The permanent university. Legacy of authoritarian normalization for the post-dictatorship

Abstract

This article focuses on a process that has been relatively invisible in the recent history of the Argentine university, namely the so-called authoritarian normalization that took place between 1982 and 1983, that is, when the military regime began its decline and prepared its withdrawal from power. As part of a larger research, this paper describes the way in which the dictatorship university authorities, developed in a short time a program of professor designations (tenure of the chair). Although this policy was deployed in several national universities, it had its beginning and its epicentre at the University of Buenos Aires, which was already considered the clue to putting into order the whole Argentinean university system. This process took place in every area of this university, with the declared aim of consolidating the staffs of professors appointed during the first years of the dictatorship and ensuring their continuity in the face of the next change of regime. Based on the research of the official documents belonging to University's Superior Council, among the years 1982 and 1983, my research analyses every reference to the mentioned process, and exposes the ways in which the rectors, deans and superior councillors explained and organized the complex management of carrying out more than a thousand designations in less than two years. The research reveals the result of this program: the crystallization of a body of professors, and the strong limitation of the possibilities of renewal in the houses of higher education during the subsequent cycle of the return to democracy.