The student majority along with dean Basualdo farjat. they got a compromise and voted on it / d. Ripoll
With the perfect attendance of the 16 board members, as ordered by the statute of the UNLP, finally, after two frustrated attempts due to failures of two cloisters, yesterday the election of dean in the Faculty of Medicine could be held. It was with “re” for Juan Basualdo Farjat, who will continue to head that academic unit until 2026 after winning a contest with Professor Marcelo Uriarte, whose candidacy was presented by the graduate faculty.
The election closes a convulsive chapter, which included, in March, a blank vote record with no record in sight in a vote by the faculty at the UNLP. Only the list that promoted the continuity of Basualdo Farjat was presented, but 33 of the 126 professors did not vote for it.
The payroll remained with the 7 representatives of the faculty on the board of directors, but for the re-election to which the dean aspired, he was missing the floor of 11 votes (two thirds) required by the Statute. After losing the election of graduates to a list of radical extraction and opposition to his management, he needed the student caucus, close to him in his first term. However, the advisers from “Remediar” (Peronists) and the one from “Vientos de Abajo” (Patria Grande, Unite) did not go on Monday. Neither did the graduates, who were absent again on Wednesday, in the second call.
The students rejected Monday’s call, stating, first, that they needed time to discuss the position and then a commitment from the dean to meet demands that they made after two student assemblies held between the end of last week and this Tuesday. “On Wednesday, when the second call was made, we met at 8 (one hour before the start of the session) with the Dean and the Vice Dean. We considered the urgent demands satisfied, which are the return to internships (classes in hospitals in contact with patients), attendance (taken in the classroom), the examination table in April as one more possibility to pass the year and the use of the integrated hospital (it works in the Faculty) in person. So, we sat down at 9 am and at 2 pm we met again to continue looking at second-order points. Today (yesterday), we met again and the dean signed the commitment,” said María Agustina Perrotta, vice president of the student center (Remediar).
The three graduates sat on the council yesterday after two absences. Before the only item on the agenda they raised their proposal: Marcelo Uriarte. The renowned cardiologist, also a member of radicalism, only got the three votes from that bench. The dean got the 7 from the professors, the non-teacher and the 5 from the students.
Basualdo came to the deanship in 2018 after the group of professors “Hoja de Roble” lost the faculty elections. It was the end of a cycle that had the entrance exam among its marks. Since then, the faculty multiplied its enrollment to reach 33 thousand students. After complaints in recent weeks about the continuity of virtual classes, on Wednesday there was a shock regarding admission: the coordinator of the introductory course resigned, now a non-eliminatory instance. Critic of the previous course, he slammed the door with questions about lack of payment to teachers and organizational problems. In those hours, tutors in charge of this year’s classes, demanded their salary in a demonstration before the rector’s office.