She had a “difficult birth” and did not get rid of growing pains, but the Academic Association of the University of Algarve reached, in 2017, the round age of 20 years. The anniversary of the entity that represents the Algarve's university students officially marked its two decades of existence this Tuesday, in a ceremony that brought together (almost) all those who have presided over the association, as well as many others who, over the years, gave the its contribution to academic leadership.
Among the former presidents of the General Management of AAUAlg present at the session, which took place in the Grand Auditorium of the Campus de Gambelas, in Faro, was the first of all, Augusto Costa, who was also one of the promoters of the birth of an entity that represented all UAlg students.
Before, there were several student associations, almost as many as the organic units of the Algarve Higher Education Institution, each with its own specificities.
Augusto Costa took advantage of yesterday's ceremony to remember that it was not easy to reach an understanding between the different student associations, even because of «nature sui generis UAlg, which has two subsystems, the polytechnic and the university», but when it was reached, everything went very quickly.
“It was a difficult birth. From the moment the merger between the Polytechnic Institute of Faro and the University of Algarve was completed in 1992, the students were forced to restructure the organizations that represented them», revealed Augusto Costa.
But it was not easy to come up with a solution that would please everyone. What if the fact that this had to be an entity «that represented the students of the two subsystems equally», a «unique reality» that forced the then presidents of the various student associations to have to write from scratch statutes «with more than XNUMX articles” – “there was no model on which we could base ourselves” -, the revision of the Basic Law of the Educational System, then under way, also made the process more difficult.
«During these years, mentalities changed and we managed to reach a consensus in October 1996. Then, everything was very fast: in one year, we were able to draw up the statutes», which were approved in a Magna Assembly that took place in a neutral place, the Pavilion of Farense.
It was this work of sapling that, since Augusto Costa, over 10 students from the Algarve university have occupied the chair of AAUAlg's president.
In addition to the original president, Pedro Meireles (2nd), Luís Farrajota, representing Carlos Santos, 3rd president of AAUAlg, deceased, Leonel Morgadinho (5th), Pedro Barros (was president in 2007 and 2008 and in 2012), Eduardo Almeida (7th), Filipa Brás da Silva (9th), Nuno Lopes (10th) and Rodrigo Teixeira, current president of Associação Académica.
André Dias, the 4th president of AAUAlg, and Guilherme Portada, the 8th student to occupy this position, were unable to attend.
Over the past 20 years, AAUAlg has faced different realities. «It was a path that was often troubled, with ups and downs, but we want to celebrate properly», illustrated Rodrigo Teixeira, in an interview with Sul Informação and to Rádio Universitária do Algarve.
Hence the idea of bringing together all those who occupied his position for 20 years. The idea was “to celebrate and remember some interesting moments with former directors and people who have marked academic life in recent years”.
The Academic Association of the University of Algarve went through different phases and became one of the Small and Medium Enterprises in the region with the largest number of employees, managing services within and outside the fields of the University of the Algarve.
But, as it turned out, many of these bets turned out not to be correct, which, combined with management options, led the association to reach a pre-bankruptcy situation, at the end of 2011, with a liability of close to 900 thousand euros.
From then on, AAUAlg entered a new cycle, initiated by a general management that included members of former general managements, chaired by Pedro Barros.
“Over the last six years – which is more than a quarter of the association's existence – a very good job has been done by successive presidents and their teams. We are almost recovering from the debt we had», revealed the current president in the interview.
According to Rodrigo Teixeira, "15 to 20 percent" of what AAUAlg owed in 2011 will be paid for. hole. We are already seeing the light of financial recovery at the end of the tunnel,” he assured.
Rodrigo Teixeira believes that future generations of UAlg students will have other tools to manage the association that represents them, but he also stressed that mechanisms were created to prevent the hole from opening up again.
“From 2011 onwards, several measures were taken, such as the reconfiguration of services and the taking out of a loan from the bank. (…) In 2012 and 2013, Filipa Braz da Silva closed several services, such as copy centers and bars, namely the Academic Bar [BA, in Baixa de Faro]. We closed everything that was deficient», he recalled.
"There are mechanisms that will prevent so many errors in the future, including the amendment to the statutes carried out in 2014, which put much more rigor on the directors and created more control bodies for the action of the general management", he added.
Basically, at the age of 20, AAUAlg begins to have prospects for better times.
Comments