Looking forward

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The entrance competition(SAT) held in late May shows that
next semester at Ulbra has already begun.


The Fall Saturday morning of May, 29th, welcomed 2900 candidates in the 15 campuses at 6 States of Brazil. They crowded classrooms applying to qualify to get into college next August. On that day The Lutheran University of Brazil (Ulbra) had its 2nd semester ‘vestibular’(Brazilian entrance competition). The results were published late Sunday, 30th , and the qualified competitors are now able to register for their 1st semester at Ulbra.

In Brazil, most Universities work in a Semester based system. At the end of every 6 months students register for the courses they want (and are able to) in the next semester. New students need to apply for the ‘Vestibular’, a written knowledge verifying test that qualifies for the 50 available places in each course’s first classes. The highest search this semester was for Medicine School, with 800 students applying for a desk in the classroom.

In Brazilian terminology, the first semester (e.g. 2010-01) begins in March and ends on early July, then the four-week Winter break begins. Classes resume early August for the 2nd Semester (e.g, 2010-02), going until early December. Then its time for the 3 month Summer break..

Since it’s severe crisis on late 2008 and early 2009, Ulbra has been able to slowly recover from its losses and regain its administrative credibility in society. Moving back its focus to the Educatoin area the Institution has been able to reverse its student loss and to work on recovering its full capacity. Today, with over 140,000 students (daily commuting + e-learning) in all levels of Educations -from Kindergarten to Ph.D programs- Ulbra’s Educational System, sponsored by “São Paulo” Lutheran Congregation at Canoas, is one of the largest confessional institutions in the world.


“New Ulbra”
On April, 2009, after 37 years as the head of the Institution, former rector Ruben Becker resigned due a long lasting crisis in the Institution. On May, 2010, after a thorough federal investigation he was indicted by Brazilian Federal Police under 4 different charges. Shortly after the same happened to his son, Leandro (former Vice-rector) and his daughter, Ana (former Rector’s assessor) .

In the way of recovery, since 2009 both Rectorship, leaded by Rector Rev.Marcos Ziemer, and “São Paulo” Congregation, leaded by President Mr. Augusto Timm Neto, work on ways to solve problems inherited from former managers. Many measures, negotiations and actions have been conducted to find ways to feasibility of the Institution. It includes adding ‘New’ to the logo “Ulbra” positionig the new moment the Institution is bringing forth.

Coming back to its mains focus - Education – and looking forward to the next steps, the Lutheran University of Brazil sees quite hard times in the near future. But it sees also God’s hands quite close strenghtening faith and hope. Working confidently for solutions that will enable Ulbra to continue the sowing of seeds of Education and Faith.