Monterrey Tech as a Microcosm for Mexico’s Global Engineering Initiatives

Abstract:
This research project aims to explore Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey (Monterrey Tech, i.e. MT) as a prestigious technological institute in Mexico, STEM higher education in Mexico, and the influence of the United States Mexico’s educational expectations its college population. Draft Thesis: Mexico’s proximity to the United States has influenced the structure and priorities of STEM education in Mexico. In this research article, MT is used as a case study to illustrate how the U.S’s role as a global power inspires Mexico to shape its STEM education to achieve global competitiveness.


Banks, Jerry. "South of the Border Adventure: Georgia Tech Professor Emeritus Gets
an Education in Different Cultures and Teaching Techniques at Mexico's Highly Rated Monterrey Tech." ORMS Today (2008). Operations Research Management Science Today. Web. .

Bank’s article gives some background information on the city of Monterrey, such as its geographic location, and on it’s world-famous tech school as well. This article plays off of the internationalization theme in Murphy’s article, and gives some concrete examples of how Monterrey Tech “strengthens its worldwide presence” (Banks); this includes inviting foreign professors to serve as visiting faculty members (this is the case for Banks). What is more relevant to my argument, stated in the article, is that MT is accredited by the U.S’s Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to confer undergraduate and graduate degrees in the master’s and doctoral level. After research on the SACS website, I have found that 5 out of the 10 universities that are accredited outside the U.S. are in Mexico, and that all of them are private institutions. I feel this to be significant and relevant data.


Engardio, Pete. "A Mexican Technology Park in Monterrey." Business Week Online 2
June 2009: 16. Web.2009/id2009061_243746.htm>.

This is a current article about unveiling of PIIT (The Research and Innovation Technology Park) in Monterrey. The importance of this industrial park comes with bringing a shift in Monterrey (and also in the rest of Mexico) from labor manufacturing to more highly technological manufacturing. This shift speaks to the hope to change Mexico from a developing country to a competitively industrialized nation. This being an online reference, the validity was checked first: the author of the article is credible, as the most recent in his considerable list of accomplishments includes being a Reuters Journalism Fellow at Oxford; I feel that this balances the fact that the article is published on a .com domain. However, that it is published as an article in a business magazine suggests that the publisher most probably does not include a focus other than business-related topics.


John F. Tanner Jr, Christophe Fournier, Jorge A. Wise, Sandrine Hollet, Juliet Poujol,
(2008) "Executives' Perspectives of the Changing Role of the Sales Profession: Views from France, the United States, and Mexico", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 23 Iss: 3, pp.193 – 202

This article provides a complement to the Murphy text in two ways: 1) it cites professionalization as a key component for the growth of sales (whereas Murphy’s text discusses internationalization for the growth of education, i.e. professionalization is to sales, as internationalization is to education). 2) It extends Murphy’s text to include the United States, and while France is not included in my research, it is valuable to have it as a third measure of comparison, especially given that the U.S., and perhaps Mexico by extension, have inherited some of the traditions of French engineering. Some areas of additional research for me would be to explore the concept of ‘value-added’, as this is in an important concept touched upon in the article. While this article touches on sales, I believe this is a relevant topic to my research focus as (engineering) industry and sales have a symbiotic relationship.


Murphy, Moira. "Experiences in the Internationalization of Education: Strategies to
Promote Equality of Opportunity at Monterrey Tech." Higher Education 53
(2007): 167-208. Print.

Murphy explores who, why and how of internationalization of education in Mexican universities. The argument for internationalization is that it is “the antidote to the subjectivism of domestic education, as it is not ‘culture free’ (Murphy 171). In implementing this model, there are risks and implications, an important one being the equality of opportunity to students of all types of socio-economic backgrounds. I would cite the lack of acknowledgement to the intersectionality that race could play in Mexico; indigenous to Hispanic (or other type of European) Mexicans might play a factor in who receives education in Mexico. This article is particularly relevant to my project because it uses Monterrey Tech specifically as a case study for the implementation of internationalization; this is the institution I will argue represents the premier institution in STEM education in Mexico due to its proximity to the United States.


Tecnológico De Monterrey. Web._GLOBAL_CONTEXT=>.

To collect some data, I have incorporated the website for MT, which is an .edu domain. Already, some of the information I have gathered is staggering; for a private institution, MT has 25 satellite university campuses throughout Mexico alone. In addition, it has offices and points of contact throughout Central and South America, Europe, and East Asia. This seems to support Murphy’s article regarding the internationalization of MT. I will be referring back to this website often to review admissions criteria, majors offered, and curriculum, in addition to its possible links to industry projects.