A book that contains “ideas, ideals and incentives for action”. That's how Nelson Dias summarized the work “Transitoriamente rector. Public interventions 2013-2017”, by António Branco, former rector of the University of Algarve, released yesterday in Faro.
With the beautiful main hall of the former Civil Government crammed with people, sociologist Nelson Dias added that this "is not a monotonous book, not even for specialists", bringing together a set of "marking interventions".
“The title he chose – “Transitionally rector” – belongs to someone who understands well what it means to occupy a public office,” he concluded.
The author, who was dean for four “intense years”, said that “power has two very strong effects – the attraction effect, because it attracts people around it, whose first function is to confirm the power of the individual, and the second effect. : like alcohol, power inebriates». Aware of this, António Branco praised his chief of staff, Anabela Afonso, whom he dubbed "vigilant cricket", a kind of voice of conscience. «She was always my vigilant cricket and was the first criticism of the texts that are here».
«Thinking/writing is not the binomial that is now more important, in a society committed to acting/reacting/doing». Therefore, the former rector said that he still wonders how he had time to "write so much in the midst of so many tasks."
"That little time I had to do something I like so much, which is to think, and to do something I like so much, which is to write, turned out to be a redemption", "a time of meeting myself" , he confessed.
After four years in the rectory, António Branco had 87 texts written. "I started reading them and realized that I had no such clear idea that I had talked about so many things, that I had managed to say so many things that, at least for me, were so important."
For the book, 53 of those texts were selected, resulting from interventions and public speeches, in official ceremonies of the University, promoted by the Academic Association or by other external entities, lectures, other articles for UAlg publications. Among them, there is the speech of António Branco's inauguration in 2013 or the one made at the ceremony to award the title of Doctor Honoris Causa to Professor António da Nóvoa.
The book is prefaced by physician João Goulão, an external member of the General Council of the University of Algarve, and by Pedro Meireles, now an economist with a degree from the UAlg, working in the European Parliament and former president of the Academic Association.
This book was co-edited by the University of Algarve and by South, Sol e Sal publisher, as part of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Algarve Academy.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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