Higher education and knowledge in Latin America past, present and future: a CGHE webinar series
- Carolina Guzmán Valenzuela, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile
- Martin Benavides, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), Peru
- Monica Bonifaz, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru
- Imanol Ordorika, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico
- Simon Marginson, University of Oxford, UK
- Kyria Finardi, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Brazil
- Alma Maldonado, Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas (DIE)-CINVESTAV, Mexico
- Catherine Walsh, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador
- Regina Cortina, Columbia University, US
The University of Cordoba in Argentina where the Cordoba Declaration (university autonomy) was signed in 1918.
The Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino (or University of Saint Thomas Aquinas) in present-day Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic was the first university in the New World. Founded as a seminary for Roman Catholic monks of the Dominican Order in 1518, it was made a university by a papal bill on October 28, 1538.
Telesup university in Lima, Peru, erected a glass facade to simulate a 7-story building. The university failed to gain accreditation because it fell short of basic academic requirements (photograph from Andina, The Guardian 8 June 2019).
Latin American countries and their universities share a common historical legacy although each national systems in the region exhibits its own particularities and richness. The first universities in Latin America were established half a century after Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492. Since then, thousands of universities have opened, evolved or disappeared in response to national developments and needs, and global trends.
A key feature that characterises Latin American universities is their autonomy. During colonial times, universities progressively gained autonomy from the Catholic church. After independence the universities were intent on supporting nation building and focused on professional training but during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the Cordoba movement in Argentina had a significant role in reasserting university autonomy across the region. It promoted both university self-governance and wider participation. Students pursued the modernisation of universities within larger agendas of democracy, academic freedom and social responsibility.
Between the 1970s and the 1990s Latin American Universities and academics were repressed and punished by military dictatorships. They also experienced massification and recurring financial crises, trends that continued after the 1990s, and a growing emphasis on evaluation and accreditation.
Latin American universities, like many universities around the world, are now shaped by internationalisation, privatisation and marketisation trends. They still need to defend and advance their autonomy. They also need to improve their research and knowledge production while helping to advance social changes and a more equal society. Many Latin American universities have been working on agendas of widening participation and inclusivity. They have also been wrestling with their colonial past, which has continuing implications for the review and transformation of their local, national and global roles. The role of intercultural universities in decolonising the curriculum has been an important development.
In this CGHE webinar series the speakers and participant audiences will examine key challenges for Latin American higher education. While reviewing the past and investigating the present, the webinars highlight crucial aspects of higher education in the region that provide insights into the future. The first webinar on 30 June discusses political and economic aspects of higher education reforms in Latin America. The second webinar on 5 July considers the impact of university rankings and the concept of ‘world class universities’ on the institutions and in academic careers, and the implications for regional university autonomy and development. The third webinar on 7 July dissects internationalisation and student mobility in and beyond the region. The final webinar in the series on 12 July tackles the big underlying issue of the past, present and future, the decolonisation of universities and knowledge in Latin America and the role of intercultural education as a strategy of decolonisation.
The series is organised by Martin Benavides Abanto from Peru, Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela of Chile and CGHE’s Simon Marginson, with the help of CGHE Director of Communications Trevor Treharne and colleagues throughout the region.
You need to register individually for each webinar below.
Webinar 1: Political economy of higher education reforms in Latin America
Thursday 30 June, 14:00-15:00 (UK)
Chair: Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela
Speakers: Martin Benavides Abanto (Peru), Marcela Mollis (Argentina)
Register here
Webinar 2: The World Class University, regional responses and academic careers in Latin America
Tuesday 5 July, 14:00-15:00 (UK)
Chair: Martin Benavides Abanto
Speakers: Monica Bonifaz (Peru), Imanol Ordorika (Mexico)
Register here
Webinar 3: Internationalisation and student mobility in Latin American higher education
Thursday 7 July, 14:00-15:00 (UK)
Chair: Simon Marginson
Speakers: Kyria Finardi (Brazil), Carolina Guzmán (Chile)
Register here
Webinar 4: Epistemic injustice, decolonisation and the potentials of intercultural education
Tuesday 12 July, 14:00-15:00 (UK)
Chair: Alma Maldonado-Maldonado (Mexico)
Speaker: Catherine Walsh (Ecuador)
Discussant: Regina Cortina (Columbia University, US)
Register here
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Carolina Guzmán Valenzuela works at the Faculty of Education, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile. Her research focuses on neoliberalism and its impact on universities, the public/private distinction in higher education, and the North-South divide and its influence on knowledge production.
Martin Benavides is Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in the Department of Social Sciences. He is also the Director of Umbral, the Observatory of Higuer Education of the Consortium of Universities. He is also Principal Investigator at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE, on leave), and Associate Researcher at the Population and Development Center (CEPED), at the University of Paris. In 2006-2007, Martín was Research Director at GRADE, then he was its Executive Director from 2008 to 2014. In March, 2018, he became Superintendent at Peru´s Higher Education National Superintendent Organ, (Superintendencia Nacional de Educación Universitaria, SUNEDU) and exercised his duties until February, 2020, when he became Minister of Education of Peru. He left the head of the Ministry in November, 2020. He was also Director of the Journal Debates in Sociología and Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Martín holds a PhD in Sociology from Penn State University.
Mónica Bonifaz is a Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) in the Academic Department of Management Sciences. She is a member of the Research Group in Higher Education (GRIES) of the PUCP. Mónica has been Dean of the Undergraduate School of Management and Head of the Academic Department of Management Sciences. She also has been member of board of directors and has held managerial positions in the public sector, as well as in multinational companies.
She holds a Doctorate in Strategic Management from the Consortium of Universities of Perú, with a minor in innovation in higher education, and a Master of Science in Informationa Management from the University of Sheffield in England. She works on topics related to university management, government of the academic career and development of research capabilities, particularly in private universities.
She has been a fellow of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdients – DAAD of Germany, the British Council and Erasmus, as well as the Columbus Association to participate in projects on teaching, internationalization and promotion of research in university higher education.
Imanol Ordorika (Ph. D. Stanford, 1999) Professor of social sciences and education, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His research has focused on power, politics and change in higher education, social movements in education, globalization and higher education, among other topics. His has published nine authored and five edited books, more than 40 chapters and more than 30 peer reviewed articles. Has received international recognition as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg from 2018 to 2022; Frank Talbott Jr. University Chair 2004-2005, University of Virginia, United States; and Chair d’Etudes Mexicaines « Alfonso Reyes » at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amerique Latine, 2006, Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford, Director of the ESRC/RE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education, Senior Research Fellow with Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and a Professorial Associate with the University of Melbourne. Simon’s research is focused primarily on global and international higher education, the global science system, higher education in East Asia, the contributions of higher education and higher education as a public good, and higher education and social inequality. At Oxford he team teaches in the MSc Education pathway on Higher Education. Current books are Changing Higher Education in India (edited with Saumen Chattopadhyay and NV Varghese), and Changing Higher Education in East Asia (edited with Xin Xu), both published by Bloomsbury.
Alma Maldonado earned her Ph.D. at the Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education in the U.S. From 2004 to 2009 Maldonado was an Assistant Professor at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona. Since 2010 she is a researcher at the Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas (DIE)-CINVESTAV in Mexico City. Her research focuses on comparative policies in higher education (in particular in Latin America), globalization, academic mobility and international organizations.
Catherine Walsh is a militant intellectual involved for more than four decades in the processes and struggles of social justice and decolonial transformation, first in the US, and in the last 27 years in Latin America. She is Distinguished Professor and Founding Director of the Latin American Cultural Studies Doctoral Program at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Ecuador, coordinator of the Afro-Andean Documentary and Oral History Archive, and author of several hundred publications, including, On Decoloniality. Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (with Walter Mignolo, 2018) and Rising Up, Living On. Re-existences, Sowings, and Decolonial Cracks (Duke Press, forthcoming 2022). In 2019 Catherine received the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s prestigious “Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Regina Cortina is Professor of Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her Presidential Address, “The Passion for What is Possible in Comparative and International Education,” was published in the Comparative Education Review in November 2019. Professor Cortina’s teaching and publications are advancing the field by focusing on Decolonial Theories in Comparative Education. Most recently, two of her articles were published in 2019 and 2020 in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Professor Cortina’s book, Indigenous Education Policy, Equity, and Intercultural Understanding in Latin America, appeared in 2017. Regina Cortina is past president of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).
