Twenty-four university delegations across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia met at the University FASTA in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on Oct. 11-13, for the International Council of Universities in the Spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas’ (ICUSTA) 15th biannual conference.

Vice President for International Relations and Engagement Dr. Hans Stockton and Associate Professor in International Studies Dr. Ulyses Balderas were the delegates from UST.

Both Balderas and Stockton spoke at the conference.

• Balderas presented details about virtual and in-person collaborations with ICUSTA universities and, in particular, solicited participation in a project-based, study-abroad course on food security.  
• Stockton, representing UST on the ICUSTA executive committee, provided an overview of successful projects over the past six months and sought collaborations on academic, scholar and student exchanges with UST.

UST is a Founding Member of ICUSTA

ICUSTA was established in 1993. Its mission is to bring together Catholic universities guided by Thomistic principles to cultivate the dialogue between faith, reason and culture while also fostering service to the human family. UST is one of the six founding members of ICUSTA and hosted the first biannual international conference in 1995.

UST Signs MOU for New Global Initiative “Glory Program” 

During the conference, UST and UFASTA (Mar del Plata, Argentina) concluded an MOU for program collaboration involving UST’s Pragmatic Studies Program, the McNair Center, and UFASTA. This new global initiative -Glory Program - will spur the joint development of curriculum and pedagogy.

Additional new UST collaborations with ICUSTA partner universities include:

• Virtual guest lectures between UFASTA and UST’s Centro Semillero
• Scholar exchange between the Schools of Nursing at UST-Chile and UST-Houston
• Ongoing Mandarin Center collaboration with Wenzao Ursuline University (Taiwan)
• An upcoming scholar exchange with UNSTA (Tucuman, Argentina), UST’s Pragmatic Studies Program, and the McNair Center 
• Creation of new double MA and MBA program collaborations between ICES (France) and UST’s Department of International Studies & Modern Languages and Cameron School of Business.

Balderas will lead a group of Celts back to Argentina for a study-abroad trip over Spring Break. Site visits will include sister schools UNSTA (Tucuman) and UFASTA (Mar del Plata).

Call for Faculty International Collaborations with ICUSTA Sister Universities

“Various ICUSTA universities are eager to collaborate in research, service and study abroad with UST,” Stockton said. “Interested faculty are encouraged to reach out to Stockton for more information about opportunities for international collaborations at stockton@stthom.edu.”