Nuns

Conservatives refer to a ‘moral crisis’ when they see how changes in our social order affect human behaviour. This crisis would include phenomena as diverse as abortion or the London riots.

I see different signs of a moral crisis. This is the crisis of generations no longer capable of formulating collective answers to the current appearance of social contradictions; unable to imagine an alternative to the situations they question. Turning to guidelines which do not address contemporary questions – but escapist questions – is a sign of moral desolation. Clueless protests, young women becoming nuns and massive Catholic manifestations are all symptoms of such desolation.

We should be careful when drawing conclusions though. Is the number of nuns really growing, or is it just that we have become more interested in the phenomenon? Is the Catholic movement growing, or has it become more aggressive? We need data, not propaganda.

(Update, April 2012: Here are your data. Researchers at the University of Chicago find that the belief in God is in decline).

BBC News: 'The growing number of young women becoming nuns', October 24, 2011.

Don’t give them fish – rent them fishing rods. The ethics of private education

Cardinal Rouco Varela and Archbishop Manuel Ureña preside the Opening of the Academic Year at a private university (2011)

Spain’s development of parallel public and private university systems is not similar to trends in higher education elsewhere. The ownership, motivation and goals of private universities determine their approach:

• A strict regulation imposes on all universities a strict design for their study plans, with elements considered obsolete elsewhere. Universities cannot differentiate themselves in content.
• Private universities do not distinguish themselves through their faculty, on the contrary: due to differences in salary and other conditions (job security), there is a constant leakage of experienced teaching staff to public universities.
• A year’s tuition in public universities will add up to € 1.000 as opposed to close to € 10.000 in private universities. Now, what is the incentive for a candidate student for choosing a private rather than a public university, if the product is similar? In many cases, the motivation will be the minimum entry grades.
• Despite the quality of their student intake, private universities aim for a maximum drop-out rate of 2%, for obvious reasons. The percentage of students abandoning their studies may be closer to 25 elsewhere.

Private universities in general offer similar programmes, with less qualified faculty, to wealthy students that have hardly been selected on academic criteria – and will be allowed to complete their studies without exams becoming effectively selective. The degrees awarded by these universities constitute a certification of upper class origin, rather than an academic qualification.

Spain’s private universities are normally non-profit organisations promoted by the Catholic Church. An auto-financing socialisation tool.

Future or Futures?

(Opening of the Academic Year 2011-12)



Today I have been asked to give an extremely short presentation about the European Tourism Futures Institute. I believe that time will be sufficient to concentrate only on one single letter in the name of the institute: that will be the S that turns future into a plural futures.
When this name was first launched, we were asked whether this was a mistake: can you speak of multiple futures, while everyone knows there is just one future? This is a deliberate choice of our institute, that is crucial for our research strategy.