Meeting Again. Puma Rally: a tour around University City

January 2020 has arrived, and with it a lot of promises for the beginning of the year. We expected a lot, but never a pandemic on a global scale. Our lives changed suddenly; the world prepared and adapted the best way it knew how, and one of the main changes led to moving our activities into the virtual space. This is how language classes, photography, yoga, creative writing and, of course, school classes, were adapted to fit into a computer. We began to communicate via camera and microphone, hoping that the internet would be fast enough to allow us to participate and listen to each other.

The online activities allowed us to keep in touch, but the experience of attending the classes is much more than just sitting down, listening, and taking notes. What makes student communities is what each student contributes: the way we react to the body expressions of those around us, when we exchange glances or just staying in complete silence—so feared in the virtual space— just to add emphasis. But we also form a community outside the classrooms, walking through the corridors of the buildings, studying in the library, asking for the homework, while having a coffee; the space we inhabit becomes part of our experience.

The Puma Rally was an initiative to invite students who in their first or second year of undergraduate studies did not have the opportunity to use UNAM’s facilities. The objective was to remind them that studying for a university degree is a comprehensive experience and that the university where they have decided to study offers them the opportunity to access different activities such as theater, dance, music, cinema, and much more, in a space with spectacular architecture and in an area with endemic flora and fauna that is part of the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve.

We wanted those who attended the Puma Rally to be able to see a part of Ciudad Universitaria in person; that what they learned was not only data on when and how a certain space was built, but that they knew the diversity of disciplines that coexist within their own university, the multiplicity of spaces and activities.

In this way, for four Sundays, from March 13 to April 3 2022, students were invited to tour a large part of the University Cultural Center and the central campus in Ciudad Universitaria. In addition, on Sunday, April 3, the Rally would be adapted for UNAM students with disabilities, changing the route to make it more comfortable in terms of mobility and giving the activities a sensory focus.

During the mornings, the people who had signed up arrived and one or another curious person who was at the university that day. The tour was planned based on clues, each of which would lead to one of the emblematic spaces of the CCU, where they could witness different cultural expressions, interpreted by people who are part of the UNAM itself. In total, seven places were visited, and activities related to that specific space took place in each one. They observed and interpreted the mural of the Cherani Collective exhibited at the University Museum of Contemporary Art, they witnessed a staging performed by students from the University Theater Center, they learned about the facilities and the collection of the National Library. They walked next to the monumental pieces of the Sculpture Promenade, and ended the walk at the Sculpture display, where they had the opportunity to listen to live music and enjoy a contemporary dance performance. For the next part of the tour, visitors had the option of continuing by bicycle, a means of transportation that the UNAM students usually choose to move around the campus. They made their way to the Geopedregal, a space created by the Institutes of Geology and Geography, intended for education and the restoration of the ecological reserve. The tour ended in “the islands”, where they were able to learn about the projects and services that their university offers them.

At first, we were prepared to receive about ninety students per day, but the impact of the Rally was such that on the last Sunday we closed with a participation of one hundred and eighty-six people (a total of three hundred and eighty-four people attended during the four days). This large number of participants was made up of students from all faculties and careers: history, medicine, biology, social work, chemistry, actuary, Hispanic language and literature, engineering, international relations, among others. Exchange students from Germany, Korea, and Argentina also participated, as well as students from CCH high schools and campuses, and even former students who graduated in 1967.

All this work was able to come to life thanks to those who are part of the university community: researchers, teachers, workers and volunteers, with the same goal that our return to face-to-face is as sweet as possible.

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