Maria Lopes Cardoso and Rita Paiva e Pona: "It's so good to know that we mark lives"

Católica was recently recognised by Times Higher Education as the best university in Portugal for the 4th consecutive year. Rita Paiva e Pona and Maria Lopes Cardoso work daily to make this distinction possible.

Maria Lopes Cardoso, Director of Partnerships, Alumni and Employability at the Porto Regional Centre, sees this result "with pride and responsibility". A feeling shared by Rita, Coordinator of the Social Responsibility Office in Lisbon, who does not hesitate to state: "international recognition makes us want to keep working, to go further and to achieve increasingly better results".

"Belonging to Católica is very gratifying, namely because our University has prestige among people, employers and partners, and public opinion, which recognizes our brand, nationally and internationally," shares Maria Lopes Cardoso. This prestige requires a "search for coherence between what we say and what we are," so she hopes that UCP "continues to make this constant effort of demand, on the one hand, and humility, on the other". 

Maria has contributed to this effort in the area of student support, which encompasses the social aspect, development and preparation for the future. An area where "we have been trying to do our best," she declares with conviction. She began her career as Coordinator of Student and Career Services, then she was Director of Communication and Employability and today she is dedicated to the development of relations with the alumni of the Porto campus, partnerships and employability.

In Lisbon, colleague Rita sees her role in the Social Responsibility Office "as a job of building bridges internally" and relationships of trust externally. And this is how she cooperates in the Católica's project to build "a better world in favour of sustainability."

A project they have both been part of for many years. Rita entered UCP as a student in 1996 and has never left. Of these more than 25 years at UCP, she fondly recalls three moments: her entry into university, the beginning of her career at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and three years ago, "the opportunity to work in the social responsibility office, with a more national perspective, which gave me another view of the university," she says.

Maria, at UCP since 1988, highlights two types of moments. "Those in which I have been called to contribute to the reflection on the future of the University, a reflection of an institution that thinks; and the meetings with former students who have passed through UCP and who recognise what the University has meant to them in changing their life course. It is so good to know that we mark lives!" she concludes.