1 2 3 Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca Directorio Dr. Modesto Seara Vázquez Rector M.C. Gerardo García Hernández Vice-Rector Académico C.P. José Javier Ruiz Santiago Vice-Rector Administrativo Lic. María de los Ángeles Peralta Arias Vice-Rectora de Relaciones y Recursos 4 5 First Spanish edition, May 2009. ISBN: 978-607-95222-1-6 Second Spanish edition, March 2010. ISBN: 978-607-95222-1-6 This is an updated translation into English of the book “Un Nuevo Modelo de Universidad. Universidades para el Desa- rrollo”, first published by the Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca in 2009, with a Second updated Edition in 2010. Diseño:Eruvid Cortés Camacho D.R. 2010 Modesto Seara Vázquez Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca Carretera a Acatlima, Km. 2.5. Huajuapan de León, Oax. C.P. 69000 6 Preface In the following pages I offer my conceptions of what a university should be. They are ideas generated by a long academic life in vari- ous countries and continents. However, I spent the longest period of time in Mexico, in Mexico City and the last twenty years in the state of Oaxaca. My academic background in the field of international relations has forced me to always keep an eye in what is happening on the world stage. This has allowed me to incorporate knowledge and experiences to the university project that I have had the enor- mous privilege to develop. As is natural, not everyone will agree with my opinions regarding the idea of university; I would be disappointed if they did. However, I want to invoke three things in my support: one, these are not im- provised ideas, but the fruit of a wealth of experience in the field of universities to various degrees; two, I hope to have demonstrated with the facts that these ideas work and the possibility of combining theory and practise is something that not many university theorists have been able to do; three, I have expressed my ideas with the same freedom with which I have been applying them over the decades. It is my hope that in other geographical environments where similar situations exist they will benefit from the Oaxaca experience, as this model is perfectly exportable. 7 It was and still is an enormous challenge in which I gradual- ly became involved. I had the unique opportunity to conceive and carry out a university project, of public universities, in which my own ideas are applied. Against all the odds and the most difficult circumstances, political, social, economic and also geographical, it can be said that we have achieved considerable results. As in all projects of this kind there are contributions from many people from both inside and outside the universities and it is just to recognize this. In the second part, dedicated especially to the practice, I men- tion the most significant names, to which I would have to add many of my collaborators who have tolerated my impatience beyond that which should be reasonably expected. However, in what is referred to as the oaxacan experience, I should say in my defence that it has been twenty years of long working days and constant travel- ling, almost always by highway because of the difficult geography of Oaxaca which ranges from sea level to high mountainous regions. Apart from the weekends, I hardly ever stay in place for more than one night. Until now I have had the good fortune of being in excel- lent health which has enabled me to withstand these excesses and I should confess that I feel extremely proud of the work which has been carried out and the results obtained. Above all, I feel proud of the overall consensus which has been achieved in Oaxaca with regards to this project which is seen as belonging to all the oaxacan people. Since this project is still a work in progress, I can’t speak in the past about everything. In what is referred to as being my ideas about university, I don’t believe that at this stage they will change funda- 8 mentally. However, in practice we are still in plain combat, achiev- ing things which we hadn’t been able to until now, creating new challenges and innovative projects such as the NovaUniversitas. We are also creating areas of technological development with the re- search centres which we have established. Today Oaxaca has, like it or not, a firm place in the Mexican scientific and technological fields and we have shown by way of everything we have achieved that we can rise above any chal- lenge. With this willingness to provide something important for the government and people of Oaxaca, we hope that the social and economic challenges facing Oaxaca today will be in the near future a thing of the past. 9 10 Part I The Theory 11 12 1. The social context The start of the 21st century sees an extremely complex society, characterised by a clash of two apparently contradictory trends: On the one hand, the reduction of the political units which had been in force for decades or centuries and the discredit of all insti- tutions, that haven’t been able to respond to the needs of modern society. On the other hand, an evident and unstoppable tendency to- wards the progressive unification of societies in a phenomenon con- fusingly described as globalisation1 or interdependence. The unification process is presented under diverse manifesta- tions and could also be interpreted as a confluence of partially uni- fying processes in a continuous acceleration. This has extremely important consequences for any analysis that is done about the concept of university in modern times, a concept which has a lot more universal validity today than it had before. 1 “As a center for the generation of knowledge the university has the strategic com- promise to transform its immediate and mediate environment, in order to perma- nently improve the quality of life of the population, which must be understood not only as an answer to the people´s demands for goods and services but also to promote cultural development and the conservation and improvement of the en- vironment. Besides, the university must assume responsibility for the insertion of the different local, regional and national sectors of the economy into the inter- national markets”). See Alberto Romero, ‘Universidad y Globalización’ in Revista de Ciencias Sociales (RCS) Vol. VII, Jan-April 2001, pp.141-151. Universidad de Zulía. Maracaibo, Venezuela. Others, Joseph S. Nye Jr., and John D. Donahue (Editors) Governance in a globalizing world…. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, c2000; Banco Mundial, Globalization, growth and poverty: build- ing an inclusive world economy. Washington, D.C.: World Bank 2001; Subhash C. Jain, Towards a global business confederation: a blueprint for globalization. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003; Mike Moore,. A world without walls: freedom, development, free trade and global governance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 13 In today’s world which is growing increasingly smaller and uni- formized, it is indispensable to consider the problems presented by the contradiction between the legitimate aspirations of the people to conserve their traditional values which have been formed over count- less generations and the undeniable fact of the movement towards a universal culture with common values and aspirations2. In the analysis of this confrontation two extreme positions are clear: those people who regret the weakening and progressive disapearence of the local cultural values and those who praise the rising of a truly universal culture. In this analysis the judgement of values is always confused with the problem of recognising the existence of a reality. The most sen- sible thing is to accept that not all local values are positive, nor are the universal values which are substituted for them. Very often, the values which are presented as the reflection of a culture, in all its meaning, of the people, are no more than an imposition of the ruling classes and have frequently served as simple instruments of domination. Equally, the universal cultural forms which are spread- ing throughout the world and are presented as a manifestation of the general aspirations of all the peoples are in fact the result of the manipulation of information by those who, through technological and economic power, are able to control the mass media and can impose standards of consumption and conduct. They shouldn´t pre- 2. About the interpretation of universal values, Rushworth M. Kidder, Shared Values for a Troubled World: Conversations With Men and Women of Conscience; San Francisco: Jossey Bass 1994, and Modesto Seara Vázquez, La Hora Decisiva, 3a Ed.. México: Porrúa, 1995. 14 tend to represent their people, as they act for individual reasons, of greed and personal promotion. There is nothing new in the fact that some cultures substitute others; what is happening now has always happened throughout history. Great civilisations rose up and disappeared, substituted by others that frequently assumed part of the values of the defeated, to form a cultural heritage that belonged to all mankind. The only aspect which is really new is the size and speed of the changes. In view of this, we can entertain ourselves in simple ethical judgement, or we can insist in deceiving ourselves by simply denying that the phenomenon exists. However, that would have the perverse effect of making all our most profound fears come true by allowing ourselves to become completely dominated by other cultures. In effect, in the world we live in there are only two options: to be an actor and participate in the configuration of new values, or fall into a defensive position, giving up the fight to win a place in the universal concert for our culture and resign ourselves to play a role we are assigned from the outside.