
The 2025 Virtual Best Practices Showcase (VBPS), scheduled for January 16 to 24, 2025, shared more than 25 presentations from institutions in Puerto Rico, the United States, and Latin América. The 2025 VBPS allowed the Consortium to share innovative projects and best practices in four major tracks focused on Innovation, Student Mobility, Online Learning and Technology Integration in Higher Education, and a track of talented students who showcased innovative projects they had been working on within the academia. More than 200 participants registered from Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the United States to join the live and asynchronous presentations shared by different Higher Education institutions.

This year, the Opening Panel about Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education featured three speakers including Prof. Tonya Skinner from Southeast Missouri State University, Dr. José Ferrer from the University of Puerto Rico, and Esq. Jorge Silva Puras from Lehman College, moderated by Dr. Carlos Vargas-Aburto, HETS Vice Chair and President of Southeast Missouri State University.

In addition, the conference showcased the Track Winners Panel, which achieved the highest scores on their presentation proposals per track, moderated by Dr. Yubelkys Montalvo, HETS Executive Director. The Innovation track winners were Dr. Carmen Caiseda and Dr. Omayra Rivera-Castro, from Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus and Dr. Carlos Martínez-Bonilla from IAUPR San Germán Campus; Prof. Lisa Thon from EDP University was the Student Mobility Track Winner; Ms. Patricia St. Fleur from John Jay College of Criminal Justice CUNY was the Student Track winner, and the Online Learning and Technology Integration Track Winners was Dr. Neyla Idaliz Rivera from University of Puerto Rico, Ponce Campus, who also received the highest scores in all categories.

Concurrent with the 2025 Virtual Best Practices Showcase Opening Panels, HETS Board of Directors held their Winter meeting with more than 40 representatives out of the 47 current members. The results of the first semester of the academic year 2024-2025 were topics of discussion. Among the shared news with the Board were highlighted the major activities that support the organizational programmatic goals such as tailored workshop offerings online and webinars; the results of the HETS Online Journal published on a new open journal platform; and additional tools and services added to the HETS Virtual Plaza and HETS Website.

In addition, a special session with the Directors of Admissions, Internationalization, Deans of Students, and related staff at HETS member institutions, discussed the results of a new initiative to promote student mobility called: Student Passport Connect, Learn & Lead (Puerto Rico Edition). The objective was to propose recommendations to the HETS Board to replicate this initiative in other regions, based on the experiences of the host institutions and the students who participated in this first Student Passport PR Edition held in September 2024.

Board members also welcomed three new institutional members, Atlantic University representative in-person, and Chemeketa Community College and Ponce Health Science University representatives virtually. During the second day of the meeting, the Board held a corporate session with current HETS partners which included: the American Heart Association, COBIMET, Teach Access, Puerto Rico Top Level Domain, InQmatic, Miami Edtech and welcomed Online Learning Consortium and Dreamscape Learn as its new partners.
HETS would like to recognize the valuable collaboration of President Gladys Nieves, President of EDP University, and her attentive staff for hosting and making possible the success of these events.




For further information regarding the Virtual Best Practices Showcase and HETS Board meeting, please access the Conference webpage on this website or call our HETS Office at 787- 250-1912, extension 2373.