Three Problems and Three Solutions for theSpanish University in the 21st Century

Abstract

The current university is in crisis. From a medical perspective the term ‘crisis’ refers to: “a sudden change in the course of a disease, either to improve or to worsen the patient’s health”. Another meaning of the term is “a significant mutation in the development of any other physical, historical or spiritual process”. On this basis, we can then assure that the university specializes in the condition of these crises; its history confirms it, as well as its potential to overcome these crises. Now it is the moment to regain the ability to think, in this case, to rethink the university and to diagnose its position and conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to identify properly the events that are happening and that are surrounding the ’universitas’. Particularly in the current context, the university has to present itself again as a ‘universitas’, being one unified institution that as a body is facing the crisis. The body as a whole is ill and the body as a whole has to be cured. In this way, the university maybe can recuperate its origin and meaning, since all the members of the university form a community, an association, sharing one common objective, which is referred to in the terms university, universe and universal. It is necessary to recuperate, acknowledge and update the meaning and values of the university in order to conjugate these verbs, within the framework of the definition given to the first universities in history, dating back to the middle ages, i.e. associations of teachers and students, “Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium”, of course placing this idea in a topical perspective. Through the identification of three problems and the suggestion of three possible solutions or alternatives, we want to meditate upon today’s university, the development of which during the years to come is regarded with suspicion. Giving a new interpretation to the term ‘university’ is a challenge and a necessity at this moment in history, in order to give it cautiously a place in the new knowledge society.