The Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology of the UNED turns 25 years old

To reach these figures have had to spend 25 years, a quarter of a century of effort and enthusiasm of many people who have been involved. In 1987, the then Rector, Elisa Pérez Vera, appointed a Management Committee to implement the new Faculty: Antonio Torres del Moral, Fernando Quesada, Carmen Huici, Fustino Fernández-Miranda, Ramón Cotarelo, Jose Felix Tezanos and the missing Mercedes Semolinos and Javier Tussel.

Professors Ramón Cotarelo and José Félix Tezanos, responsible for providing lectures on the political history and sociological of these 25 years, were accused by surprise and were thrilled to be the first to receive the Medal. Almost as much as Miracles and Peace, workers of the Faculty from its beginnings and perhaps the most applauded of the day.

All the medals

Two times 25

José Félix Tezanos, a professor of Sociology, director of the Department of Social Trends and coordinator of the master in Social Problems, was in charge of developing the x-ray of the changes experienced in Spain in the last 25 years. He started by recalling his arrival at the UNED, and his arduous search for a library specializing in Distance Education. After seeking access to the coveted library and walk around and backtrack several corridors, he found all the literature compiled about compressed in a cabinet!.Today each Partner school has its own library, there is a Central and several faculties and subject areas. In addition to documents and e-books within the reach of anyone from your own personal computer.

“The economic growth was spectacular. A GDP of 9,000 dollars spent 30,000, to draw closer to Germany and France. 688 robots industry installed outperformed France and the Uk, with over 33,000. Of 2.328 km of dual carriageway, we passed 15,000, Of a railway network in the nineteenth century, came to be the European country with the largest network of High-Speed…”, he explained.

He noted, however, Tezanos, the moment of maximum splendour passed, and in 2008 “the naive optimism, perhaps derived from a certain feeling of new rich, degerneró in the pessimism most complete and fatal,” That which makes the more young people, kids of 16 years are studying in high school, when asked about where they are in five years, respond to the social researchers in Africa as aid workers, or in Australia or any sites far from this Spain, even Europe, diseased, that does not give them the work, that the excluded and the expelled”.

“Almost all of the events of this quarter of a century have had their good things and their bad things,” said Cotarelo. Discovering it is the task of sociologists and political scientists.

Ramon Cotarelo, a professor and director of the Department of CC Policy and Administration, recorrio the 25-year history of the School of the hand of the events that changed the world, both within and outside of our borders. Two events marked the national policy on the membership in NATO and in the EC. “Both have brought consequences mixed with good and bad things. NATO civilizó the Spanish army, so to speak, and removed him from the politics and adventures such as those of Tejero and Milans. In exchange we got involved in other military adventures in foreign little appropriate for this ramshackle country. The EC brought us the community funds that finance the development of the nineties, with the apotheosis of Aznar to get into the euro. The last result we are living it is better not to name it,” he said.

She recalled how the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was, for many “the end of the XX century. The ultimate benefit of the collapse of communism to the science policy has been the resurgence of marxist thought, now free of the heavy task of taking sides for or against the Soviet Union.”

While this was going on, at home we celebrated V Centenario “with half of the intellectual class Spanish speaking mission civilizatoria homeland, to the evangelization of the New World, and the other half speaking of genocide and extermination”.

ETA, the Gal, the Gulf War, the attacks of 11-M, the appearance of the 15-M movement or the current situation, “a seizure in the transient markets fincieros which has impacted on the real economy, generating a vicious circle of under-consumption that hinders the growth, as stated by the culteranos are always more verbose; or a scam, as they claim, the conceptistas”, he concluded.