Liminar Manifesto

The Liminar Manifesto (Castilian: Manifiesto Liminar) was the central consensus of the Argentine University Revolution of 1918^[1]. The most important features of the Manifesto can be summarized as follows:

a) Institutionalization of student participation in university councils, joining professors and alumni in a three-party system known as co-governance.

b) A linkage between student politics and national politics in order to mobilize the university toward the solution of economic, social and political problems.

c) An emphasis on university extension, particularly courses for workers that would lead to the development of fraternal bonds with the proletariat.

d) Tuition-free education and open admission to all academically qualified applicants, in order to replace the elitist and archaic 19th century university with a democratic, modern and mass university.

e) A defense of institutional autonomy with respect to the state.

f) Institutionalization of mechanisms to protect academic freedom, including the implementation of "free teaching" (docencia libre) to ensure academic pluralism and to break the monopoly of teaching enjoyed by senior professors (catedráticos).

g) Promotion of new ideas, innovative methods of teaching, changes in exam systems, optional classroom attendance, original research, and a rejection of dogmatism, all leading to the replacement of theology by positivist disciplines.

h) Selection of faculty through open, competitive examinations in order to counteract nepotism and patronage, and promotion of professors on the basis of merit and achievement rather than seniority.

i) The enlargement and diversification of professional training through the establishment of new professional schools.

j) An understanding of university life as a truly communitarian experience, therefore encouraging the development of a population of full-time professors and full time students.

See also

• University Revolution
• National university
• Argentine University Federation

References

1. ^ Carmen Bernand, « D’une rive à l’autre », Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, Materiales de seminarios, 2008 (Latin-Americanist Review published by the EHESS), Put on line on 15 June 2008. URL : http://nuevomundo.revues.org//index35983.html Accessed on 28 July 2008. (French)

External links

• “La juventud argentina de Córdoba a los hombres libres de Sud América”, June the 21st, 1918 - Wikisource (Spanish)
• History of Education: Cordoba's University Reform of 1918 (English)
• Córdoba Manifestum (Spanish)
• La Reforma Universitaria de 1918 (Spanish)
• History and consequences of the University Reform (Spanish)