The Academic Profession in Brazil

Simon Schwartzman and Elizabeth Balbachevsky

Universidade de São Paulo

Published in Phillip G. Altabach, ed., The International Academic Profession: Portraits from 14 Countries. Princeton, NY: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1997.


5. Governance

Governance in Brazilian public universities is molded on the traditional European pattern, with extensive power given to the academic bodies, and the absence of professional administrators and managers except at the lower ranks. All top administrative positions (the Rector, and officers such as the vice-rectors for planning, research, graduate education, undergraduate education, extension work) are recruited among the university's professors. Their activities are controlled by a series of congregations, councils and other collective bodies formed by professors and representatives of students and, sometimes, administrative personnel.

"Co-Gobierno", the equal division of academic power among professors, students and alumni, begun in Latin America with the University Reform movement of Cordoba, Argentina, in 1918, and have existed since then in different forms in most countries in the region. Brazilian public higher education institutions, however, were traditionally controlled by the congregations of the individual schools, of faculties, formed by their full professors, or chair-holders, who used to draw the list of names from which the government nominated the directors, or deans, of each faculty. Rectors were designated in a similar way, and their power was very limited before the 1968 reform legislation, given the strength of the professional schools and faculties.

This condition of oligarchic control was shattered after 1968, when the old chair system was replaced by the departments and institutes, which cut across the traditional faculties. The rector's offices gained importance, while young professors and students gained active voice in the new departments. The 1968 reform was an attempt to make Brazilian universities more modern, competent and flexible than in the past, and it implemented several ideas that were first tried out in the universities of Minas Gerais and Brasilia in the early sixties. In 1968, Brazil was under a military government, he universities were kept under close surveillance, and the power of rectors, chosen by the government, was strengthened. In the late seventies, as the military regime started to wane, claims for collective participation of students and faculty in the designation of the academic authorities intensified, and, with the new civilian regime instated in 1985, most public universities created mechanisms through which students, faculty and employees could vote, on an equal basis, for the election of their academic authorities. This kind of academic democratization is strongly supported by the professors' unions and student associations, but is resented by important sectors of the professorate as a concession to populism and an abdication of academic values. With a few exceptions, private institutions are on the opposite end, with all decisions taken by those who control the institution, be they the Church, a private foundation or an individual(14). The Universidade de São Paulo chooses its authorities through a complex mechanism which preserves the power of senior professors to nominate the short list from which the state governor chooses the rector, who is, traditionally, the first name.

Brazilian academics see a reasonably clear pattern regarding which decisions are made by the institution's authorities, and which are done with the participation of professors. Central authorities decide about budget, new academic programs and admission standards; professors join in the decisions about matters that relate do them personally: teaching loads, the choice of new faculty and promotion rules.

Institutional comparisons reveal that professors from private institutions perceive their environment as significantly more centralized than those in the public sector, but the pattern in the University of São Paulo is closer to that of private institutions than to the public ones. The explanation is probably related to the fact that participation in institutional affairs in this university is still closely linked with academic rank. As expected, professors feel more influential at the department level than at the others, and professors with doctor degrees or more tend to fell more influential at higher levels.

Table 28: Centralization, decentralization and personal influence in academic governance
I - How decisions are made in your institution? (average scores: 1: control by top administrators; 5: control by faculty
  State (SP) State (others) Federal Private Total
selecting key administrators 2.3 3.8 3.5 2.3 3.0
choosing new faculty 3.3 4.1 3.7 2.9 3.4
making faculty promotion and tenure decisions 2.8 3.1 3.0 2.2 2.8
determining budget priorities 1.6 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.6
determining the overall teaching load of faculty 3.5 3.7 3.8 3.2 3.6
setting admission standards for undergraduates 2.2 2.5 2.1 1.9 2.1
approving new academic programs 1.9 2.1 2.0 1.8 1.9
index of centralization*: 2.6 3.0 2.8 2.2 2.6
II - Personal influence (1: very influential; 4: not at all influential)
at the level of department of similar unit 2.3 2.1 1.9 2.3 2.1
at the level of the faculty or school 2.9 2.5 2.6 2.8 2.7
at the institutional level 3.3 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.2
index of influence* 2.6 3.0 2.8 2.2 2.6
* These indexes were calculated by adding the answers to the respective items, and reducing them to a 1-5 scale.


Note

14. Legally, all private educational institutions in Brazil are supposed to be non-profit, and linked to a supporting entity. In practice, many of them are run as proprietary, profit-making establishments.