Broken institutionality and a perennial university

Tomos, we suffered a loss of property brittle material…porcelain, bowl, cup or glass left by a being of deep love. Sometimes it’s just a crack, a line that time inexorably deepens until it breaks matter into pieces. In others, the fragmentation is sudden and complete. AND breaking pieces; and in our hands only dust. And due to the merit and evaluation of broken material, a mournful look, nostalgia for lost goods.

The comparison is partially applicable to human institutions. Organizations, companies, unions, parties are fragmented. Churches and states are divided. Universities are broken. But unlike things materials, institutions are being remade, reconstitute, recompose. Of course, it will never be the same. Such a process is carried out by inexorable force. It is the law of becoming, the inescapable force of which led Heraclitus to say that real reality is change, a constant flux, and not a perfect and unchanging unity of being that is always the same.

This long exordium refers to the fracture experienced in the Panama University before our eyes. I think of Specialized University of Americaone of the noblest educational institutions that was created in Republic in recent decades.

After overcoming difficult years of standing and creating a recognizable name and entity in a country where the collective imagination thought only of a concrete university under the term university, this “entity” dedicated to training in unpublished topics on the agenda began to clear its way of educational, postponed or forgotten topics such as Education for children with special needs, for the population of persons with disabilities, as they were then called; according to Social education and resocialization, orthotics, prostheses, physiotherapy, stimulation early education, speech therapy, etc., which today offers more than 40 different undergraduate studies, the same number of postgraduate studies with two doctorates and the development of more than 600 programs of continuing education. The geographical presence is also expanded, but with a very clear direction: to serve the most vulnerable population.

All this was done under the auspices of two opposite and unique personalities: Berta Torrijos de Arosemena and Juan Bosco Bernal. UDELAS was made with them.

Obviously, they didn’t do it alone, but they had the charisma and magic to inspire teamwork and overcome two national accreditation processes, several careers, and cement the construction of provincial and remote headquarters in the heart of the deep homeland. PARTICIPATE with them It has acquired a presence and an entity that clearly places it in the panorama of higher education in Panama and in the Central American isthmus. Research is being conducted and public outreach is being done like never before.

But nowadays, when the rector’s post was supposed to pass into other hands, the precious medal fell and broke. The relay has stopped and we are looking at this accident with amazement. Maybe the race and the runners weren’t up to par. the height of the circumstances; perhaps a thought process to avoid disappointment, he was destroyed by constitutional flaws, maybe, maybe, maybe…. It’s worth thinking about. But what is real and obvious is that the rector’s succession has been interrupted. Institutions were hit hard. He is undoubtedly broken. It’s terribly painful. Terribly unfair. But that’s where we’ve arrived, because this painful scene is constructed in Greek tragedy with fates and characters of all colors.

However, the university continues and will continue. The discretion of the law will decide who has the legal cause that caused the unprecedented clash of forces. The state courts must tell us whether the High University Council, il Scientific council and rectorate of UDELAS They were right and right to stop the election tournament, or the University Electoral Council and the electoral faction that decided to destroy the internal order against the persuasions and mandates of the constituted government are right. Those who judge coldly will know where the reason lies and who has the best and strongest arguments.

But I am one of those who think that in the legal system it is the judges who will be able to solve these things, outside our opinions and inner subjectivities. We should never have come to these extremes, but human events and actions have brought us to this predicament. However, I’m careful and it doesn’t escape me that the second time is to enter the fight in the muddy yard, thugs and criminal groups, on the margins law and legality. Struggle for power without disguises and masks.

But the question remains before everyone: what we want for UDELAS? We cannot avoid this ethical dilemma.

The Udelist community is mostly horrified by the political confrontation, which has never had the harsh expressions that have been achieved today. We are faced with situations totally abnormal.

In this situation, full institutionality must be restored through the operation of the Law and the heightened conscience of the staff teacher, administrative and students who have to weigh whether we have to destroy with our feet what cost so much to build in 26 years.