 for his works on Fractal Mechanics; Ernesto Enkerlin
Ernesto Enkerlin
Ernesto Christian Enkerlin Hoeflich is a prominent Mexican conservationist and researcher specialized in parrots' ecology, environmental policy and biodiversity stewardship...

 received UNESCO's 2005 Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation
Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation
The Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation is a biennial award sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Sultan Qaboos Bin Said of Oman "to afford recognition to outstanding contributions by individuals, groups of individuals, institutes...

 for his involvement in sustainability and two alumni have been members of the United States President's Information Technology Advisory Committee: Pedro Celis
Pedro Celis
Pedro Celis is a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft Corporation.He has served at the U.S. President'sInformation Technology Advisory Committee from 2003 to 2005....

 (Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

) and Héctor García Molina, former Director of Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

's Computer Science Department, 1999 ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...

 SIGMOD
SIGMOD
SIGMOD is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Management of Data, which specializes in large-scale data management problems and databases....

 Innovations Award and highest h-index
H-index
The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...

 in Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

.

In politics, at least two late presidential candidates and democracy activists, Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was a Mexican politician, and PRI presidential candidate, who was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana during the Mexican Presidential campaign of 1994.-Political history:...

 and Manuel Clouthier
Manuel Clouthier
Manuel de Jesús Clouthier del Rincón, also known as Maquío was a Mexican businessman and politician affiliated to the conservative National Action Party...

, were former graduates and over a dozen Mexican governors and cabinet members have attended classes at the Tech, including former Secretary of Commerce and North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

 (NAFTA) negotiator Herminio Blanco. In cultural affairs, Gabriel Zaid
Gabriel Zaid
Gabriel Zaid is a Mexican writer, poet and intellectual.He was born in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 1934. He studied Engineering at the Tecnológico de Monterrey....

 has distinguished himself as one of the leading Mexican intellectuals of the 20th century and in sports Fernando Platas
Fernando Platas
Fernando Platas is a Mexican diver. He began diving since he was a young boy. In 1990 he won in Germany two tests of 2 and 10 metres, and in that same year he won three gold medals in the Central American Games which took place in Mexico City.In 1992, he represented Mexico in the 1992 Summer...

 and Víctor Estrada
Victor Estrada
Victor Manuel Estrada Garibay is a Mexican taekwondo practitioner and Olympic medalist. He competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney where he received a bronze medal in the 80 kg division...

 have both won Olympics medals, while former coach of Mexico's national football team
Mexico national football team
The Mexican national football team represents Mexico in association football and is governed by the Mexican Football Federation , the governing body for football in Mexico. Mexico's home stadium is the Estadio Azteca and their head coach is José Manuel de la Torre...

, Miguel Mejía Barón
Miguel Mejía Baron
Miguel Mejía Barón is a Mexican football manager.He coached Mexico at the 1994 FIFA World Cup.-Teams a coach:*1988-1991: UNAM Pumas*1991-1992: Monterrey*1993-1995: Mexico national football team*1996-1998: Atlante...

, is in charge of the Football Department at Puebla
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla
The Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Puebla Campus commonly shortened as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla or ITESM Campus Puebla, is a campus of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education private university system in Puebla,...

.

As for staff and faculty, at least two rectors or directors of different universities have been lecturers or members of the staff at the Tech: former Secretary of Economy and Foreign Relations, Luis Ernesto Derbez
Luis Ernesto Derbez
Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista is a Mexican politician and current rector of the Universidad de Las Américas.Upon assuming power in December 2000, President Vicente Fox chose him to serve as his Secretary of Economy...

 at the University of the Americas, Puebla
Fundación Universidad de las Américas, Puebla
Universidad de las Américas Puebla , is a private university in Mexico. It is located in San Andrés Cholula, Puebla, a suburb of Puebla. The university is known for its programs in Arts and Humanities, Social sciences, Science and Engineering, and Business and Economics...

 and Enrique Cabrero Mendoza at CIDE. In addition, current rector Rafael Rangel Sostmann is member of the External Advisory Council of the World Bank Institute
World Bank Institute
The World Bank Institute is the capacity development branch of the World Bank. It provides learning programs, policy advice and technical assistance to policy makers, government and non-government agencies and development practitioners of developing countries...

.
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