Spanish
In times when Dominican higher education faces the challenge of adapting to international standards, the figure of Ángel Nadal Ponce emerges as a proposal that invites reflection beyond a simple candidacy. His aspiration to the deanship of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo not only responds to a university electoral dynamic, but to a vision of academic transformation that deserves to be considered.
Nadal is not an improviser. His time as director of the School of Dentistry set an important precedent: it was the first to complete a curricular redesign by competencies within the faculty, an achievement that demonstrates management capacity and understanding of modern educational trends. In a university system where changes are usually slow and complex, that type of result is not insignificant.
But beyond the administrative achievements, what distinguishes his profile is the coherence between discourse and trajectory. His proposal to promote accreditation, strengthen research, and modernize teaching through simulators does not arise from theory, but from the experience accumulated in academic management. In other words, he does not promise what he has not begun to execute.
The Faculty of Health Sciences is not just any department. It is, in essence, the space where the professionals who will sustain the country's healthcare system are trained. Therefore, its management requires a delicate combination of strategic vision, scientific rigor, and social sensitivity. In this context, Nadal's insistence on linking academia with research and national reality is particularly relevant.
Also significant is its focus on interdisciplinarity. Modern health is not understood from isolated compartments, and its proposal to integrate multidisciplinary teams points in the right direction. This element, although sometimes underestimated, can make the difference between a faculty that reproduces knowledge and one that generates it.
However, every academic project must be evaluated with a critical spirit. Administrative experience, although valuable, does not guarantee successful management at the deanery level on its own. The challenge will be to transfer the achievements of a school to a much broader, more diverse, and complex structure. Therein lies the true test of leadership.
Even so, his previous positioning in the academic community —including levels of support reflected in internal surveys— suggests that his candidacy does not arise in a vacuum, but in a context where his name already has recognition and specific weight.
In short, Dr. Ángel Nadal's candidacy represents more than a personal aspiration: it symbolizes a commitment to the modernization of health education at the oldest university on the continent. The debate, therefore, should not focus solely on who leads, but on what model of faculty one wants to build.
Because in the end, choosing a dean is not just choosing an authority: it is deciding the course of the training of those who, tomorrow, will have the health of an entire nation in their hands.
