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Students and the Political System of the University of Buenos Aires*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Ronald C. Newton
Ronald C. Newton*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana
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Extract

The National University of Buenos Aires, the largest and for many years the most prestigious in Latin America, is today more commonly taken as the archetype of the political Latin American university—and the connotations of “political” are wholly pejorative. This notoriety may be due in part, as Kalman Silvert suggests, to the high visibility of the University, especially to touring North American newsmen. Nevertheless, as its numerous critics allege, there seems to be abundant evidence to link politics to the manifest disarray of the educational process: in the well-publicized brawls among contending student factions and confrontations between demonstrators and the police, student strikes in opposition to procedural reforms desirable on grounds of efficiency, the reputed “terrorization” of heterodox professors, several student homicides in recent years, the distressingly high incidence of abandonos (for it is assumed, erroneously, that many withdrawals from the University are motivated by disgust with its politics); student political behavior as in the abusive reception tendered W. W. Rostow by a student group in Economic Sciences in February 1965, may have international repercussions. Such depressing phenomena have led even temperate and knowledgeable observers to speak of the “failure” of the University, and to call for a thoroughgoing structural overhaul, conducive, among other things, to depoliticization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 1966 , pp. 633 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1966

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Little Rock, Arkansas, November, 1964. The author wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to the Purdue Research Foundation and to the Social Science Research Council, without whose assistance the study could not have been carried out. He is also in the debt of Argentine friends and informants too numerous to mention.

References

1 Silvert, Kalman, “The University Student,” Continuity end Change in Latin America, ed. Johnson, J. J. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), p. 213.Google Scholar

2 E.g., Mariano Grondona in Comentarios (II, 60), 2 de julio 1965, 1.

3 Digesto de la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, 1962), 2:1-28.

4 Decreto-Ley 7361, 1 de julio 1957: artículo 2, inciso 1 (printed in ibid., 1:21-26).

5 Data on University population from “Datos de los censos realizados en octubre de 1958 y junio de 1964” (typescript furnished by Rectorado, UNBA, July, 1964). Data on cost of living from: Eduardo Tiscornia, “La inflación argentina”, Comentarios (I, 3), 19 de noviembre 1963, 8-9. Data on University budget from “Memorandum,” Julio H. G. Olivera, Rector, al Honorable Consejo Superior de la UNBA, Buenos Aires, 15 de abril 1964 (mimeographed), Cuadros 1, 8-11, 14.

6 For other examples of the makeshift expedients caused by the shortage of funds, see, e.g., “Universidad: un polígono de tiroteo ideológico”, Primera Plana, 30 de junio 1964, 20-21. Medical students have been reduced on occasion to soliciting voluntary contributions of 500 pesos apiece from professors for the purchase of necessary library reference works. Versiones taquigráficas de las sesiones celebradas por el H. Consejo Superior durante el año 1962, sesión ordinaria de 24 de noviembre 1962 (mimeographed).

7 Estadística educativa, año 1963 (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Educación y Justicia, Depto. de Estadística Educativa, 1964), p. 69.

8 This provision represente the sole success of the violent campaign against the Catholic universities in 1958. The original Article 28 of Law 14,557, 17 October 1958, would have permitted the private universities to “issue diplomas and professional titles so long as they shall conform to regulations that will be set forth in due time.” Digesto, 1:11.

9 Ex-Rector of the UNBA Risieri Frondizi based bis continuing opposition to the Catholic universities on the following arguments: they are not in accord with Argentina's tradition of lay education; Catholic education introduces “deformations” into its students; there is little utility to a pluralistic system in which each component assumes a fixed and dogmatic ideological position, and there is no machinery for the composition of differences. Interview, Buenos Aires, 28 July 1964.

10 Interview with Eduardo Roca, abogado, representative of the graduates on the Superior Council, Buenos Aires, 4 August 1964.

11 Ibid.

12 Interview with Directress of the Department of Student Welfare, UNBA, Buenos Aires, 2 August 1964.

13 Universidad de Buenos Aires, Censo de alumnos 1964 (Buenos Aires: UNBA, Centro de Estadísticas Universitarias, 1965), not paginated.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 “Diplomas expedidos durante el año 1963” (mimeographed). Rectorado, UNBA.

17 Miguens, José Enrique, Capacidades profesionales y su aprovechamiento en la Argentina. 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Fundación Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires, 1964-1965), II, 11.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 13.

19 Ibid., p. 46.

20 Ibid., p. 14.

21 Ibid:, pp. 12-13.

22 The lower figure printed in Primera Plana, loc. cit. Higher figure given by the Department of Student Welfare, UNBA.

23 de Imaz, José Luis, La clase alta de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Investigaciones y Trabajos del Instituto de Sociología, UNBA, 1962), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar Cf. also de Babini, A. M. Eichelbaum, Encuestas universitarias: algunas características de los estudiantes de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNBA, 1958), pp. 22–25.Google Scholar

24 Censo de alumos 1964.

25 Miguens, José Enrique, Capacidades profesionales, pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

26 Censo de alumnos 1964.

27 Ibid.

28 Ciria, Alberto y Sanguinetti, Horacio, Universidad y estudiantes: testimonio juvenil (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Depalma, 1962), p. 125.Google Scholar

29 Censo de alumnos 1964.

30 “Datos de los censo …” Enrollment rose from 2264 to 5383; the Faculty rose from 8th to 5th place within the University. By 1964 the rate of enrollment had slackened, reaching a total of 5570.

31 “Diplomas expedidos durante el año 1963.” In 1963 there were 179 graduates, of whom 149 were women.

32 David Nasatir, Estudio sobre la juventud argentina: el impacto de la experiencia universitaria sobre el pensamiento político (“Trabajos e Investigaciones del Instituto de Sociología,” Publicación Interna No. 70) (Buenos Aires: UNBA, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Servicio de Documentación de Sociología, 1965), pp. 13, 19. Cf. Miguens, , op. cit., p. 53.Google Scholar Forty per cent of abandonos from Philosophy and Letters give “personal reasons” for leaving.

33 Comentarios (I, 21), 17 de junio 1964, 2.

34 Graciarena, Jorge P., La universidad y el desarrollo de un estrato profesional urbano en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Sociología, UNBA, 1963), pp. 7–15.Google Scholar

35 Computed from “Diplomas expedidos durante el año 1963” and Censo de alumnos 1964. Of the “modern” faculties, Engineering had 1248 entrants and 412 graduates; Economic Sciences: 3063-401; Exact Sciences: 783-203. Of the “traditional” faculties, Law had 2389 entrants, 1049 graduates; Medicine: 1677-1684; Dentistry: 435-370. Total entrants were 11,890; total graduates, 4990.

36 La Nación, 11 December 1964.

37 Op. cit., pp. 19 ff.

38 2.4% of degrees in 1963, 2.8% of entrants 1964. Sources same as footnote 35.

39 Censo de alumnos 1964.

40 By Nasatir, , Estudio sobre la juventud argentina, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

41 Miguens, , Capacidades profesionales, pp. 46–50.Google Scholar See also José Enrique Miguens, “Radiografía de las juventudes latinoamericanas”, Cuadernos del Congreso por la Libertad de la Culture (Paris) LXII (July 1962), 48-49.

42 Cf. Ciria and Sanguinetti, Universidad y estudiantes, pp. 109-112.

43 Interview with Eduardo Genta and Dr. Ambrosio Gioja, Facultad de Derecho, UNBA, Buenos Aires, 2 August 1964; interview with Martín Farrell and three other consejeros estudiantiles of the MUC, Facultad de Derecho, UNBA, Buenos Aires, 6 August 1964.

44 This system of informal sanctions was first described to me by David Nasatir.

45 Interviews cited in footnote 43.

46 Interviews with Harry Wilhelm, Director of the Ford Foundation's Buenos Aires office, 8 July 1964.

47 Liga Estudiantes Humanistas, Humanismo y universidad (n.p.: n.p., 1953), not paginated.

48 Verbally, at least, the far left remains as intransigent as ever. In 1965 its program comprised the following points:

  1. (1)

    (1) To locate and define precisely the principal political enemy (imperialism, the landowning oligarchy, sectors of national capital allied to both), on the basis of which to trace a dividing line for the polarization of University forces;

  2. (2)

    (2) To sustain University autonomy, support tripartite government, and demand a greater budget in alliance with any group of similar aims;

  3. (3)

    (3) To denounce reaction: subordination to the factors of power, budgetary asphyxiation, false apoliticism;

  4. (4)

    (4) To insist that University democratization extend to courses of study; to denounce the political enemy in pedagogical method and content;

  5. (5)

    (5) To establish clearly the coincidences of position on concrete problems among sectors ideologically differentiated;

  6. (6)

    (6) To establish organic bases for debate among the sectors tactically allied; this does not imply any abdication of position or renunciation of the fullness of the ideological battle. Source: “Universitarios comunistas, graduados y estudiantes”, La universidad y la revolución antiimperialista (Buenos Aires: n.p., 1965), p. 24.

49 Interview with José Luis de Imaz, Buenos Aires, 6 August 1965.

50 Silvert, , “The University Student,” p. 214.Google Scholar

51 Survey conducted by David Nasatir. Results published in part in Primera Plana article cited above, footnote 6.

52 E.g., interview with Dr. Manuel Sadoski, Vice-Decano, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, UNBA, Buenos Aires, 1 July 1964.

53 Primera Plana, loe. cit.

54 Ateneo Universitario de Derecho, Las resultados de una encuesta (Buenos Aires: n.p., 1965), pp. 4, 6-7, 10.

55 Inglese, Juan O., “Comportamiento de estudiantes y dirigentes”, Universidad y estudiantes; universidad y peronismo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Libera, 1965), pp. 20, 33, 36-37, 43-47.Google Scholar

56 Ibid,, pp. 30, 32.

57 Ibid., pp. 31, 33, 35.

58 Ibid., p. 43.

59 Ibid., pp. 28-29.

60 Ibid., p. 35.

61 Loc. cit. Preliminary results of another study by Inglese reveal that of the members of the National Chamber of Deputies who hold university degrees, 70 per cent had been student councilors. Of the sample, only about 5 per cent of ex-councilors are working in the profession they studied in university. Information furnished by Horacio Daniel Rodríguez, Centro Argentino por la Libertad de la Cultura, Buenos Aires, 10 August 1965.

62 Estatuto Universitario, Artículo 98, incisos a-y.

63 Because of late arrivals and other confusions, one cannot be sure that the following figures are absolutely accurate; however, the proportions seem significant. Between March 1962 and July 1963, there were 93 professional absences, 45 among the graduates, and 12 among the students.

64 Versión taquigráfica … , dates cited.

65 Session of 29 December 1962.

66 E.g., session of 6 April 1963. Dean Romero remarked that the nation's problems were fundamental, symptomatic disturbances would continue to occur, “y la Universidad seguirá lamentando lo ocurrido”. On the same occasion Dean Casares referred to the discussion as “bizantino”.

67 Interview cited above, footnote 9.

68 Miguens, José Enrique, “Radiografía”, pp. 44–45.Google Scholar

69 For a theoretical discussion of the relationship between agencies of “interest articulation” (organized groups) and “interest aggregation” (party system and legislature), see Almond, Gabriel A., “A Functional Approach to Comparative Politics,” The Politics of the Developing Areas, ed. Almond, G. A. and Coleman, J. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 38–45.Google Scholar Almond's remarks on “boundary maintenance” are especially pertinent to the Argentine situation.

70 Ciria, Alberto, Partidos y poder en la Argentina moderna (1930-1946) (Buenos Aires: Jorge Alvarez Editor, 1964)Google Scholar; José Luis de Imaz, “Fundamentos sociales de los partidos; significado social de los programas; papel de los partidos en la sociedad actual”, Los partidos políticos: estructura y vigencia en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Cooperadora de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, 1963), pp. 53-69; López, Mario Justo, “La crisis de los partidos políticos”, ibid., pp. 70–86.Google Scholar

71 The translation of What is a Constitution? published in Buenos Aires in 1957 is prominent in the bookstalls.

72 Silvert, Kalman H., “The Costs of Anti-Nationalism: Argentina,” Expectant Peoples: Nationalism and Development, ed. Silvert, K. H. (New York: Handom House, 1963), p. 358.Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 359.

74 Not surprisingly, perhaps, a frankly corporativist movement has appeared. This is the Movimiento Nacional Comunitario of Col. Juan Francisco Guevara, based— perhaps also not surprisingly—in Córdoba. See Comentarios (II, 56), 18 de mayo 1965, 7-8; and the reply of the Secretary of the Movement, Gustavo Adolfo Sarria, in ibid., (II, 60), 2 de julio 1965, 6-7.

75 Ortega, José y Gasset, , Invertebrate Spain (New York: Norton, 1937), p. 44.Google ScholarPubMed

76 Concept adapted from Kornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 78–82.Google Scholar

77 E.g., Walter Beveraggi Allende dissenting from the motions condemning U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic. La Razón, 29 May 1965.

78 “Informe reservado de Eduardo Roca, representante de los egresados, a Mariano Grondona,” July 1964 (typescript). Printed in slightly diluted form in Comentarios (I, 27), 5 de agosto 1964, pp. 4-5.

79 Versión taquigráfica … sesión de 24 de noviembre 1962. Rector Frondizi reported to the Superior Council that the Sub-Secretary of Economy had told him, and had reported to the press, that a scale of wage increases for non-teaching personnel had been approved. In fact, the Secretary of the Treasury refused to disburse the funds, even after an appeal by the Minister of Education.

80 Miguens, José Enrique, “Radiografía”, pp. 48–49.Google Scholar