The Confrontation with the Political University

The longest continuous expression of the revolu tion of aspirations that dominates political and social thought in Latin America today is the university reform movement. The reforms have been administrative, rather than pedagogical, with particular emphasis on the democratization of the univer sity leading to more substantial student control. Its dominant characteristic has been an attempt to define a national and, ultimately, continental culture, a process that has fostered a generally distrustful attitude toward this country. The reform movement has put forward the political university as an alterna tive and contrast to the professional university of the United States. The movement has been most influential in the large national universities. It is least prominent in universities founded or reorganized since World War II or in new faculties of older universities. The attitudes fostered by this movement must be understood by the scholarly community in the United States if it is to respond intelligently to the challenge of rapid social change in Latin America. The academic community of the United States responds typically by attention to a particu lar situation, working through the pattern of a professional discipline. The Communist response is horizontal rather than vertical, being devoted to stimulating attention to an all-per vading national problem rather than concern for its solution. The response of United States universities needs to be aug mented. It could be strengthened greatly by a continuity of concern that demands a considered long-term commitment to an institution and an area.