Santiago Gangotena, founder and former rector of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, passed away yesterday. Multifaceted and controversial, he leaves a legacy that spans all areas of Ecuadorian society.
In 1988, in the midst of one of the most arduous times in the country’s history, Santiago Gangotena decided to gamble for what he believed in most: education.
Together with a small group of Ecuadorian academics—brilliant and wayward, like him—they started the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). The project started without legal permits, with very few resources and under a sea of bleak criticism and warnings, but Gangotena was used to it. Throughout his life I had learned that seeking perfection in things was the equivalent of never doing them and that, in Ecuador, dreamers were condemned to informality. However, he also believed that what was truly decisive, the only thing, was human capital and that as long as he counted on it, the rest would come in addition. From the beginning, and with contagious enthusiasm, he sought to attract the most talented faculty and students in the country.
eccentric and patriotic
The founding of the USFQ constituted for Gangotena the culmination of a search that had taken him through different countries and disciplines. Educated at the American College of Quito, within a family of intellectuals and in isolationist pre-oil Ecuador, he left to study in the United States at the beginning of the sixties.
Intellectually curious but still without a clear vocation, he opted for what at that time was a prestigious and booming discipline: physics. Said career would take him to different places in the United States and he would even achieve a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, but he would never stop cultivating other fields that he was passionate about. True to the spirit of the place and the time, he devoted himself to the study of Eastern philosophy—yoga, Buddhism, Taoism—and I would always prefer, before any ideological ethics or academic title, the adjective of yogi, in its most original meaning: that of those who seek to reconcile their mind, body and spirit.
His study of history, philosophy, and economics, in the context of the culture wars of the time, led him to an early embrace of the libertarian principles —The unrestricted respect for the life, integrity, property and liberty of the individual, maintained by a State limited to its minimum expression. He enjoyed coming up with and marketing new ideas and products, what would later come to be called ‘entrepreneurship’: whether it was selling tacos and t-shirts in his student days, setting up advertising agencies and magazines, writing books or opening restaurants, he found in the challenges of business life and human relations an inexhaustible fuel for your enthusiasm.
He was 43 years old when he decided to create the university. He had returned to Ecuador after several decades abroad, with the firm desire to contribute to the country, but the social and political situation at that time was marked by uncertainty. He briefly passed through the select civil service, at the Atomic Commission, but found the bureaucracy infuriating. However, as a professor at the Escuela Politécnica Nacional He experienced both the immense difficulties and obstacles that higher education faced in the country, as well as the potential and talent of his young compatriots. He got to work on the USFQ project and convincing others to join him. When they finally started in 1988, it was illegal to set up a private university in Ecuador, but that didn’t stop students or professors.
freedom above all
From USFQ, Gangotena introduced to Ecuador the Liberal Arts curriculum that prevailed in Anglo-Saxon education, which exposed students to different disciplines, arts and perspectives. He judged that premature and excessive specialization was one of the worst obstacles facing Ecuadorian education, especially when the precarious development of the country required versatile and creative professionals. He also thought that the country needed to break its traditional isolation. Therefore, he built alliances with foreign universities and sought to attract students and professors from other countries. He was also one of the pioneers in building bridges—commercial and educational—with Asia, long before China and India re-emerged as powers. Believer in meritocracy, instituted an ambitious scholarship scheme for members of ethnic minorities in the country and financed fourth and fifth level studies for teachers and employees. Even when, Years later, USFQ was recognized by the State; even then, the public money that was legally due to him declined; for preserving consistency with the principles that gave it life.
USFQ opened the door for the private university in the country and for others that would seek to emulate the Liberal Arts model. Its impact was immense. Beyond ideologies or tendencies, or how distant they are from those that Gangotena professed, hundreds of graduates and former professors of the university make up the country’s political, business, cultural and scientific elites.
For his personal history, his intellectual formation and his convictions, Santiago Gangotena He was the owner of a behavior that was often controversial. He used language and exposed his ideas without juggling or subtleties, forgetting that his interlocutors did not always have the same physical logic or yogi emotional control. However, just as he claimed absolute freedom of expression for himself, he also demanded, to the letter, that it be respected for everyone around him.
Rematch
After spending his entire youth and adult life defying the establishment, he suffered a merciless backlash at the end of his life. A new regime arrived that professed ideas diametrically opposed to theirs —although, paradoxically, its leader had studied his doctorate thanks to the efforts and financing of the USFQ, and many of its main cadres studied, taught or met there— and that I had him in my sights. Gangotena could have benefited from a suitable approach to the government, just as many other companies and economic groups did; however, consistently He upheld his convictions and never intensified his criticism of a regime and an ideology that he considered condemned the country to misery, violence, and slavery.
The Organic Law of Higher Education, in force since 2010, meant, in many ways, the end of Gangotena’s original project: it included several ‘dedicated’ provisions. In addition to the reforms imposed on the curriculum and the organization of the university, Gangotena was forced, after a while, to leave his role as university chancellor.
In an interview more than two decades ago, he stated that he wanted his tombstone to read “here lies a good people ‘yogi’; already dead, what for? He never defended himself vehemently enough from all the attacks he suffered in life. because he trusted that his works would speak louder than his words and that everything he said —even if it was misinterpreted— always stemmed from a kind intention, what for him was “to be good people”. As with pioneers, the ideas he professed were always eccentric at first, but they gained momentum over time. Now, the country will be able to reflect more serenely on his legacy.
By Daniel Marquez Soares