A Place to Learn

"For administrators: authority. For professors: teaching. For students: learning." Brave sentiments for an educator in Latin America, where many state-run universities are little more than incubators for budding young revolutionaries. But the speaker was Rector Jorge R. Camargo of Argentina's Catholic University of Cordoba, and his words describe a notable trend in Latin America: the rise of Roman Catholic universities devoted exclusively to edu cation, where the signs on the bulletin board are mimeographed class schedules, not student calls to arms.

Ten years ago, Latin America had only 13 Catholic universities, with some 10,000 students. Today there are 31, and their total enrollment is close to 50,000. Brazil counts ten (v. four ten years ago); Argentina has six, all founded since the fall of Dictator Juan Peron in 1955; Mexico has four; Chile has two. Cordoba's Catholic University itself was founded in 1958, yet its library has already grown to 55,000 volumes, its enrollment to 1,200 and its faculty to 550.

Protestants & Jews. Oddly enough, though centers of higher education in the early colonial days were largely church-run, the new Catholic universities are not in most cases descended from them. After the 19th century wars of independence, governments gradually took over the classrooms, and in most countries, the church moved quietly out of higher education. Only in the 1940s and 1950s did the church again start organizing colleges and universities in numbers. By then, national universities were often at the mercy of their most militant students and faculty members, who together helped elect rectors and choose professors, sat in on administrative matters, and generally played revolutionary politics all year long. In 1943, Ibero-American University, a private school closely linked to the Roman Catholic Church, was founded in Mexico. Others followed: Brazil's Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and Ecuador's Catholic University in Quito, both in 1946; and Venezuela's Andres Bello, in 1953.

The new Catholic universities do not emphasize creed at the expense of scholarship. Some require several hours of religious study a week; others do not. Almost all accept Protestant and Jewish students, hire non-Catholic teachers. Leftist students? A black-robed Jesuit administrator at Guatemala's Rafael Landivar University shrugs his shoulders. "For all I know, they may be our best students. They keep their politics to themselves."

In any event, there is little time for politics. Entrance exams are stiff and scholarship pressures great. "If a student refuses to submit to our discipline," says Antonio Pinilla, rector of the Catholic-influenced University of Lima, "we expel him." At Catholic U. in Buenos Aires, students must attend at least 75% of the lectures--or get out. A student at Andres Bello in Caracas must pass every subject. If he flunks one, he is allowed two makeup exams; failing these, he is through.

Small & Intensive. Unlike state-run universities, where 100 or more students may crowd into a classroom, the church schools believe in a close student-professor relationship. At Mexico City's Ibero-American University, there is one teacher for every five students; among Brazil's Catholic universities, the ratio is one to six. Says one Catholic-university professor who turned down a high-paying offer from a state school: "I would rather teach 60 students intensively, knowing each individually, than deal with 1,000 students, among whom, at the end of the year, I might get to know only 15 to 20."

The results are evident. At Argentina's La Plata State University, only 20% of the students who enter survive to pick up their diplomas. At Catholic U. in nearby Buenos Aires, 85% finish.

Paying the Bill. Latin Americas Catholic universities will probably never rival the national universities in size. Since the church schools seldom get support from the state, they must charge tuition that sometimes runs to ten times that of public universities. Their enrollment runs heavily to middle-and upper-class students.

Finances are always a problem. Modern equipment is hard to come by; qualified instructors are scarce. The schools count heavily on aid from the church, from wealthy parents, and from private businessmen. In Venezuela, the Creole Foundation, formed by Creole Petroleum Corp., recently contributed $50,000 to Caracas' Catholic University. This month the vice rector of Cordoba's Catholic University is on a fund-raising drive in the U.S. and Europe. Among other things, he is discussing a $2,000,000 loan from a private company in California so Cordoba can start work on a new campus.

If money is sometimes short, faith and courage seldom are. In 1961, San Francisco-born Mother Genevieve McGloin of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order got a $100,000 donation from Bos ton's Richard Cardinal Cushing, and started a woman's college in Uruguay a country so bleakly antichurch that the feast of the Epiphany is celebrated as children's day, Christmas as family day and Easter as family week. Today, Mother McGloin's 18-man faculty includes three with doctorates and eight instructors with the equivalent of master's degrees.

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