Tag Archive for: Universidad de Guanajuato

Outstanding Graduate Student award recipient Matthew Havniear, SOU Ashland

SOU’s Havniear receives Outstanding Graduate Student award

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(Ashland, Ore.) — U.S. Marine Corps veteran, nonprofit leader and graduating MBA student Matthew Havniear will be celebrated as the 2025 recipient of the University of Guanajuato Outstanding Graduate Student Award during the Southern Oregon University commencement ceremony on June 14.

The prestigious annual award honors a graduate student who exemplifies academic excellence and meaningful service to both their university and broader community. It celebrates the long-standing academic partnership between Southern Oregon University and the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico, grounded in shared commitments to cross-cultural understanding, leadership and public impact.

Havniear – a full-time graduate student from Talent with a 4.0 GPA – was nominated by SOU’s MBA Program for his noteworthy contributions inside and outside the classroom. He currently serves as Interim Executive Director of both the Jackson County Community Long-Term Recovery Group and the Rogue Valley Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) – two key regional organizations that support disaster recovery, housing and emergency preparedness across southern Oregon.

Havniear has played a central role in advancing wildfire resilience, affordable housing initiatives and inclusive recovery strategies for vulnerable populations through his leadership. He has also co-authored federal grant proposals in collaboration with SOU and other regional leaders, securing vital resources for underserved communities.

He founded Team Overland in 2015 – a volunteer-run nonprofit that provides free therapeutic outdoor adventures for veterans and their families. Since its inception, the organization has positively impacted more than 1,000 participants throughout the region.

“This award is significant to me – not just as a student, but as a father, a veteran and a community member,” Havniear said. “My time at SOU has helped me build stronger systems of support for those most impacted by crisis. I’m proud to be part of a university that values service, cultural inclusion and resilience.”

Havniear completed his degree through SOU’s Online MBA Program, launched in 2017 to meet the needs of working professionals throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The program now serves approximately 150 students nationwide, offering flexible, accelerated terms that allow students to finish their degrees in as few as 16 months.

For those who prefer a traditional classroom experience, SOU also offers its MBA in a face-to-face format on the Ashland campus, maintaining the same academic rigor and applied learning as the online program while fostering in-person engagement.

The University of Guanajuato Outstanding Graduate Student Award stands as a testament to the power of international academic partnerships and the role of transformational leadership in advancing the public good – values that are central to both SOU and the Universidad de Guanajuato.

-SOU-

Guanajuato students on SOU visit

Guanajuato students visit SOU for collaborative business development project

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University is hosting nine business students this week from Universidad de Guanajuato, and will send nine SOU students to the Mexican university next month as the two longtime sister campuses launch a new collaboration on multicultural business development as part of a far-reaching program under the U.S. Department of State’s umbrella.

The 18 total students from SOU and UG are working together this week on development plans for three local businesses – Irvine Roberts Family Vineyards, Indigo Creek Outfitters and Northwest Pizza and Pasta – and will do the same for three Guanajuato businesses during the May exchange. The Global Innovation Scholars program also includes international, online coursework for participating students during this year’s winter and spring terms, and the opportunity for immersive social and cultural experiences.

SOU's Dee Fretwell with Giuanajuato visitors“This program is so valuable and unique,” said Dee Fretwell, the SOU business instructor who proposed the project along with UG business professor and SOU alumnus Martin Pantoja. “We push the boundaries of an exchange program, blending cultural experiences with hands-on business development for live, operating businesses. I’m not sure we as a society are even grasping how valuable this is to our students and businesses alike.”

The collaboration between SOU and UG – which have maintained a steady stream of exchange and cooperative projects since 1969 – is part of the “100,000 Strong in the Americas” program, sponsored by the State Department, the U.S. Embassies and the nonprofit organization Partners for the Americas. The SOU-UG partnership applied for and received a $25,000, one-year grant from the 100,000 Strong program, which now serves 534 higher education institutions in 25 Western Hemisphere countries and 49 U.S. states. There is hope that a funding source will be found to continue the new program beyond its inaugural year.

A unique link between SOU and UG has led more than 1,000 students, faculty members and others to participate in exchanges, and has resulted in more than 80 marriages tying people from Ashland and Guanajuato over three generations. In fact, the current SOU-UG project grew out of a previous partnership between the two schools – the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program, which brought together classes of upper-division business students to work on the development of international business relationships.

The collaborative relationship that Fretwell and Pantoja formed through that program provided a natural segue to the “100,000 Strong in the Americas” grant application.

SOU student RJ Henry, who is participating in this week’s events and will be among the nine from the Ashland campus who visit Guanajuato next month, called the program an “extraordinary opportunity” that will build cooperative skills and provide valuable real-life lessons.

“The 100K Strong program offers a remarkably exciting opportunity to embark on a life experience that combines business education with cultural immersion, while making new friends along the way,” Henry said. “The benefits are the various academic, travel, cultural and social activities, which include the development of business-related critical thinking skills within group work settings, and the experience of unique cultural perspectives.”

The Guanajuato exchange students arrived in the Rogue Valley last Saturday night. They have toured the community and SOU campus in the days since, and have had meetings or events with SOU President Rick Bailey, state Rep. Pam Marsh, Ashland Mayor Julie Akins, SOU’s Faculty Advisory Board, the university’s Small Business Development Center in Medford and Ashland’s Amigo Club – an organization of community members and alumni who support the Amistad exchange program and have created an endowed scholarship fund for participants.

The SOU and UG students have visited the three local businesses that are receiving development advice, and will present their business plans at a Friday event in SOU’s Stevenson Union. They will tour Lithia Park and go on a rafting excursion on Saturday before returning to Mexico on Sunday.

The students and participating faculty members from Guanajuato were welcomed to southern Oregon by Vincent Smith, director of SOU’s Division of Business, Communication and the Environment, and a faculty leader for the project. He told the visitors that we face many problems in common as a global society, from the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, to environmental destruction and political conflict.

“You are here this week to assist three businesses in planning,” Smith told the SOU and UG students as this week’s field work began. “That is important work. It is practice for the many problems you will need to solve in your lives.

“Unfortunately, the problems you will need to solve are complex. They cannot easily be solved without collaboration and cooperation. In fact, unless we work together to solve these problems we will fail.”

Smith told students from the two universities that working together, developing friendships and building trust will provide their greatest strengths.

“We are more alike than we are different, but it is our differences that will help us solve the most complex problems,” he said.

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SOU-Universidad de Guanajuato agreement signed

SOU and Universidad de Guanajuato pledge to build upon 50-year friendship

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University and the Universidad de Guanajuato officially renewed a friendship that has been built over the past 50 years when the institutions’ leaders pledged Monday to broaden their collaboration over the next half-century.

SOU-UG presidents sign agreement“Today’s agreement is to reaffirm our commitment to the exchange of students and faculty,” SOU President Linda Schott said at the ceremonial re-signing of a memorandum of understanding between the schools. “Our goal for this 50th anniversary celebration is to build an even firmer relationship.”

Delegations from the city of Guanajuato and its namesake university are in Ashland this week for a series of events to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Ashland-Guanajuato sister city and sister university relationships. President Schott and other SOU leaders hosted their Universidad de Guanajuato counterparts for breakfast on Monday, then toured a “unity” themed exhibit at the SOU Art Building before reassembling for the signing ceremony.

UG Rector General Luis Felipe Guerrero Agripino – the equivalent of president at a U.S. university – said he hopes to honor the two universities’ history of cooperation by expanding upon it.

“Imagine, 50 years ago we didn’t have the technology and all the ways we have to communicate now,” he said. “So there is no excuse. The best way to celebrate the 50th anniversary is to commit even more to the relationship we have.”

More than 1,000 students, faculty members and others have participated in exchange programs between the two universities and the cities of Ashland and Guanajuato, and some families from the Mexican city have been involved for three generations.

Beatriz Navarro-Parada, the Mexican consulate general for Oregon and southwest Washington, attended Monday’s ceremony and pledged the support of her office in any future collaborations.

“Please count on the consulate to help with your relationship,” she said. “We will work together.”

The 50th anniversary celebration will continue with events including an invitation-only reception and concert for the Guanajuato delegation on Tuesday night at the SOU Music Recital Hall, and a free, public lecture series on Thursday morning in the SOU Art Building’s Meese Auditorium.

President Schott and a small delegation from SOU visited Guanajuato a year and a half ago, and a larger group from Ashland and the university will continue the 50th anniversary celebration in the central Mexican city from May 27 to 31.

Guerrero Agripino, the UG rector general, joked on Monday that the two universities’ relationship is so solid that they sometimes mirror each other.

“On the visit we had, when we hosted Dr. Schott (in Guanajuato), we had rain. This is to prove to you that we are very well aligned,” he said, motioning toward a window in the Hannon Library and a downpour outside. “We can create the same conditions.”

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