The concepts of “new university” and “multiversity” of José Mariano da Rocha Filho: conservative modernization

Abstract

This paper analyzes the main ideas of the thought of José Mariano da Rocha Filho, the pioneer of the interiorization of Higher Education in Brazil in the UFSM. Scrutinizes his fascination by the North American model of University and his project to transplant it to the center of Rio Grande do Sul, finding support from the Military Government in its developmental and dependent proposal. Shows that the “New University” and the “Multiversity” designed by the Dean represented on one hand, a modernizing advance in the structuring, management and expansion of Higher Education and, at the same time, an ideologically conservative and even reactionary process, because it is settled in antidemocratic, centralizing ideas and isolationist bias. What explains its short duration. The research was instrumentalized in critical analysis of literature production Mariano da Rocha and other commentators and biographers.