“Being the first woman to lead this Rectorate in its 520-year history is an immense honor that I assume with enormous respect, humility and great institutional responsibility.” It was with these words – pronounced with a broad smile of pride and emotion – that Carmen Vargas, new rector of the University of Seville (United States), began her inauguration speech.
The solemn event organized this Friday at the Hispalense Auditorium also served to showcase the “unity and strength” of the Andalusian public university system, aligned with the demand for “fair” funding and the defense of “university autonomy”. This was emphasized by the outgoing rector, Miguel Ángel Castro, before handing over the rector’s chair to the man who was his vice-rector for ten and a half years.
Although the historic nature of Vargas’ appointment contrasts with the political reading left by his election, interpreted as a victory for continuity, the new rector made her debut by clearly indicating that a stage is opening “in which we will continue to honor our heritage, but without fear of change.” To do this, he appealed to the more than 1,500 “transformative” measures included in his program, with which he hopes that the United States, over the next six years, “advances with firmness, clarity, foresight and responsibility towards a university of the future”.
Historic relief, with a call for “consensus and unity”
The Paraninfo auditorium, filled with academic and civil authorities, closely followed an event that not only marked a historic change, but also a moment of collective demand. Seated to the left of the new rector, the university advisor, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, was the first to speak. He did so in a complicit and closed tone, remembering his time as rector of the University of Cordoba.
“When you receive the attributes of rector, you will receive the weight of responsibility for managing a flagship of the Andalusian and Spanish university system like the University of Seville,” she told Vargas, before reminding that on this path “you are not alone.” He has his team, a university community that supported him in the recent elections by weighted universal suffrage, Sevillian society and the Ministry that he himself chairs, as indicated by the Andalusian rector of the University.
Concerning the new rector of Hispalense, he highlighted “his academic experience and his management”, in addition to “his way of being”, stressing that his “proximity and affability” constitute “a point of trust for all of us”. Continuing the speech that the professor of microbiology will deliver later, the advisor defended the need for “unity and consensus” in institutional relations, especially in a context marked for some time by the struggle between the rectors and the Council in matters of financing.
At this point, Villamandos pleaded that “we all seek shared solutions” to “reach agreements in which we all give in so that we all win.” Likewise, the advisor referred to the two university laws that are currently being examined in Parliament and which have reignited tensions between the Andalusian Government and public rectors. A sign that the new rector inherits not only a position, but also a delicate political council.
The defense of the public system as a farewell
After the councilor’s intervention, Miguel Ángel Castro intervened to say goodbye to the rector’s chair with a speech sprinkled with nostalgia, gratitude and justification. The outgoing rector thanked the support received during his years in office and ended his term at the head of the rectorate with a firm plea in favor of the public university system: “Without the university, the world would be much worse, the future would be much more uncertain than it already is,” he said, before sending a message to the advisor: “That is why the authorities should invest more in it, protect it and take care of it.”
Likewise, Castro highlighted the “important presence of Andalusian rectors” during the inauguration ceremony, as a sign of “our unity and our strength” in these “complex times”. And he encouraged them to continue defending “university autonomy”, a right recognized in the Constitution and “violated” in the draft University Law of Andalusia (LUPA) currently being drawn up, as the public rectors themselves have warned.
Addressing her successor, her partner in the rector’s team for more than a decade, she celebrated that “today, you are writing History”. “There are many reasons to tell you that I am proud: you have the talent, the education, the respect, the energy, the generosity… We are in the best possible hands that can lead us,” Castro said, before being embraced by long, warm farewell applause.
After recalling that Vargas had won in the second round of the November 10 elections, Castro presented him with the attributes of the position: the rector’s medal, “the ancient and venerated laureate’s cap in black, distinctive of our rank” and, finally, the baton of command, symbol of the authority conferred by the community that chose him. The two then embraced before she occupied the rector’s chair for the first time.
“The rector of all” defends “fair” financing
It is then that the professor of microbiology takes the floor to design the university she aspires to lead. Already invested as rector, Vargas presented the first rector’s chair by speaking of “respect, humility and institutional responsibility”. “I receive the testimony with respect and with the desire to continue building on what has already been achieved,” declared the former vice-rector for Institutional Projection and Internationalization, before thanking her predecessor – “my friend, my rector” – for the “solid foundations” she left behind.
She also addressed words of gratitude to “the entire university community”, both to those who supported her with their vote and to those who opted for other proposals: “I will be the rector of all because every effort counts and every opinion will be heard,” Vargas underlined, guaranteeing that “this is the spirit I want for our university: a collective project, open and attentive, in which people will always be at the center of all decisions”.
In her speech, she also demonstrated that she was the heir to the demands that her predecessor had made, demanding with the same firmness – and “institutional loyalty” – “fair” funding, consistent with the needs of our universities and the commitments made with the Andalusian rectors. A reference that takes on particular importance when speaking in the midst of negotiating the second distribution of funds, after the first was approved with the abstention – and discomfort – of the rectors of the public system for not having included all the concepts of the agreements previously signed with the Andalusian government.
On the other hand, Vargas once again defines herself as “daughter of merchants from Sanlúcar la Mayor”, proud to be the first university student in her family. He thus defends the role of the public university as a social elevator and engine of equal opportunities. The new rector closed her speech by toasting the need to continue “always building the University of Seville together”, returning to the motto of her campaign: “The University that unites us”. He thus promised to begin a stage of “unity, shared ambition, confidence in our abilities and in our future”, to move towards “a fairer, more open, more human and more sustainable university”. In short, “a better university”.
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