Institutionality, ethics and university government

Institutional crisis who experienced the electoral process for the restoration of the highest personal power Specialized University of America, its rector or rector, is an expression of a deeper crisis of values ​​that affects of university life, to a large extent as an expression of the general crisis of public morality – and private ethics – from which our country, region and even contemporary capitalist culture suffers.

A fiercely individualistic ethic, based on the glorification of selfishness and competition, which is the moral norm of casino capitalism. As even several Popes claimed, and the former rector of St Complutense University, critical economist Carlos Berzosa: “It seems that for the new casino capitalism there is no other moral law than the one imposed by the markets. And this ethic of hypertrophy of financial power is adopted by both the elites and the lumpen groups of the system, who assimilate the models of behavior that they project screens, fashion, “influences” of social networks, television cans where what you like the most wins. brutal, visceral and primitive.

It’s an “all against all” culture and where “anything goes” if you show that you have an edge over the rest. It is difficult for individuals or groups to escape from this media bombardment and regime benefits, privileges and corruption which appear to be the “normal” way governments operate, whether large corporations (whether mining, investment funds or banks) or governments or complex organizations.

Popularly and colloquially, we Panamanians call it “play alive”, but universally it is nothing but the rule of the stronger, understood as the strongest or most powerful, that is, the possibility of influence, by permitted or illegal means, over behavior and decisions of others. In short, having power and using it. Lust for power and its pornography.

The founders of our Latin American countries said that “To govern means to educate”, and the liberal elites of the beginnings of all our republics based on education and school the way to spread civilization against barbarism, to use Sarmiento’s approach.

Rodó’s Arielism or the more angelic readings of Martí or Hostos himself were instrumental in building the social cement with which nation-states were built in their founding phase. And this was also critical in nation-states such as Panama, which arrived mediated and late at the concert of nations. I mean Porras and Eusebio A. Morales, and in the next generation, that of Méndez Pereira, José Daniel Crespo and, to mention the most lucid ones who had to expose the errors of the conservatives who forged and co-opted the secession of 1903.

The contrast between the belief in education and the school (including the University in the idea of ​​the school as a site of social reproduction), and what we live today, is one that mediates between early liberal republicanism and today’s late capitalism. Fundamental values ​​of liberalism and neoliberal degeneration a conservative that has its most common expressions in the politicians who overflow ours National Assembly of Deputies, They highlight those institutional crises that cut across the world order of plutocratic imperial power, pass through the leadership of nation states and reach university institutions. Look back at the rectoral elections of official universities in recent years and you will see how these processes either look like carnivals or degenerate into party co-optations and generally give birth to the lowest passions and the darkest interests.

UDELAS tried to indirectly elect its rector through the faculty, which should be a sieve academic excellence. Procedure It was wrong because interests appeared early on that put an end to the peaceful selection of part of the electoral mechanism and an atmosphere of tension was created in an institution with a weak democratic culture, both because of the youth of the institution itself, and because of its youth. (this would be his fourth election), as well as characterized by organizational uniqueness pyramid regime of the government, which is a phenomenon comparable to the presidentialism of the Panamanian state. But beyond these circumstances or accompanying conditions, in our opinion, the root of evil lies in a culture with weak academic values, especially in the student part, that is, because disagreement and criticism are not the norm of everyday life. in actual participation or decision-making, whether due to unacknowledged passions for power and command. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to understand how reasonable and decent people mutate into different beings almost overnight.

However, the above will be nothing more than a mere anecdote if the purpose is to preserve the common good, i.e. the university itself, its image and substantive function within the Panamanian university ecosystem, (where UDELAS is a university with a degree in public service more entrenched and where Horace’s turning of swords into plowshares became a reality in the heart of the old Canal Zone), flaws in structure and process need to be corrected. For example: preventing faculty candidates from being appointed to management positions at least one year after the election of the rector (to prevent negotiations on management positions); ensure that all members of the teaching staff are elected individually and not by list (to prevent the formation of factions that correspond to an a priori candidate); o require that all members of the electoral body be elected by direct and secret ballot and establish an accountability mechanism for the electoral body. electoral body before body suniversity in a clear way that, without diminishing its independence, leaves no room for an “autonomous” interpretation such as this at the root of the legal dispute between the central university administration and representatives of the internal electoral body. UDELAS will survive this crisis. We have no doubt about it. But we must all make a deep act of awareness from which a fair process can emerge

the healing of wounds, the academic fraternity, which restores inner peace to the institutional climate of a noble institution that we all admire and love. I hope I’m not too delusional to dream about it and put it that way concise, direct and honest.