83 years after it was founded, we answer eight questions to discover the origin of the characteristics, symbols, and decisions that have defined the Tec.
By
Lorena Morales
| CONECTA National News Desk
-
09/02/2026
Photo
CONECTA Archive
Read time: 8 mins
There’s a story behind some of the aspects that set Tecnológico de Monterrey apart.
Behind its way of teaching, its relationship with technology and the world, the humanities, entrepreneurship, and even some of its symbols lie decisions, characters, and moments that have shaped it along the way.
83 years after its founding, we go back through its history to answer eight questions that help to understand why the Tec is how it is today.
Tecnológico de Monterrey was created in 1943 to respond to a specific need: Monterrey was growing as an industrial city and needed professionals who would help to drive this development. However, as higher education was in short supply, many young people had to leave the city—and even the country—to further their studies.
World War II made it even harder to study abroad. Against this backdrop, a group of business owners led byDon Eugenio Garza Sada founded an institution that would train the necessary professionals.
Ricardo Elizondo, historian and director of the Tec’s Cervantine Library from the 1980s to 2011, explained in one of his books on the institution that its founders saw higher education as an answer to the city’s development needs.
Don Eugenio Garza Sada headed the group of business owners who founded Tecnológico de Monterrey in 1943. (Photo: CONECTA archive)
However, this was not merely about opening a new school. Don Eugenio Garza Sada’s experience as a student at MIT also influenced the Tec’s creation, particularly due to that institution’s connection with industry, the quality of its professors, its infrastructure, and student activities.
From its early years, the Tec also made decisions that were unusual for the time in Mexico, such as having full-time professors and a semester-based system.
In the 1960s, the Tec’s first site outside Monterrey began to take shape in Guaymas, Sonora, created to support the education of students on a new program connected with maritime sciences and food technology. The unit started operations in 1967.
At the same time, the Tec also started experimenting with closed-circuit television, a technology that would later extend the scope of its teaching.
Ricardo Elizondo explained how both experiences—courses via television and the site in Guaymas—helped pave the way for the Tec to later extend its reach in Mexico.
This also led to an idea that would accompany the Tec during the following decades: looking for different ways to take education beyond a physical space.
The Guaymas Unit in Sonora was the Tec’s first site outside Monterrey, starting operations in 1967. (Photo: CONECTA archive)
3. Why is the Tec betting on technology to transform education?
Technology has been a recurring tool at the Tec for testing new ways of teaching, learning, and connecting students with professors. One of the first examples occurred in 1964, when it began to broadcast college classes via closed-circuit television.
Decades later, that experimentation continued with the Interactive Education System via Satellite, used from 1989 to teach professors remotely, and with the creation of the Virtual University in 1996, which taught academic and continuing education programs in Mexico and Latin America.
Currently, that exploration includes immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented, and extended reality, used to create experiences in which students can practice skills and face situations that are similar to those they will encounter in professional settings.
Experimentation with educational technology, which began with resources such as television, now includes experiences with virtual, augmented, and extended reality. (Photo: Antonio Tovar)
4. What place do the humanities have at a technological institute?
The idea of combining technical training with humanities has been present since the Tec was founded. It even came up in the discussion over how the new institution should be named.
Historian Rodrigo Mendirichaga mentions how Virgilio Garza Jr., one of the Tec’s founding members, suggested that in addition to producing good engineers, it should teach philosophy, literature, art, and ethics to make their education more complete. Don Eugenio Garza Sada agreed to include these subjects on the syllabus. That vision was reflected in its name, the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education.
This intention began to take shape from its early years. Mendirichaga documents how the humanities and cultural activities were already present in student life and development in the 1940s, leading to the creation of the Humanities Department in 1945.
Over the years, that presence took on new forms. At the end of the 1950s, the School of Literature opened with the Professor of Language and Literature program, a moment that Ricardo Elizondo identified as the Tec’s entry into the field of humanities.
Culture also made inroads through concerts, theater, exhibitions, and lectures. In 1963, the Cultural DisseminationDepartment was created, which fostered these activities and reached out to the community of writers and creators.
Decades later, there were other initiatives such as the Alfonso Reyes Chair, created in 1999, and the Monterrey International Book Fair, as spaces for bringing the humanities, books, and cultural conversation to different communities.
The humanities have formed part of the Tec’s education since its early years; the Humanities Department was created in 1945. (Photo: School of Humanities and Education)
5. Where did the Tec’s ram, mural, and color blue come from?
The Ram
Its origins go back to 1945, and there are different versions about how it became the Tec’s mascot.
The one most people agree upon says that some football players who were on their way to a game stopped the bus and pooled their money to buy a ram they saw with its shepherd near the Santa Catarina River.
However, its origin is also connected to a decision voted on by students, and there are references to its use in student publications before the aforementioned incident.
Decades later, the ram also gave rise to Teus, the Tec’s official mascot presented in 2019.
Teus was presented in 2019 as the official mascot of Tecnológico de Monterrey, decades after the origin of the ram as a symbol of its sports teams. (Photo: CONECTA archive)
The mural
“The Triumph of Culture,” a work by Jorge González Camarena, was inaugurated in 1954 on what is currently the Rector’s Building at Tec de Monterrey, which then served as its library.
This high relief depicts the struggle and victory of Quetzalcóatl over Tezcatlipoca, as well as the triumph of civilization and culture over stagnation and apathy.
The color blue
Its origin is also connected with football. In 1945, although the team had initially chosen red for its uniforms, the factory didn’t have enough fabric in that color.
One student then proposed using blue and white, the colors of the bus that took them to their games. That’s how the use of blue to represent Tec de Monterrey began.
Over time, blue became one of the colors most associated with the Tec’s identity. (Photo: Marlene González)
6. Why do Tec students solve real-world challenges?
From its early decades, the Tec has sought to relate the education of its students with the needs of their surroundings. That connection took different forms over time, from workshops and laboratories to experiences related with production sectors.
This new model also gave rise to the figure of training partners: companies, organizations, governments, and institutions that participate in educational experiences, posing challenges and accompanying students during their development.
Currently, challenges can be based on business, social, scientific, technological, or environmental needs, enabling students to develop skills while facing the complexity of real-world situations.
Companies, organizations, governments, and institutions participate as training partners through challenges that place students in real-world situations. (Photo collage: CONECTA archive)
7. How did entrepreneurship and innovation become part of the Tec?
The way the Tec understands entrepreneurship has changed over time. Its first programs were more connected to creating businesses and developing skills for students to generate their own opportunities.
In 1978, it started the Business Owner Program. It then institutionalized the Entrepreneur Program in 1985 to focus on developing a spirit of enterprise and innovation in its students. By 1990, that training had already become a core course for undergraduate students.
Over the years, this vision was extended beyond setting up a business. Entrepreneurship and innovation have also been connected to the ability to identify opportunities, tackle problems, and generate new responses in different spheres.
Currently, innovation forms part of a broader vision that relates it to research, internationalization, and generating impact, as well as collaboration between universities, companies, and other stakeholders to tackle challenges in their surroundings.
Entrepreneurship has formed part of the Tec’s education since the end of the 1970s, and its scope has been extended towards innovation over the years. (Photo collage: Eduardo Garza T. Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub)
The Tec’s international connection began in its early years and went much further than sending students abroad. It also included the arrival of international students and professors, which was extended over time towards other forms of academic and scientific collaboration with institutions from other countries.
In 1947, the first exchange program was held with the University of Louisiana and visiting professors from abroadbegan to participate. A year later, the Tec taught intensive summer courses in English to foreign students. In 1950, international students started taking its programs on a regular basis.
That relationship began to grow. In 1960, Ricardo Elizondo documented the presence of students from 19 countries in the Americas, as well as Tec student experiences at colleges in the United States. Decades later, it would broaden mobility programs and collaborations with universities from different regions of the world.
Internationalization was also extended to research, innovation, and academic collaboration. The Tec currently participates in global networks and develops joint projects with universities and institutions from other countriesto share knowledge and address problems that cross borders.
Today, the institution employs internationalization as an integrated, cross-cutting strategy, which seeks to connect students, professors, and researchers with other perspectives, cultures, and capacities to collaborate on tackling global challenges.
The Tec’s internationalization began in its early years and now includes mobility, research, and academic collaboration with institutions from other countries. (Photo: Monterrey Campus communications)
Sources consulted:
Elizondo Elizondo, Ricardo. Realista y Visionario: Sesenta Aniversario. Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey. ITESM, 2003.
Mendirichaga, Rodrigo. El Tecnológico de Monterrey: sucesos, anécdotas, personajes. Ediciones Castillo, 1982.
Legados que trascienden. Tecnológico de Monterrey, commemorative publication on its 80th anniversary, 2023.(Read the book here).
