Life in academia can be challenging and demanding. Academics face constant pressures: meeting deadlines, responding to student demands, publishing research, obtaining funding, and dealing with time and resource constraints, all under the expectation of achieving excellence. For their part, students are confronted with uncertainty about their future, family expectations, lack of maturity, poor time management and limited resources.
In this context, both teachers and students experience loneliness, stress, insecurity, anxiety and the feeling of not being understood. Given this reality, pastoral accompaniment in the university is not only necessary, but also urgent.
On Thursday, 17 July 2025 at 1400 UTC, Dr. Jaime Peña-Álvarez, Coordinator of Internships and Degrees in Industrial Civil Engineering and Assistant Professor at the Autonomous University of Chile, will share how the Lord has allowed him to walk alongside academics and students, both at his university and at Grupo Bíblico Universitario de Chile (GBUCh), providing support in their challenges and helping them to integrate science and faith. This is a call for every Christian academic: to be an agent of comfort, encouragement and hope, communicating the Good News of Jesus Christ in the midst of the complexities of university life.
