Universidad de Sevilla

18 May 2009

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. — Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)

The University of Seville is a large public university, with more than 70,000 students. There are campuses scattered around the city of Sevilla, with the center located just south of the Alcázar, in a large (!) building that formerly housed a tobacco factory. (A side note: Bizet's opera Carmen is set in Sevilla in 1830 just outside the tobacco factory.)

Universities have a dual mission: to preserve and transmit knowledge (teaching) and to create new knowledge (research). These missions can exist in tension, since they are inherently operating over the full continuum of time: preserving the past, transmitting to the present, and creating for the future. My sense is that European universities tend to be tied more to their past and the great US universities have a stronger orientation toward the future. As much as I admire the connectedness that I see in Sevillanos to their rich history, I think that I prefer the more free-spirited working environment in US universities, particularly those on the left coast.

In visiting the central campus of the Universidad de Sevilla today, here are a few things that caught my attention. (1) Strong, rectilinear design elements for the campus, the building within campus, and the space within the building. (2) Many classical statues, to remind us just how great the Greeks and Romans really were. (3) The Law School is housed in this central campus and on the outer door, we are reminded that the Ten Commandments are law's foundation.

All of this is fine in commemorating and preserving past virtues. However, I didn't see much that I would characterize as the barefoot irreverence that is so important for creating new knowledge.