Trabajo docente y políticas institucionales en la Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto, Argentina, 2011-2015

Abstract

This research deals with the Professors work in relation to institutional policies at Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto (UNRC), Argentina. The period concerned extends from May 2011 to 2015 in which the direction of the rectorship is in charge of a political group named Towards a new university. Therefore, the context involves the political decisions of these authorities whose project was based on the public character of the institution so as to produce changes in favor of an ethics advocating a popular, democratic, emancipatory and Latin-American university. In this sense, the Decolonial movement became an epistemological and political reference. From a qualitative methodological perspective, the survey was carried out between March, 2013 and March, 2015. Direct observations in the field, allowed to apply semi-structured interviews to some members of the above-mentioned group responsible for the conduction. Also a group of teachers, belonging to different disciplines from some departments and faculties were subjected to questionnaires and subsequent interviews. These techniques together with institutional documents helped in the construction of the empirical corpus. The study is exploratory because it attempted to get closer to such a complex context, focusing on the teachers work. It is descriptive for it intended to examine continuities and changes, identifying tensions and conflicts due to the policies carried out by the rector together with the secretaries. Moreover, the strategy of reconstructing the actions promoted by the institutional leadership through the historical method, happened to be relevant in order to understand a complex reality submitted to a process of change. Among the most significant findings, it can be pointed out the biased dispute between the groups supporting a hegemonic model of educational institution and those promoting an alternative construction of public university. Thus, the coexistence of contradictory logics and actions lead to tensions among the teachers conducting the rectorate and the professors of the different faculties and departments. As a background, the fragmentation of the teachers work brings about a loss of autonomy, the recovery of which surely involves more than the four-years of institutional governance. It is expected that this study contributes to enlarge the corpus of knowledge regarding the work of teachers and policy making at the public universities of Argentina.