After spending lunch with the female engineering students from the morning session, they led us on a tour around the various engineering buildings of the Universidad de Chile’s Campus Beauchef. We had spent the morning in their modern building constructed in 2014, but the tour of the older buildings gave much more context of the rich scientific history in Chile.
Before we even entered the first building, our student tour guides talked about how the building was emblazoned with “Escuela De Injenieria.” This is not a spelling error on the builders’ part, but predates the standardization of Real Academia Española. The students told this story with a smile as it imparts a sense of tradition and pride amongst them as no other schools maintain this nod to history. Further into the quad, the main building of the Campus Beauchef is named after Justicia Espada Acuña Mena, their first female student and the first female engineer in South America. This is a result of large feminist protests that took place in 2018 further proving how much science is revered in Chilean history.
by Ray Stacey