SÃO PAULO - Elected and appointed new rector of Campinas State University (Unicamp), professor Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, known as Tom Zé, wants to strengthen the university's ties with private companies. For him, the opening of the institution to external investment is still a point of controversy, but it is possible to reconcile university autonomy with this type of initiative.
“The university greatly values the idea of intellectual autonomy, the possibility of developing knowledge with freedom and autonomy. This is an important value, but it does not conflict with the approach to the business world or civil society”, said Tom Zé to Estadão this Friday, 16th, after appointment to the position of rector by the governor João Doria (PSDB).
Professor at the Faculty of Food Engineering at Unicamp, Tom Zé ran for the university's rectorship on a ticket with professor Maria Luiza Moretti, from the Faculty of Medicine. They won with 51,97% of the votes. The inauguration of the new management will take place on Monday.
At the helm of Unicamp for the next four years, Tom Zé will have the challenge of deliver on the promise of resuming employee career progression in an uncertain budget scenario. Most of the funding for universities in São Paulo depends on the collection of ICMS, which should fall with the crisis in pandemic. New hires, he says, may occur depending on the financial situation.
Like USP and Unesp, the Unicamp holds remote theoretical classes and, according to the rector, it is necessary to advance the vaccination to ensure a safe return to campus. The pandemic brings an “inevitable” debate, according to the rector, about new ways of teaching, incorporating technologies. And the recovery, says Tom Zé, must be accompanied by a focus on sustainability. Projects to adapt buildings to reduce environmental impacts are already underway - with the advantage of including postgraduate students in research on the topic.
You assume the management of one of the largest universities in Latin America in the midst of a serious health crisis. What is Unicamp’s role in combating Covid-19?
Unicamp is one of the universities in which the weight of the health area, in terms of size and budget, is one of the largest in the country. We have the Hospital das Clínicas, which is part of Unicamp, the women's hospital and two other large hospitals smaller. And we also manage two hospitals in the region, seven specialty medical outpatient clinics. It is a very large area that is intensely dedicated to the pandemic. This is management's number one priority at the beginning. We went through a terrible time during the pandemic, with a huge impact on Campinas and the region. Our role as Unicamp is to be part of this initiative. There are also groups that seek to monitor the evolution of contamination, the expansion of the pandemic in the region, and monitor and test vulnerable groups. Our intention is to strengthen this - not only depending on the gravity of the moment, but also thinking about the risks of similar pandemics. We are preparing for future challenges.
You mentioned this monitoring of Covid-19, the research. How does society today see the role of the university in relation to the health crisis? Is there greater appreciation for science and universities or more attacks and discredit?
In the pre-pandemic period, we went through a very negative moment in the view of parts of society, in a way contaminated by a denial of science, knowledge and technology, regarding the role of universities. The pandemic showed the importance of the university. We have high-quality professionals capable of facing crisis situations and these professionals are concentrated in public universities, research institutes and, in particular, in the State of São Paulo, which brings together the three most important universities in the country. Society today is more open and likely to recognize this role. Unicamp has responded very positively, but it is a challenge for the next management to maintain this opportunity that we are seizing, unfortunately the result of a difficult situation, and extend it to all areas of knowledge. The challenge is for the university to get closer to society in a truly vast sense: to strengthen relations with the business world to transfer technology, knowledge, innovation; encourage startups based on technological and innovative developments at the university; strengthen relations with the world of public policy, so that the university can provide policy formulations that meet social needs. Visibility is not only in the sense of publicity and propaganda, but of strengthening ties.
Does the university need to be more open to external investment and is it prepared for this discussion or is there still a lot of resistance to partnerships with companies?
The university highly values the idea of intellectual autonomy, the possibility of developing knowledge freely and autonomously. This is an important value, but it does not conflict with approaching the business world or civil society. Having this permeability, this exchange relationship, is important to value in our research agendas what has the most impact on society. And this impact can be in the business world as well as in the social world. The university is more open to doing this. This subject always has a level of controversy, but if the university preserves its autonomy, it can have this relationship and, at the same time, internally build mechanisms to encourage research that is not of much interest in the private world, using the very resources that she gets. There is a mixture of concern, but an openness to having this relationship: the university is finding the appropriate dose.
Unicamp has a long tradition of contributing to public policies and this has to do with democracy. Great intellectuals have passed through university, they are important names. And this tradition has to be recovered, Unicamp's own contribution to discussing a country project and to verbalizing the concern with democracy in Brazil. It's something our community traditionally does. We have to strengthen that at this time, in particular. Be it because this negligence, this disregard for the issue of democracy, of listening to society in the formulation of central policy, affects us directly - we are going through difficult situations in financing research and training postgraduate students and the federal government has an important role with agencies such as CNPq and Capes (science funding agencies). But also out of concern for the university in general, to think about the country.
There is very little openness to issues that affect the intelligentsia in general. The importance of science, technology, culture and knowledge for our country is very great. We cannot maintain a country project without valuing these issues and today this is not properly valued by the federal government.
Is there an intention to hire teachers in the coming years? How do you balance staffing demands with budget cuts or an uncertain budget?
Our main commitment throughout the dispute (to the rectory) was the resumption of career progression processes and maintenance of inclusion and retention programs. Budget problems have led the university, in the recent past, to reduce the pace of career progression. We have faculty and staff who had the potential to be further along in their careers and have not reached that level. And we had the inclusion policy. Our view is that this is the most important issue and that it will take up an extra chunk of the budget, but it is within what is possible without compromising budgetary health. And, depending on budget performance, resume hiring processes.
What are the plans for students to remain and to open the university to low-income students? Does the university still have an elitist character?
The ongoing inclusion policy, from an entry point of view, is quite advanced. It seeks to reach people from public schools, people who had little ethnic representation and incorporates indigenous people. It is already quite inclusive. The difficulty is that this is not being fully observed by society. Public school students see the university as too far away. We must take stronger action to go to public schools and encourage more effective participation. But, in relation to inclusion policies, we should not change them, they are of an adequate size, they are quite broad and can reproduce in the university a composition very close to the composition of society. The biggest challenge is staying, due to difficulties with income and even ambience, in the case of indigenous people. We have more than 450 students of indigenous origin, many who come from the Amazon (Unicamp has an indigenous entrance exam). The pandemic creates new problems, with remote teaching and access to the internet and equipment. Our concern must be mainly focused on ensuring that entry generates the possibility of remaining and completing the course. We must encourage more programs associated with permanence in relation to financial, academic and psychological difficulties.
Until now, state universities in São Paulo have been more restrictive than the state government in relation to the resumption of face-to-face activities on campuses. Even when the government already authorized the return of higher education, the three universities did not allow it, at least for undergraduate classes. What are the plans for resuming in-person activities at Unicamp?
We had some localized initiatives. At the end of last year, in the medical field, for small groups, undergraduate teaching activities were resumed. Classroom classes were maintained at a distance because the university did not have, and does not currently have, a classroom structure that would allow adequate distancing to be maintained for normal classes. One possibility would be to combine only part of the students in the classroom and the other in remote learning. But we had reasonable success in remote classroom activities. It will have an impact because it is not the same thing, but the assessment is that we are making good progress. The idea is just to get back to class activities in the classroom (theoretical classes) in person with safety that would require a higher level of vaccination.
I prefer to respond with caution. This semester, definitely not. We have to monitor the evolution of the disease and any resumption should combine a face-to-face and remote part. The ideal would be to have a much faster vaccination rate because this makes it possible to return for the second semester. And we have the problem of variants: the slower vaccination is, the potential for new strains grows and the safety of the impact of vaccination may decrease. We have to be cautious - Unicamp has already lost professionals, teachers. The important thing is to put people's safety first.
Does the pandemic and remote classes open the way for changes in method and teaching? Can you think of different courses that mix more at-home and remote activities?
The pandemic made the university adapt quickly, using instruments it was not used to. A small portion already had intimacy, but the vast majority of students and teachers did not. The pandemic reversed this signal. The future result will be a combination of these two things, with the potential to improve quality. In-person activities can be more focused on doubts, discussions and deeper insights. Or it could be the other way around: the student complements their training by reviewing the class they attended in person. This discussion will be inevitable. The vast majority of people associated with education admit some combination of in-person classes and the use of remote tools. We will have to get the dose right because there is still a lot of doubt about it and I imagine that, post-pandemic, people will have a certain desire to meet again.
This is a topic that draws a lot of attention from administrations and the community. What is new is the initiative to transform this into something that is the subject of research carried out within the university itself. A great example is a project in the area of smart energy networks, which is financing postgraduate training. It is not just a service provided by the university, but it affects the training of people. Electric buses run around the campus, granted by the company, to collect data and research. This group is monitoring and preparing to optimize energy use in several campus buildings. For a hospital that is being completed, part of the energy comes from this solar panel project. It is an indication of something that at the same time makes the university more sustainable, makes its buildings more sustainable, and is also carried out by students who are graduating and acquiring degrees, becoming masters, doctors.
