{"id":7365,"date":"2026-06-18T15:39:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/chile-sites\/plaza-de-la-constitucion\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:46:20","slug":"plaza-de-la-constitucion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/chile-2026\/chile-sites\/plaza-de-la-constitucion\/","title":{"rendered":"Plaza de la Constituci\u00f3n"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Our first day of the experiential learning trip to Chile was spent in Santiago, the country\u2019s capital city, where we began building a foundation for understanding Chile\u2019s history, politics, and higher education system. Learning about the country\u2019s past was essential for understanding the social and political context that shapes Chile today. The day included a walking tour led by a local Chilean guide, beginning at Plaza de la Constituci\u00f3n, a historic civic space located in the center of Santiago. As we walked through the area, our guide shared insights into key moments in Chilean history, including the military coup of 1973 and the subsequent dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. We learned how the U.S.-backed coup removed democratically elected President Salvador Allende from office which led to a 17-year military regime. During this period, Chile underwent extensive free-market economic reforms that transformed the country’s economy. At the same time, the regime was marked by widespread human rights violations, including political repression, torture, and the deaths and disappearances of thousands of Chilean people including students and peaceful protestors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The photo above shows La Moneda Palace, one of Chile\u2019s most significant political landmarks. La Moneda serves as a powerful reminder of Chile\u2019s complex political history. The plaza is surrounded by several important government institutions, including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Justice, the Municipality of Santiago, and the Central Bank of Chile. Walking through this space offered an opportunity to connect the historical events we were learning about with the physical places where many of them unfolded, bringing Chile\u2019s history to life in a tangible and meaningful way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Alex Cabrera<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first day in Chile began with context setting. Our local guide, Marcela, took us around the Presidential Palace<\/a> and other historical landmarks in downtown Santiago. After a lunch of classic Chilean sandwiches (named after famous presidents) at Confiteria Torres<\/a>, we headed to Villa Grimaldi<\/a>, a concentration camp during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). The recent political past of Chile gave us context to the country’s higher education system and their current political landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central historical event for our trip purposes was the military coup on September 11, 1973. It was a violent overthrow of President Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government and marked the start of Augusto Pinochet regime which lasted until 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Outside the presidential palace speaking of the government post September 11, 1973, Marcela told us, \u201creality has many different shades, and sometimes you have to step to the side to see a different shade.\u201d There were many shades to the dictatorship, and looking at it from the perspective of higher education, we learned that academics were the targets for the regime and many had to flee the country or were murdered or disappeared. In the 1980s, the regime decentralized the state universities and legalized private universities, officially introducing market mechanisms and for-profit models into the country’s higher education system. This system lacked accreditation and saw lower enrollment and worse labor market outcomes for students, thus limiting upward socioeconomic mobility. Since 1990 trends have changed, there are now less HEI\u2019s than during the 1980s and enrollment has been steadily increasing. We learned about the specific mechanism and drivers of this change along with new challenges to the system in the following days of our trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Camryn Teranes<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first day of the experiential learning trip to Chile was spent in Santiago, the country\u2019s capital city, where we<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":7377,"parent":7360,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-sidebar-right.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7365","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fimg_url":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/06\/IMG-20260512-WA0003.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7365"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7581,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7365\/revisions\/7581"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}