The University-Society relationship. A framework for its debate 100 years after the University Reform

Abstract

The article aims at presenting and grounding the questions necessary to think in depth about the relationship between university and society, today at the National University of Cordoba. I elaborate a historical tour of the extension function of this university, identifying the actors with whom it has been related, types ofinitiatives and approaches – or theoretical-ideological positions – from the years of the Reform to the present, relating these features with the historical contexts and social projects in tension at every moment. From that reconstruction, and the theoretical contributions of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Pedro Krotcsh on the legitimacy of public university, and on the core principles of autonomy and co-governance, I suggest questions – in a reformist key- to analyze the contradictions underlying the concrete initiatives discussed today at the UNC. All with the aim of contributing to the necessary epistemological ruptures of academic knowledge, which in the face of the meritocratic higher education models that are once again pushing to establish themselves in Latin America, Argentina, and Cordoba, can imply a huge setback with respect to some progress achieved until 2015.